I Changed My Mind...

DestroyerPewnack · April 2025

I was excited about subclassing, and started a thread here for early theorycrafting, and discussions on multiple Discord groups for the same. But now that I got on the PTS... the naysayers were right! It's not that good. 🥲
The fact that the game wasn't initially designed with this system in mind is very apparent. The huge number of possible combinations is meaningless, if we end up with a much, MUCH smaller number of "viable" combinations.
Is it too late to hit the brakes on this update? Can we take a few patches to balance, reorder and regroup the skill lines' abilities and passives, before we introduce and force this change with subclassing on everyone?

Xarc · April 2025

I'm testing it too on the pts.
Honestly, I'm skeptical. I was really excited at first, but now this is what comes to mind:

Here's the thing: You can't just give out any skill tree, since each class was designed with a damage tree, a tank tree, and a healing tree.
You can give out three damage trees, or three healing trees, but in the end, don't be surprised if you're lacking something.
so it's easy to fall into this trap

Then I said to myself, reading the comments on the forum and seeing for myself the power ingame, players who already master the game will become even more powerful, and players who are of average level will be left even further behind in pve and rolled over in pvp, which can lead to a lot of frustration and dissatisfaction in the future.

So I'm torn between the fact that it brings some pretty cool new things, but on the other hand, I'm quite pessimistic about how things will evolve.

So,

I think we have no choice, ZOS has made its decision.
This does not prevent us from giving our opinion,
And we can potentially support the arrival of this change by offering developers our best advice.
Sometimes they listen to the community

DestroyerPewnack · April 2025

I just remembered something else. Didn't the devs say there weren't goint to nerf anything just yet?
They changed the Sorc's Curse ability, so that it only buffs Sorc pets. And that's a nerf for pure Sorc users, because Curse used to buff proc pets too, like Maw of the Infernal and Morkuldin. What gives?

Varana · April 2025

Xarc wrote: »

Here's the thing: You can't just give out any skill tree, since each class was designed with a damage tree, a tank tree, and a healing tree.
You can give out three damage trees, or three healing trees, but in the end, don't be surprised if you're lacking something.
so it's easy to fall into this trap

That's not even the case for some of the original classes.

For sorcerer, you don't have a dedicated "damage" or "tanking" skill line. The relevant skills and passives are all over the place. So whatever you do, you will always give up something important for yor build.

ragnarok6644b14_ESO · April 2025

I will give it a shot on the PTS but I suspect I will come to different conclusions, mainly because I think our aspirations/expectations for the system are so different.

You say "things will quickly narrow down to a smaller number of viable combinations" and I say "yes, exactly, ever has it been so"

Meanwhile I am content getting dungeon trifectas in pub and rp groups with my necrotank wearing medium armor and using the Spell Parasite set among others, because it is *cool*.

WhiteScythe · April 2025

Doesn't change the fact the combat still stinks or did they fix it on the PTS?

I wish they would have overhauled the combat instead of doing subclassing.

ADarklore · April 2025

Xarc wrote: »

I'm testing it too on the pts.
Honestly, I'm skeptical. I was really excited at first, but now this is what comes to mind:

Here's the thing: You can't just give out any skill tree, since each class was designed with a damage tree, a tank tree, and a healing tree.
You can give out three damage trees, or three healing trees, but in the end, don't be surprised if you're lacking something.
so it's easy to fall into this trap

Then I said to myself, reading the comments on the forum and seeing for myself the power ingame, players who already master the game will become even more powerful, and players who are of average level will be left even further behind in pve and rolled over in pvp, which can lead to a lot of frustration and dissatisfaction in the future.

So I'm torn between the fact that it brings some pretty cool new things, but on the other hand, I'm quite pessimistic about how things will evolve.

So,
I think we have no choice, ZOS has made its decision.

This does not prevent us from giving our opinion,

And we can potentially support the arrival of this change by offering developers our best advice.
Sometimes they listen to the community

In regards to the BOLDED above. NO, the original classes were not designed around the DPS, Tank, Healer class trees- it was only the classes that came out, starting with Warden, that they went that route. Furthermore, they envision this game as 'Skyrim with friends' and have said so years ago when their attempt at creating a true ESO MMO failed and they opted to give the majority what they wanted- Skyrim with friends- and they introduced One Tamriel. Since then, they've been trying to figure out a direction to take the game to fulfill that design. I think when designing new classes, they thought, "Well, we have some people playing the trinity, so let's give the new classes a trinity option." I think now they are realizing that it didn't work- because the majority aren't using all their trees because it doesn't fit with how they want to play the game. So with subclassing, it brings us closer to 'Skyrim with friends' than any other decision they've made. I'm definitely all for this. Does it need some tweaking, sure... but overall I think it's a step in the right direction and will bring a lot of players, myself included, back to the game.

Wereswan · April 2025

Varana wrote: »

Xarc wrote: »

Here's the thing: You can't just give out any skill tree, since each class was designed with a damage tree, a tank tree, and a healing tree.
You can give out three damage trees, or three healing trees, but in the end, don't be surprised if you're lacking something.
so it's easy to fall into this trap

That's not even the case for some of the original classes.

For sorcerer, you don't have a dedicated "damage" or "tanking" skill line. The relevant skills and passives are all over the place. So whatever you do, you will always give up something important for yor build.

The other thought that crossed my mind: a lot of people (including myself) have only been considering this from the standpoint of established players who have at least one of each class levelled all the way up on all its skill lines already, and for whom subclassing is thus a relatively straightforward game of mix-and-match. People in the many threads on this subject sometimes talk about giving new players the freedom to pick and choose; how many have actually tried starting a brand-new character on PTS with two out-of-class skill lines to see how it feels when potentially 2/3rds of your class skills are levelling at half the speed and costing twice as many skill points.

It's been awhile since I levelled a new alt, but I remember feeling constantly pinched for skill points.

Soarora · April 2025

Even for roleplay characters it feels like so much effort to go find the lady then pull up the eso skillbook website to look at skill lines to figure out what to replace…
When given the choice, I’ve realized that I like building within a class, restricted by what the class has, to be more interesting and far less complicated. I might not interact with subclassing at all which makes me feel my endgame career will come to an end.

xylena_lazarow · April 2025

Xarc wrote: »

Here's the thing: You can't just give out any skill tree, since each class was designed with a damage tree, a tank tree, and a healing tree. You can give out three damage trees, or three healing trees, but in the end, don't be surprised if you're lacking something. so it's easy to fall into this trap

Yes, this is called balance, subclassing does in fact have a high opportunity cost.

The game is dying because the combat has been designed around the bottom 1% and top 1% for the past decade, leaving the game a mess for the other 98% of players. Subclassing is finally something for the middle 98% to have more power, do the content they want to do, have the tools in their kit to keep up with sweatier players, and yes crutch on something overpowered like the Arc beam if they need the help to clear. This is not a bad thing.

The top 1% will still be in their own little world of score pushing and KDA obsessing, with their narrow restrictive meta of only the most ruthlessly efficient builds and comps, like the top 1% in every game.

RealLoveBVB · April 2025

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Subclassing is finally something for the middle 98% to have more power, do the content they want to do, have the tools in their kit to keep up with sweatier players, and yes crutch on something overpowered like the Arc beam if they need the help to clear. This is not a bad thing.

Uhm..nope. if players weren't able to handle and maintain 6 (or with 2 bars) 12 skills, then subclasses will not change anything.

Even if you have different skills and combinations, you still need to press the buttons in order and keep them up.

Most players are just hyped for subclasses because they expect to have some god mode now.

But they miss 2 points:
-they still need to press buttons and if they want to be in good groups, they have to do it the sweaty way.

- big nerf hammer incoming for skills and/or combinations.

The first "I regret to have subclasses liked"- threads are there already after the PTS release.

Sorry, no godmode for you all.

(Also since you like PVP and ballgroups, you can prepare for 12 negates on you already. You will wish the times, where RoA was your biggest issue back :P )

Soarora · April 2025

RealLoveBVB wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Subclassing is finally something for the middle 98% to have more power, do the content they want to do, have the tools in their kit to keep up with sweatier players, and yes crutch on something overpowered like the Arc beam if they need the help to clear. This is not a bad thing.

Uhm..nope. if players weren't able to handle and maintain 6 (or with 2 bars) 12 skills, then subclasses will not change anything.

Even if you have different skills and combinations, you still need to press the buttons in order and keep them up.

Most players are just hyped for subclasses because they expect to have some god mode now.

But they miss 2 points:
-they still need to press buttons and if they want to be in good groups, they have to do it the sweaty way.

- big nerf hammer incoming for skills and/or combinations.

The first "I regret to have subclasses liked"- threads are there already after the PTS release.

Sorry, no godmode for you all.

(Also since you like PVP and ballgroups, you can prepare for 12 negates on you already. You will wish the times, where RoA was your biggest issue back :P )

Also its far more complicated and the way you go about subclassing requires you to know the skill lines so you know what to replace with what.

Midgame tends to either be “do whatever you want who cares if we fail” or “do exactly what I say because all I know is what I see better players do”.

CoronHR · April 2025

at first i was sceptical, because i didn't want classes to become a thing of the past and not matter at all, and thus we'll never get a new one. but i think there are some disadvantages to subclassing that will keep the idea of pure classes alive

amiiegee · April 2025

[/quote]
but overall I think it's a step in the right direction and will bring a lot of players, myself included, back to the game.[/quote]

And push even more off the game

Tandor · April 2025

RealLoveBVB wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Subclassing is finally something for the middle 98% to have more power, do the content they want to do, have the tools in their kit to keep up with sweatier players, and yes crutch on something overpowered like the Arc beam if they need the help to clear. This is not a bad thing.

Uhm..nope. if players weren't able to handle and maintain 6 (or with 2 bars) 12 skills, then subclasses will not change anything.

Even if you have different skills and combinations, you still need to press the buttons in order and keep them up.

Most players are just hyped for subclasses because they expect to have some god mode now.

But they miss 2 points:
-they still need to press buttons and if they want to be in good groups, they have to do it the sweaty way.

- big nerf hammer incoming for skills and/or combinations.

The first "I regret to have subclasses liked"- threads are there already after the PTS release.

Sorry, no godmode for you all.

(Also since you like PVP and ballgroups, you can prepare for 12 negates on you already. You will wish the times, where RoA was your biggest issue back :P )

A lot of players don't want godmode, they just want the variety that subclassing brings.

tomofhyrule · April 2025

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Xarc wrote: »

Here's the thing: You can't just give out any skill tree, since each class was designed with a damage tree, a tank tree, and a healing tree. You can give out three damage trees, or three healing trees, but in the end, don't be surprised if you're lacking something. so it's easy to fall into this trap

Yes, this is called balance, subclassing does in fact have a high opportunity cost.

Yes, it has a high opportunity cost. But opportunity cost is not a weakness, it just tells you that you have to wait to get started.

Consider the Oakensoul Ring. Would it be reasonable if they said “you can wear Oakensoul without taking up a gear slot and having full use of both bars, but you have to get 10 leads to dig it up instead”? No, that makes that one thing ridiculously OP, and that only means that the people who have the time and resources to get it done first will be set that far above everyone else that much sooner.

The “2 skill points” is a big nothing for players who’ve been here since the beginning and who have 132 unused skill points on their mains. Who does it hurt most? Newer players. Conversely, the fact that a lot of higher-level players have one or two of their lines that they don’t really use much means that “drop one of your lines to get this other line” means they can trade away an unused line for straight up buffs, no drawbacks in sight.

The DLC classes, with strict roles-per-line mean that this is super easy to add more strength to an Arcanist, but it’s not as easy to add more to the basegame classes without giving up important features like high-damage skills or important passives.

Holycannoli · April 2025

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

The game is dying because the combat has been designed around the bottom 1% and top 1% for the past decade, leaving the game a mess for the other 98% of players. Subclassing is finally something for the middle 98% to have more power, do the content they want to do, have the tools in their kit to keep up with sweatier players, and yes crutch on something overpowered like the Arc beam if they need the help to clear

The game is “dying” because it’s an 11 year old MMORPG in an era when MMORPGs aren’t as popular as they used to be. But it’s not doom and gloom. ESO is still popular. Even EverQuest is still going 26 years later.

They don’t need to reinvent the wheel here to keep the game alive. Like I said in my thread earlier today they should have added proper subclasses instead of multiclassing which is going to be a nightmare to balance and lead to everyone playing the same classes and skills.

I don’t want Skyrim the MMORPG. One character that does it all is fine for single player games but this isn’t single player and the original devs understood that.

Red_Feather · April 2025

I have hope for it. The fact that each skill line has passives means that if skills in a skill line are nerfed the passives can be reworked to keep the skill line valuable. There is a lot for ZoS to work with and get creative with and I love how excited Carrie was about it!

DestroyerPewnack · April 2025

Red_Feather wrote: »

I have hope for it. The fact that each skill line has passives means that if skills in a skill line are nerfed the passives can be reworked to keep the skill line valuable. There is a lot for ZoS to work with and get creative with and I love how excited Carrie was about it!

I wish I could share your optimism, but from what I know of ZOS, they are extremely slow when it comes to delivering much needed changes. Does anybody remember the early days of Dark Convergence? 🤢 I still have PTSD from those days.

The idea of subclassing excites me, but after trying it out on PTS, I think I can say with absolute certainty, this isn't the way to do it. I wish they would just slow it down a bit, and make small changes as we go along, instead of these drastic hit or miss changes. Or at least save a copy of what the game is like now, and switch back to it if subclassing proves to be a big failure.

React · April 2025

If you're a pvp player and you're for this change, you have no idea what you're in for.

The power creep caused by this is absurd. You are going to be getting ganked for 30k merciless resolves, 30k incaps, 15k overloads, 20k snipes etc. Healers are going to be doing 50% or more healing than they are now. Everyone's sustain is getting an enormous boost. Tanks are going to be even more unkillable while likely offering more buffs and utility than they do already.

Ball groups are going to gain an immense amount of offensive and defensive power.

This is going to create an awful pvp experience.

DestroyerPewnack · April 2025

React wrote: »

If you're a pvp player and you're for this change, you have no idea what you're in for.

The power creep caused by this is absurd. You are going to be getting ganked for 30k merciless resolves, 30k incaps, 15k overloads, 20k snipes etc. Healers are going to be doing 50% or more healing than they are now. Everyone's sustain is getting an enormous boost. Tanks are going to be even more unkillable while likely offering more buffs and utility than they do already.

Ball groups are going to gain an immense amount of offensive and defensive power.

This is going to create an awful pvp experience.

How do we stop this? 🥲
Petition threads are against the ToS of the forums.
How can we get through to the devs and explain to them how awful this is going to be?

ragnarok6644b14_ESO · April 2025

React wrote: »

If you're a pvp player and you're for this change, you have no idea what you're in for.

The power creep caused by this is absurd. You are going to be getting ganked for 30k merciless resolves, 30k incaps, 15k overloads, 20k snipes etc. Healers are going to be doing 50% or more healing than they are now. Everyone's sustain is getting an enormous boost. Tanks are going to be even more unkillable while likely offering more buffs and utility than they do already.

Ball groups are going to gain an immense amount of offensive and defensive power.

This is going to create an awful pvp experience.

If I'm getting hit for more damage, healed for more hp, and am tougher than I was, how is that different than right now?

Desiato · April 2025

DestroyerPewnack wrote: »

How do we stop this? 🥲
Petition threads are against the ToS of the forums.
How can we get through to the devs and explain to them how awful this is going to be?

It's a lost cause. The target audience for ESO will love subclassing. They'll imagine they've made the most epic build because it's so devastating to overland mobs without ever knowing who skinnycheeks is, and log off contented they're damned good at this game.

This just isn't a good game to play for online gaming enthusiasts because they will always get the short end of the stick, especially in terms of pvp.

It's not even a good social game because of how restrictive chat moderation has become. What ESO is best at is being an inexplicably online single player game.

React · April 2025

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

React wrote: »

If you're a pvp player and you're for this change, you have no idea what you're in for.

The power creep caused by this is absurd. You are going to be getting ganked for 30k merciless resolves, 30k incaps, 15k overloads, 20k snipes etc. Healers are going to be doing 50% or more healing than they are now. Everyone's sustain is getting an enormous boost. Tanks are going to be even more unkillable while likely offering more buffs and utility than they do already.

Ball groups are going to gain an immense amount of offensive and defensive power.

This is going to create an awful pvp experience.

If I'm getting hit for more damage, healed for more hp, and am tougher than I was, how is that different than right now?

It benefits "specialized" or role based builds far more than it benefits a "balanced" setup. While you might see a reasonable boost in power on your typical solo build, it is nowhere near the boost in power that a full ganker, healer, or tank is receiving as they're able to select the absolute BIS passives and skills for their specialized role, ignoring the more balanced aspects such as survivability (for the ganker), or damage (for the tank/healer). Furthermore this is a massive buff to comped groups as they'll be able to min-max the passives, skills, and bonuses for every single role in a similar manner to how the aforementioned specialized roles will.

amiiegee · April 2025

React wrote: »

If you're a pvp player and you're for this change, you have no idea what you're in for.

The power creep caused by this is absurd. You are going to be getting ganked for 30k merciless resolves, 30k incaps, 15k overloads, 20k snipes etc. Healers are going to be doing 50% or more healing than they are now. Everyone's sustain is getting an enormous boost. Tanks are going to be even more unkillable while likely offering more buffs and utility than they do already.

Ball groups are going to gain an immense amount of offensive and defensive power.

This is going to create an awful pvp experience.

Im a ballgroup leader and i can asure you we are already working on bringing these changes in.
Absolutely gonna make the best out of it if it goes live.

I think its a mistake to bring this live thought no doubt. Nobody but roleplayers gets pleased, everyone who is actually playing the game in endgame is warning,that its not a good change.

But if it goes live its getting used, dont worry

agelonestar · April 2025

Subclassing is a really interesting curiosity. It will broaden the appeal of the game and sure, there will be a degree of power creep (but perhaps no more than we already see, given how Subclassing has been implemented). It looks like fun.

It will help to further kill PVP UNLESS ZoS move to focus on the kind of PVP we saw in the recent Vengeance campaign - something that ostensibly worked really well.

Hopefully that’s what we’ll get - a “play your way” almost free-for-all in a PVE context, with more limitations placed on Cyrodiil PVP to remove “broken builds” from that aspect of the game.

Estin · April 2025

With no way to distinguish between native skills and subclassed skills, this is going to end up being a nightmare. Sure, the majority of players will not even notice there is a problem. They built their perfect themed character that does everything just fine in areas where balance and powercreep does not matter. In areas that it does, subclassing brings about unintended broken combinations resulting in huge leaps in power creep. With nothing distinguishing between what's native and what's subclassed, the skills are going to get needlessly nerfed. This is the biggest problem with subclassing in it's current implementation and why I'm against it.

In PvP, you can store 2 spec bows and have the opportunity to do spec bow > empowered crystal frags > spec bow > empowered crystal frags for a combo that deals an insane amount of damage. Do you nerf crystal frags or spec bow here? On their own, they're relatively fine skills, but together they're broken. Since there's no way to distinguish between native and subclassed, the likely outcome is that spec bow and crystal frags both get nerfed into the ground. This only harms players who do not subclass or do not use that subclassed combination. You are now left with 2 ineffective skills that can only regain their original sense of power if you subclass them together. If subclassed skills were distinguishable from native skills, then this will not be a problem since they can do adjustments to the subclassed skills instead of affecting everyone.

Subclassing can work, but there needs to be penalties to using them, and a way for them to be separately nerfed as to not cause needless damage to native skills.

QB1 · April 2025

I get the concerns around power creep but I still think subclassing is a net positive for the direction of the game.

Subclassing lets us build a character that fits our personal playstyle, and it opens up new creative synergies. Sure, some of those combos are going to be OP, but I think the tradeoff is worth it when it comes to long-term player engagement. People love tinkering, theorycrafting, and finding interesting builds, and subclassing scratches that itch.

I'm also hoping that subclassing gives devs more granular ways to tune balance without gutting entire classes like before.

In PvP, things could get out of hand, but even then, I’d rather fight someone running a new build I haven't seen before, even if it's insanely OP, than deal with the same meta builds we've been dealing with for the past five years.

Ragnarok0130 · April 2025

Tandor wrote: »

RealLoveBVB wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Subclassing is finally something for the middle 98% to have more power, do the content they want to do, have the tools in their kit to keep up with sweatier players, and yes crutch on something overpowered like the Arc beam if they need the help to clear. This is not a bad thing.

Uhm..nope. if players weren't able to handle and maintain 6 (or with 2 bars) 12 skills, then subclasses will not change anything.

Even if you have different skills and combinations, you still need to press the buttons in order and keep them up.

Most players are just hyped for subclasses because they expect to have some god mode now.

But they miss 2 points:
-they still need to press buttons and if they want to be in good groups, they have to do it the sweaty way.

- big nerf hammer incoming for skills and/or combinations.

The first "I regret to have subclasses liked"- threads are there already after the PTS release.

Sorry, no godmode for you all.

(Also since you like PVP and ballgroups, you can prepare for 12 negates on you already. You will wish the times, where RoA was your biggest issue back :P )

A lot of players don't want godmode, they just want the variety that subclassing brings.

The raucous outcry on the forums against the most minor of changes to the buffs offered in the oakensoul mythic a couple of years ago says otherwise regarding what players want with regards to both Godmode and variety.

tomofhyrule · April 2025

QB1 wrote: »

In PvP, things could get out of hand, but even then, I’d rather fight someone running a new build I haven't seen before, even if it's insanely OP, than deal with the same meta builds we've been dealing with for the past five years.

Wait - in that case, what did you think were the problems with the PvP meta from the last 5 years?

If it’s “everyone’s so tanky but still deals a lot of damage!” I’m sorry to say that that’s not gonna change. What is going to change is that it’ll be possible for people to do even more damage, which means people will need to be even tankier. And yes, Subclassing will totally allow these more tanky people to do more damage. The meta won’t change. It’ll only go further along the same lines.

QB1 wrote: »

Subclassing lets us build a character that fits our personal playstyle, and it opens up new creative synergies. Sure, some of those combos are going to be OP, but I think the tradeoff is worth it when it comes to long-term player engagement. People love tinkering, theorycrafting, and finding interesting builds, and subclassing scratches that itch.

I'm also hoping that subclassing gives devs more granular ways to tune balance without gutting entire classes like before.

People are theorycrafting either way. Just now, we’re going to have a system which requires theorycrafting (on your raid lead’s part, because you won’t have a choice beyond ‘take it or leave it’) to be competitive. Even in PvE, people are already showing increases of like +50% DPS. That’s insane levels of power creep.

Now I don’t hate subclassing. It is great for the “I have a character in mind!” crowd, but of course that’s not necessarily going for endgame. I have a Sorc DPS that I’m considering giving Green Balance because he’s a druid in lore so the idea of him using the elements is really cool. Let me say that again: A DPS. With a 100% healing line. Effective? No, of course not. But it is ✨thematic✨
But is everyone doing the fun “I just want my RP character to be right!” thing? You think nobody’s just thinking “how can I best abuse this system and get a 47-second IR?”

If Subclassing only was available in overland and normals, people wouldn’t have an issue with it. Nobody cares if your OP godmode build can take Walks-Like-Thunder out solo. But when we get to the competitive arenas of PvP and endgame PvE, balance absolutely matters.

This is going to release, people are going to exclude anyone without a cracked OP build because they can’t measure up (and pure-classes will all be so far behind even the memey subclasses), and then we’ll get another U35-level across-the-board damage nerf to “rein in the power creep.” This is not hypothetical. We’ve seen it happen.

SeaGtGruff · April 2025

If you're running a "pure class" build right now (and everyone is, since subclassing isn't live yet)-- that is, where all 3 of your class skill lines are from the same class-- and if each of your class skill lines are focused on DPS skills, tanking skills, and healing skills (which is something I've seen conflicting claims about), then I don't see why swapping out, say, your main class's healing skill line for some other class's healing skill line wouldn't be considered a viable option. Sure, you might be more interested in switching it out for another class's DPS skill line if your character is supposed to be a DD, but that doesn't mean that swapping healing-for-healing, and healing-for-tanking, etc., aren't viable options.