https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/676614/when-to-nerf-and-when-not-to-subclassing-considerations/p1?new=1

Putting this both here and in the classes and abilities feedback thread to express my opinion.

SpiritKitten wrote: »

Wereswan wrote: »

SwimsWithMemes wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

• Did the sublcassling quest teach you everything you had to learn for using this system?
  
  Yes
  
• Is there anything confusing about the UI or the methods to engage with Subclassing?
  Took me a bit to figure out how to add/remove new skill lines
  
• How long did it take you to level up a subclassed skill line?
  
  Too long, if you already have an alt at level 50 with all skill lines maxed, you should not have to level them
  
• Do you plan to use this feature when it goes live?
  
  No choice ZOS has nerfed my two primary classes to a poor state. Better to subclass from the classes that got buffed.
  
• Did you have fun experimenting with the system?
  
  Sort of. It does seem like everyone will be running the same subclasses
  

Personally I think you should go all the way, all players to subclass all THREE lines of their class while maintaining their class name (tied to class sets, etc). Lines from original class should count 1 SP. None class lines like weapons armor should always cost 1 SP. Players should be effectively able to "change classes" and subclass three lines from any single class. FOr example, drop all of my necro lines for three NB lines.

Subclass line 1 = 2SP
Subclass line 2 from a different class = 2SP
Subclass line 3 from a different class from first two = 3SP

If you sublcass 2 or more lines from a single class, 4SP each.

Skill points increases are a terrible way of making multi-skilling a "cost", just like needing to grind EXP. It's not a real decision to make, it just takes time or buying skyshards. The better way is to add interesting flourishes to unique combinations.

It doesn't really seem like it creates any sort of effective limit. If I understand correctly how the system works, someone like me with several alts for each class will be able to sign in, get all 21 of the achievements, do X short intro quests (where X is the number of alts you have,) and then you're all set to add these at level 50. The biggest hassle will be shifting skill points around, and most folks with an established roster of characters should have plenty of those to spare.

It seem like it'll mostly just impact new players trying to make use of it.

No matter if you have that skill line that you want to swap to maxed on an alt, you must still re-level it as a subclass skill line. And it will take twice as long and cost twice as many skill points.

Costing twice as many skill points is just dumb. The control should be lower effectiveness for non-class skill lines from other classes and not inflating player hours by making you grind skill points at a 50% efficiency rate. Even if I was hugely pro multi-classing using twice the skill points would dissuade me from embracing the new system.

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

DrSlaughtr wrote: »

ForumBully wrote: »

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

This hasn’t been in the work for years though. Not nearly as long.

Class lines should still complement each other first and foremost. “Pure” classes are still an option, not to mention that new players have to play “pure” classes for a very long period of time before actually getting to subclassing at all. So saying class balance isn’t relevant is definitely incorrect.

Corporate roadmaps are long. They didn't dream this up a few months ago.

See I don't buy this because the way they are implementing it is completely chaotic. I think this was a knee jerk reaction to seeing player numbers tank over the last 6 months. Maybe they had this pinned to a board for a while, but the actual implementation? If they have been 'working' on this multiclass system for over a year, then they failed miserably to bring any sense or reason to it.

The current implementation of multiclassing feels like the college senior who realized his term paper is due in three days and just vomited words into a paper. I've worked for a publicly traded company for 15 years, sometimes projects are planned long term and other times they are fast and reactionary to market pressures. It makes far more sense in this instance that the multiclassing announcement was tied to lower player numbers this year and not planned long term or there would be much more polish and intent present in the system on PTS. As it stands now there seems to be a general disregard for balancing considerations which is mind boggling after the raucous balancing debates with the devs over the past 5 years.

They don’t get that they need to polish what they have to keep players from leaving, there’s no shortage of things to improve to say the least. Instead they want to release a rushed and out of place system to inflate player count for a couple of months only to lose even more players in the long run. It’s crazy how shortsighted a decision this is, unless they don’t plan to stick with eso for very much longer, then it would make sense. But considering how profitable eso is it actually doesn’t make that much sense.

Regarding the latest PTS

It would be desirable to adjust the currently planned implementation of subclass skills so that they do not include passives.
If they are implemented in their current form, the classes will lose their unique characteristics and certain combinations may become too powerful and unnecessary for the rest.
Over-inflation of firepower and the fact that all past content was not there is also a problem.

If such an adjustment is to be made, especially in ordeals, it would be necessary to make adjustments such that only items that were available up to the time of the ordeal's implementation are available.
(e.g., for MOL, items up to the time of MOL implementation, and equipment from later trials and DLC dungeons should not be available, etc.)
Hope it comes across well!

There are no problems with the current version. It is absolutely great to adjust the power upward. It was always the case that new content got harder and older content gets easier.

Imagine the new trial when subclassing will be nerfed, it is crazy hard. People will make their Godslayer years after the content began. In the beginning only the best could do it, now hardmode and trifecta content of older trials will be available to a greater player base. Thats how such a game evolves and it is absolutely fine.

The status as it is now is absolutely perfect.

I agree with this.

What I want to add that also the concept of a "main char" becomes strengthened with the update. For example, I have a sorcerer and for some content I need arcanist beam because of ranged content with many enemies, e.g. vLC hardmode. Then I can slot arcanist beam on my sorcerer and will be maybe not the perfect perfect build for a leaderboard run, but sufficient to clear the content in a good and reliable way.

I think that this feature will increase players fun a lot, when they like one char especially.

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

ADarklore wrote: »

I see a lot of players talking about how skills/passives should be nerfed 'while subclassing'... which I think is the absolute WRONG approach. Because why would anyone even subclass, if they are going to lose power? It would absolutely go against the 'finally play as you want' mantra for this system.

However, I DO think they could make adjustments for only the passives so that they are 15-20% less effective while subclassing. I also think GLS should be changed- making it more Necromancer skill specific or at least toning down its effectiveness. However, I DO NOT think 'skills' should be nerfed when subclassing. Or, perhaps they could go the opposite, and BUFF class abilities 'when not subclassing.'

They would multiclass for flexibility - to have access to skills that they do not currently have in their class and unlike now there would be a cost/benefit analysis necessary in choosing multiclassing rather than just benefits to multiclassing over staying pure like now. As the system stands now multiclassing has a clear advantage over pure classes and that is intolerable for areas of the game that require balanced game play like group content.

Yeah, that would be an actual tradeoff. "My class doesn't natively give me access to [insert buff or skill here], so I'm going to trade some of my raw power for access to that thing that I don't natively have."

Right now, it's "I'm just going to take all of the power and no drawbacks lol get rekt"

I don't understand why "the new thing should be super OP" is an argument though. When Scribing released, the point of it was flexibility and not to completely rewrite the meta. Sure, some things ended up being super useful (and/or broken), but even the Crow says "No one would claim they're the most efficient, most reliable workings. But they're far more flexible than the average magecraft," which is a good stance to have. If you want to play it, sure. But it's not so OP that you have to, and the people who are doing it for flavor aren't there to break the meta.

I think that should hold with Subclassing too. Most people who want Subclassing want to throw a bunch of random skills on their characters without regard to the meta, mainly so they can live the power fantasy of an elemental mage in overland. That would make it fine if it were a bit underpowered. But the way it is now is essentially saying "you must Subclass, or you are going to be 50% behind everyone else!"

I do notice how everyone throwing out the "Play as you want!" point never considers that there exist people who want to play with all three of their parent Class lines, and they're getting smashed with the nerfhammer because of it.

I think delaying the combat changes on the PTS is a mistake.

Not even communicating to us what you have in mind, the problems you aim to address, and what internal changes you have tested (which came up unsatisfactory I am assuming) is a blunder.

I mean, it's not like the best parse testers in the world aren't just waiting to help. But that can only happen with communication, if we know what you aims/objectives are, if we know what has been tried, if we know what you are willing to change/adjust/reform.

I cannot imagine that once these changes are sprung onto us during week 4, there will be any time for proper and thorough evaluation and then readjustment. No way.

As soon as someone posted a 170+ parse, action should have been taken. It should have been communicated to us how you felt about this level of powercreep, and (presumably) some preliminary and obvious changes put on the PTS during week 2 so as we could walk through a step-by-step testing process to get to the overall power-level you are looking for. It just seems crazy to me that with such a drastic change in the game's combat, we're only going to get a single combat PTS update to test and then its basically going Live.

I also think these problems run deep. A lot of decent skills in the game only really work because we're stuck using them on our classes because we have no choice. As a sorcerer, I do like throwing around frags. But that skill in the only damage skill on a line that is both meh and has is all over the place in what it offers (healing, stun, sustain, etc). Its passives a junk for someone concerned with damage. I accepted frags on my sorc because I don;t even have a spammable. but now that I can pick other damaging lines with passives that help my damage, my own signature skill almost becomes a burden in competitive play. The same is true for Radiant Destruction. Nevermind, this skill now channels forever (and somehow still has the same number of ticks, which means much of the channeling is dead time and feels AWFUL). The passives in the line do nothing to raise my damage (have some support source minor sorcery). Of course I am going to drop this (especially for PvP as I already played with a dodgeable beam and know that makes the skill useless). When update 35 hit, all the useless passives that extend DoT timers by two seconds became even more useless because I don't need a low damage skill I don;t even slot to last 22 seconds rather than 20. Changes could have and should have been made here so we might feel genuinely excited about our class skills, such that if we chose to remain a solitary class, we wouldn;t be shooting ourselves in the foot.

I legit do not know how ZOS intends to address the "you'll be weaker if you don't subclass" dilemma that we appear to be heading toward. Some communication on this front about your thoughts going forward I think are absolutely needed.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

In a previous discussion of mine, I've called out how unfair it is that Templar's Class Mastery is the only Class Mastery to require the use of specific Class skills from one particular skill line, which can now be swapped out with Subclassing. Others contributing to that discussion have suggested that this approach would be useful for making Pureclassing more relevant. In this thread, I will propose my idea for how the Class Mastery Signature Script can be modified to strongly benefit Pureclassing, while still offering minimal utility for those who decide to Subclass.

In short, I propose that every unique Class Mastery effect be standardized into a single Class Mastery effect that strengthens your Class abilities more for each original skill line you use:

This approach would net you:

• 6% increased effectiveness and ability cost reduction for any Class ability when Pureclassing with all 3 original Class skill lines
• 4% increased effectiveness and ability cost reduction for any Class ability when Subclassing with 1 foreign Class skill line
• 2% increased effectiveness and ability cost reduction for any Class ability when Subclassing with 2 foreign Class skill lines

...where "increased effectiveness" affects the damage, healing, damage shield strength, recovery, and any other applicable variable of the Class skills. This would affect all Class abilities, not just your original Class abilities, so it's useful for people who Subclass, but even more useful for people who Pureclass.

This would also get rid of problematic Class Mastery effects, such as Arcanist's Crux generation or Warden's Charm. This would be thematic to the name of "Class Mastery" as it implies that the user of this Script has some sort of mastery over their Class. It would actually encourage you to use Class abilities, which the previous Class Mastery effects didn't always do. Finally, since Scribing is going to be a base game feature shortly after Subclassing launches, this would be the perfect opportunity to encourage everyone who wishes to Pureclass to engage with the Scribing system.

depending on balance there could also be this variant

3 pure class lines= access to tier 3(100%)
2 pure class lines= access to tier 2 (75%) for those lines and tier 1(50%) for the subclass line
1 pure class line= access to tier 2(75%) for primary line and tier 1(50%) for the two subclass lines.

so the subclass system gives up some raw power for more versatility which i think is a fair tradeoff. This also makes your primary class an important choice since youll get native higher passive benefit from it.

randconfig wrote: »

Can we get access to more skill points / skyshards, now that the subclassing system is gonna be a huge skill point sink?

I really like the idea of adding an account-wide skyshard reward per 30 champion point levels for a total of 40 account-wide skill points.

Just make skill points account wide ---- oh wait that cuts into crown store sales.

ArchMikem wrote: »

All this concern over creating incredibly overpowered builds, makes me think, why don't you just drop the number of swappable skill lines to just one?

2 Main Class Trees
1 Subclassed Tree

By definition that makes NB more powerful than any class that subclasses assassination, and NB may end up being the only class that does not get penalized if it does not subclass. PVP oriented. I think it is also a required subclass for the 170K parse builds too.

I really think multiclassing shouldnt be added to the game until subclasses are added. In that way we avoid the problem of gimped pure classes, and we add a meaningfull choice: do you want the flexibility and power that comes with multiclassing, or do you want to double down on class fantasy and get your pure class buffed?

I've been playing a bit more on the PTS to test multiclassing, but I like how when I multiclass in other games it doesn't nerf pure classes and make the current content (dungeons and trials) a lot less fun because of excessive power creep.

Subclass affinity system could work.

basically classes with similar themes can access more passives than those who dont, and some are neutral.

Dark Path affinity= Nightblade, Sorcerer, and Necromancer
Light Path affinity=Templar, DragonKnight, and Warden
Neutrality Path- Arcanist

so passives will be split into 4 nodes to unlock instead of the two now.

base class = 100% passives ( same as live)
subclass 1 line = 75% on remaining lines and 25%. 50%. or 75% for the subclass line based on affinity to darkness, neutrality or light.
subclass 2 lines = 75% on remaining class line and 25%,50% or 75% for the subclass lines based on affinity.

so a templar who takes a dragonknight and nightblade subclass lines will be as follows
templar 75%, dragonknight 75%, nightblade 25%
A nightblade who takes a Sorcerer and arcanist subclass lines will be as follows
nightblade 75%, Sorcerer 75% Arcanist 50%

and so on.

this maintains the general theme while preserving the base classes. It should be enough to keep subclasing viable but not too over the top. It will also softly deter certain combinations so not everyone will choose the assassination line. Not that you cant do it, but there is a penalty for doing so but only in the passives you can unlock for that line.