Silaf wrote: »

Most of the problems would be solved by only having 1 subclassed line instead of 2.

Rungar wrote: »

actually the game is built on roles not classes. If it were classes certain classes could only be tanks and certain classes could only be healers and certain classes could only be damage. But it isnt. All classes can do all these things and be generally viable. Some are better than others but a viable for most content.

you dont need a dragonknight to do a dungeon, you just need a tank. The tank role is completely classless as it relies largely on what weapons and armor you choose. Class is only relevant for a couple key skills which mostly have generic versions.

all subclassing does is let you make your own custom class. I think they should have a huge competition and see what new classes are the most popular by the end and make those templates available from the beginning, and/or let players choose what three they want.

the game already has abysmal balance issues due to the way the combat system works. Nothing is going to change that.

and it should be called custom class not subclassing or multiclassing. Thats what it is.. making a custom class from available skill lines.


I would also like to see your characters base aura change when you select different subclasses. Right now all base classes have a color aura and i imagine the color is pretty easy to change so i would like to see combined colors for subclasses so it appears different as a whole.

so if a templar had arcanist abilities.. all class abilities would now have the modified color somewhere in between yellow and green. Same for all other combinations. All they would need is a small algorithm to set colors automatically based on the 3 line choices. If people want to complain about identity.. give them identity.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Subclassing. Please make sure to read the patch notes for info on Subclassing and combat changes made with Subclassing in mind. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did the sublcassling quest teach you everything you had to learn for using this system?
• Is there anything confusing about the UI or the methods to engage with Subclassing?
• How long did it take you to level up a subclassed skill line?
• Do you plan to use this feature when it goes live?
• Did you have fun experimenting with the system?

1. It will destroy what little class identity is left (after hybridization of stats was taken WAY too far). Remember how there was a vision of having class-defining skills and a common visual theme? Something identifiable and exciting? Yeah just throw that out the window. Lets have everyone using a mishmash of skills from three different classes at once.
2. The need to balance every class skill and passive around every possible combination of other class skills and passives will result in them needing to be balanced around the greatest outlier, and thus make them even weaker on their own, only further necessitating multi-classing and pushing players into a meta.
3. "Pure" classes will be left in the dust, as there is nothing compensating them for not immediately trading out their weakest skill lines or least useful skill lines according to their build.
4. PvP balance (what little of it remains anymore) will be finally and forever put in the ground. Game knowledge, class counters, strengths and weaknesses, and smart combat will be forever dead. Forget 10 years of learning how to play "your class" against "X class", neither will exist anymore. No counter-play or cleverness, just skill spamming and random chance.

NoSoup wrote: »

Rkindaleft wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

A lot of people feared Subclassing would be like Hybridization - a system which is designed to give more flexibility, but in reality coerced people into running a specific setup unless they actively chose to nerf themselves.

Pure classes should not be underpowered compared to hybrids. If anything, the pure classes should have more raw power than hybrid classes.

The best way to do something like that would be to nerf all tooltips by some percentage if a character takes up a subclass. In that way, the player needs to choose between keeping the raw power of a single class, or reducing their power in exchange for more versatility.

As it is, the players can choose 'nothing changes' versus 'more power and more versatility,' which is not a reasonable choice. Even when subclassing in games like D&D, adding more subclasses is a way to give characters more options, but you do so at the expense of accessing the most powerful features of your original class.

Just want to echo that I'm in agreement that there should be a baseline tooltip nerf for either Subclass skills (or rather Subclass skill lines) that aren't your actual class or just overall if you choose to take up Subclassing.

I posted this in the Combat thread but Eight Puppies got 171k on Day 1 of PTS after a couple hours of parsing without using the bugged version of Solar Barrage. Fatecarver did nearly 90k DPS by itself. Some people may like *insert huge number* but to me this is an unhealthy level of power creep.

Just for an example, if something like Merciless Resolve gives 300 W/SD at full stacks on a Blade then I don't think the bonus should be nearly as high if you subclassed that skill line on anything else. Same with something like the Cro DoT passive.
It's still a cool change for the solo players and people who RP but if you play at a level where this stuff actually matters this is just feels dumb.

Was this subclassing or broken sets that lead to this? 96% Crit, 8k wp/d and 125% crit damage modifier seems to be the reason you're hitting those numbers more so than the additional skills.

sans-culottes wrote: »

knifeinthedark wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

By now, the debates are well-rehearsed. Subclassing is either the great liberation from ESO’s rigid class silos or the final blow to its already threadbare identity system. Some cheer the possibilities. Others see only entropy.

But perhaps the more interesting question isn’t whether subclassing is good or bad. It’s whether subclassing is even the real issue.

Because what if subclassing feels like the cause but is really just the symptom?

What if this Frankenstein patchwork of skill lines and re-skinned passives is less an act of bold experimentation and more a desperate attempt to cover structural rot? What if the real problem is that ESO’s class system, long underdeveloped and out of step with its own lore, has finally collapsed under its own contradictions? What if subclassing is just the bandage?

You can see it in Necromancer, a class so dysfunctional in core design that subclassing only highlights its incoherence. Or in the recurring cycle of homogenization that began with hybridization and now intensifies as class distinctions are flattened even further. This isn’t creative freedom. It is design surrender.

Subclassing isn’t the monster. It is the panic response to a decade of deferred decisions, neglected systems, and ill-fitting mechanics. The question is no longer whether subclassing fits the game. The question is: does anything?

So was subclassing the monster, or was it just what ZOS stitched together to distract from what’s really on the slab?

Come up to the lab and see what’s on the slab.

The classes themselves are most certainly not "underdeveloped" lol. There's lots of depth there that allows most classes to fulfill any role with competency.

And it being out of step with the lore? Oh give me a break they retcon stuff all the time it's almost a meme at this point.

The problem isn't the class system itself, the problem is ZoS is refusing to actually get creative and make a new class that would feel like it fits. We have assassins/blood mages, we have deadric sorcery, we have druid/nature magic and even conjuration and draconic magic etc etc. There's plenty to point at in the classrs themselves that fit snugly in TES lore as is that also provides us with interesting and diverse skills/ways to execute different roles. Again, ZoS simply refuses to ACTUALLY be brave and create a new class or even a new race (like the fox people or even an akaviri themed expansion). Hell they could make a mysticism based mage (thanks for killing that in Skyrim btw) or alteration, or some combination with illusion skills as a means to stun/cc enemies as a support for the group. How about an artificer class that uses dwarven contructs? The possibilities are nearly endless in Elder Scrolls

There's possibilities, they're just throwing the long term players under the bus and trying to start over. It's both reckless and sloppy and even kind of inconsiderate to their long term pvp and pve players.

You may want to reread your own comment, because despite the initial “lol,” you’ve basically made my case for me.

You argue that ZOS refuses to be “brave” and actually create a new class. But why is that? Why, after a decade, have we seen only two new classes? Why is subclassing now being trotted out as a solution?

It is because the existing class system is brittle. Necromancer in particular demonstrates this perfectly. It is a class that was controversial on lore grounds, saddled with overengineered mechanics like corpse micromanagement, and has never found a coherent niche in either PvE or PvP. Subclassing didn’t liberate it. It exposed how unworkable its core design really is.

The issue is not a lack of imagination. It is that the class system ZOS built was never robust enough to evolve. You cannot meaningfully iterate on something that was half-formed to begin with.

And yes, subclassing may offer fun toys for some, but let’s not pretend it is a solution. It is a bypass. A workaround. A tacit admission that they cannot or will not properly support the class framework they created. The “endless possibilities” you mention are theoretical. What we are seeing now is panic-polish, not vision.

So, again, subclassing is not the monster. It is the slab.

sans-culottes wrote: »

It is because the existing class system is brittle. Necromancer in particular demonstrates this perfectly. It is a class that was controversial on lore grounds, saddled with overengineered mechanics like corpse micromanagement, and has never found a coherent niche in either PvE or PvP. Subclassing didn’t liberate it. It exposed how unworkable its core design really is.

sans-culottes wrote: »

You’ve now written multiple posts trying to reframe subclassing as a symptom of player entitlement, arguing that people “should’ve been glad” with what we had and that MMOs naturally “hit a wall.” But each time, your own examples betray the real issue.

You invoke Necromancer as once desirable because of Blastbones applying Major Defile. But that proves my point. The class was carried by a single gimmick, not a robust or coherent design. Once a cleaner, more synergistic option like Arcanist arrived, the illusion collapsed.

You suggest that subclassing opens “massive build variety,” yet concede it’s ultimately a workaround for ZOS’s refusal to invest in bold new systems like a full class or race. You argue players should accept that all MMOs “run out of skills,” yet your solution is to inject more skills via subclassing.

These contradictions aren’t accidental. They stem from a defensive position that tries to rationalize structural decay as player impatience. But what players are responding to isn’t lack of novelty. It’s the sense that ZOS is no longer developing forward, only sideways. Subclassing isn’t evolution. It’s evasion. And deep down, I think you know that.