Subclassing is extremely disruptive as it is being implemented

StarOfElyon · May 5

I understand that some people out there feel that subclassing will make the game fun for them but some of us were already having fun. The problems that I had with the game were expressed numerous times in many threads. Subclassing is not something that I asked for. Having said that, I've always been of the opinion that I can accept subclassing as long as pure class builds don't have to pay the price for subclassing. Unfortunately, that's what happens. Another example of this is the proposed changes to beam skills. It doesn't even fix the issue with the Arcanist beam, it's a sledgehammer solution when a scalpel was needed. This system is being rushed out there. The road is being paved as the car speeds down the highway. It's obvious. I further explain in the video below how this change impacts me.

https://youtu.be/5yQQY8et0XA

PDarkBHood · May 7

StarOfElyon wrote: »

Subclassing is not something that I asked for.

That's ok!! I think it is a great idea and I am looking forward to subclassing. So much, in fact, that I want more Armory slots to store all the different combinations of subclassing I plan or doing. Sure, it sucks that they need to nerf stuff, but they probably would have nerfed it anyways. In fact I am surprised and happy they are increasing the damage slightly on my Templar beam (direct damage now): "Radiant Destruction: This ability and its morphs now last for 3.8s in total, down from 4.8s. Reduced the cost per tick to 1080, so the cost per second remains the same over the total duration/tick rate. Increased the base damage by 4%". Probably wont notice the increase, but it is a start!!

Also, you have a choice of using or not using subclassing!!! Enjoy!

SaintJohnHM · May 7

PDarkBHood wrote: »

Also, you have a choice of using or not using subclassing!!! Enjoy!

I really wanted to enjoy it, but for those of us who didn't want to see our original classes turned to garbage, multiclassing sucks and makes the game less fun for us. The excessive multiclass powerboost will also make dungeon HMs and trifectas even more trivial than the powerboost from arc did, less fun.

No matter how many cheerleaders who don't really understand why we find it less fun try to tell us to have fun anyway isn't going to make it more fun. I'm glad you dig the changes, but for many of us this update is the worst one we've seen and ZOS being deaf and blind to our concerns and it sucks waiting an extra week for big changes but then just getting more garbage.

PDarkBHood · May 7

SaintJohnHM wrote: »

The excessive multiclass powerboost will also make dungeon HMs and trifectas even more trivial than the powerboost from arc did, less fun.

This is the whole point, you do not have to build the "excessive multiclass powerboost" character at all. Go with what you like and do not use subclassing to have 'fun'. The classes are being balanced (hopefully). Don't let FOMO rule subclassing or any other system. What else am I missing, I really want to know. As right now all the arguments against subclassing make little sense or have little justification for stopping subclassing.

StarOfElyon · May 7

PDarkBHood wrote: »

SaintJohnHM wrote: »

The excessive multiclass powerboost will also make dungeon HMs and trifectas even more trivial than the powerboost from arc did, less fun.

This is the whole point, you do not have to build the "excessive multiclass powerboost" character at all. Go with what you like and do not use subclassing to have 'fun'. The classes are being balanced (hopefully). Don't let FOMO rule subclassing or any other system. What else am I missing, I really want to know. As right now all the arguments against subclassing make little sense or have little justification for stopping subclassing.

I thought I explained exactly which nerfs were negatively impacting me and it has nothing to do with not wanting to partake in subclassing.

SaintJohnHM · May 7

PDarkBHood wrote: »

SaintJohnHM wrote: »

The excessive multiclass powerboost will also make dungeon HMs and trifectas even more trivial than the powerboost from arc did, less fun.

This is the whole point, you do not have to build the "excessive multiclass powerboost" character at all. Go with what you like and do not use subclassing to have 'fun'. The classes are being balanced (hopefully). Don't let FOMO rule subclassing or any other system. What else am I missing, I really want to know. As right now all the arguments against subclassing make little sense or have little justification for stopping subclassing.

It's more fun to just be able to quickly put together a group of builds of what people usually play rather than try to get together a group of folks who are committed to playing with nerfed pure classes. They don't have to stop multiclassing, they just have to put some more thought into it or else it's going to be a much less fun game for many of us.

Gilvoth · May 7

PDarkBHood wrote: »

I think it is a great idea and I am looking forward to subclassing. So much, in fact, that I want more Armory slots to store all the different combinations of subclassing I plan or doing.

my thoughts exactly AND it's also why im returning to eso.
some like it but then theres others like me who LOVE it and love it so strongly that it's making me revive my interest in eso and return to play pvp again after a long break. and increase my faith in eso again.

Daoin · May 7

SaintJohnHM wrote: »

PDarkBHood wrote: »

SaintJohnHM wrote: »

The excessive multiclass powerboost will also make dungeon HMs and trifectas even more trivial than the powerboost from arc did, less fun.

This is the whole point, you do not have to build the "excessive multiclass powerboost" character at all. Go with what you like and do not use subclassing to have 'fun'. The classes are being balanced (hopefully). Don't let FOMO rule subclassing or any other system. What else am I missing, I really want to know. As right now all the arguments against subclassing make little sense or have little justification for stopping subclassing.

It's more fun to just be able to quickly put together a group of builds of what people usually play rather than try to get together a group of folks who are committed to playing with nerfed pure classes. They don't have to stop multiclassing, they just have to put some more thought into it or else it's going to be a much less fun game for many of us.

my thoughs on it are this among a few others thoughts, i already hit the leave group button if one of my 6 random vets is a dlc dungeon (used to be 9 per day but my tanks dont do any randoms vet anymore after subclassing announcment) no thought needs to go into it unless someone specifically asks me to build a new 10th charachter for subclassing. i am just one person but refuse to carry another generation through farming runs and pledges when i just want t meet new people and have fun joining random vets..could go on but wont considering the only benefit of my random vets can now only go to vet non dlc groups which are usually just quiet and hollow groups anyway. some days since announcment i get 2 random vet none dlc done per day now considering most of my exp up until noow has been through random vets its been fun but the fun is over and thats all good though because im close to max cp now with skill points falling from all my characters back pockets and can put eso and subclassing on a real back burner rather than worry about it. i really hope the burn it to the ground approach is fun but i cant help but think its anther way of saying from deveopers 'hey all we are throwing everything into one basket now for a final shindig before we announce we closing the servers for good' but on a side note, if developers could either seperate dlc and non dlc dungeons in the random queue that would be appreciated along with not being first in line to rejoin the same group once changing character to re-queue only to end up in the same group that was left without having too completely change role aswell as character

NoSoup · May 7

How is changing Beam from a DoT to Direct damage a sledgehammer to the skill?

ceruulean · May 8

NoSoup wrote: »

How is changing Beam from a DoT to Direct damage a sledgehammer to the skill?

It's not. In fact Arcanist still remains meta and the highest damage class because it can access direct damage buffing sets. Instead of nerfing beam to be in-line with other skills, ZoS devs decide that beam needs to stay powerful because of casuals whining about it, and have no idea how endgame works. We are going to go into year 3 of arcanist being meta.

ZhuJiuyin · May 8

I'm hoping to nerf Fatecarver by another 2-3% in its current live state, and give Dark Magic one of its passive buffs, which will increase your damage by 2/5% for 10 seconds when you use a channeled and cast ability, but it won't work on proc crystals, similar to the Soulshine set.
This will increase Fatecarver's damage, but not much, and Dark Magic doesn't have as many available damage skills in PVE as Grave Lord, which will limit the damage cap of Fatecarver and Arc's damage. Additionally, this would increase the appeal of Dark Magic. It's also worth mentioning that Sorc is the class with the most channeling and spellcasting abilities in the game (when summoning two pets, Dark Exchange (with morph), Crystal (unproc), Overload's heavy attack (yes, it's a channeled damage), and Greater Storm Atronach's attack is also a channeled damage. Giving them a similar passive ability would not conflict with the current class style.

ItsNotLiving · May 8

Subclassing would be so cool if it was actually subclasses of the existing classes instead of multiclassing but it’s fine it was time for me to move on anyway.

StarOfElyon · May 8

NoSoup wrote: »

How is changing Beam from a DoT to Direct damage a sledgehammer to the skill?

It's a sledgehammer solution because it didnt target the problem. They hit the beams when the problem was subclassing, especially Grave Lord's Sacrifice, a skill that many would be happy to see go. Instead of fixing THAT problem, they changed the beams. If you watched my video you'd hear me explain exactly how this negatively impacts ME when it shouldn't. Why should I take a nerf because of subclassing?

cuddles_with_wroble · May 31

If you think than any raid leader is letting you into vet HM or trifecta content on a pure class your on copium. The numbers are not close, it’s not a choice, the pure classes are garbage and you cannot bring them to hard content unless you just don’t respect your teammates. Your dealing 40 - 50% less damage and everyone would have to change sets to compensate for you not hitting the Crit or pen caps

Soarora · May 31

cuddles_with_wroble wrote: »

If you think than any raid leader is letting you into vet HM or trifecta content on a pure class your on copium. The numbers are not close, it’s not a choice, the pure classes are garbage and you cannot bring them to hard content unless you just don’t respect your teammates. Your dealing 40 - 50% less damage and everyone would have to change sets to compensate for you not hitting the Crit or pen caps

I think that's a bit far, there will be leads who accept non-pure classes because there are leads who do not care about optimization and pure class can certainly still do the content. But the already slim availability will become even slimmer.

Vonnegut2506 · May 31

cuddles_with_wroble wrote: »

If you think than any raid leader is letting you into vet HM or trifecta content on a pure class your on copium. The numbers are not close, it’s not a choice, the pure classes are garbage and you cannot bring them to hard content unless you just don’t respect your teammates. Your dealing 40 - 50% less damage and everyone would have to change sets to compensate for you not hitting the Crit or pen caps

So no pure classes have been able to do vet HM or trifectas up to this point? Which monumental class nerfs on the PTS will prevent those pure classes from continuing to do so after Update 46?

cuddles_with_wroble · May 31

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

cuddles_with_wroble wrote: »

If you think than any raid leader is letting you into vet HM or trifecta content on a pure class your on copium. The numbers are not close, it’s not a choice, the pure classes are garbage and you cannot bring them to hard content unless you just don’t respect your teammates. Your dealing 40 - 50% less damage and everyone would have to change sets to compensate for you not hitting the Crit or pen caps

So no pure classes have been able to do vet HM or trifectas up to this point? Which monumental class nerfs on the PTS will prevent those pure classes from continuing to do so after Update 46?

But why would anyone who hasn’t already cleared the trifecta make it more difficult by letting people bring specs that do 40% less damage?

And I don’t mean pug runs in craglorn bcs those are a lawless waste land anyway

ADarklore · May 31

So if the majority of players in ESO, by roughly 80%, are mostly solo players who don't participate in Endgame, then why should ZOS change the game to cater to 10-15% of players... actually even less because not all of Endgame players worry about min/maxing.

For years and years solo players have had to watch THEIR skills get nerfed because of PvP and Endgame players and the min/maxers... and now solo players finally have something to cheer about with subclassing. Finally ZOS adds something to the game to appease the overwhelming majority of players, and subclassing is the only reason I'm returning to ESO.

Major_Mangle · May 31

ADarklore wrote: »

So if the majority of players in ESO, by roughly 80%, are mostly solo players who don't participate in Endgame, then why should ZOS change the game to cater to 10-15% of players... actually even less because not all of Endgame players worry about min/maxing.

For years and years solo players have had to watch THEIR skills get nerfed because of PvP and Endgame players and the min/maxers... and now solo players finally have something to cheer about with subclassing. Finally ZOS adds something to the game to appease the overwhelming majority of players, and subclassing is the only reason I'm returning to ESO.

1. Most changes done in the name of game balance is because of PvE, not PvP (like an overwhelming majority of changes)
2. Majority of balance changes doesn´t affect the average player ability to complete solo content due to how easy said content is, so it makes sense to balance/adjust extreme outliers.

sans-culottes · May 31

ADarklore wrote: »

So if the majority of players in ESO, by roughly 80%, are mostly solo players who don't participate in Endgame, then why should ZOS change the game to cater to 10-15% of players... actually even less because not all of Endgame players worry about min/maxing.

For years and years solo players have had to watch THEIR skills get nerfed because of PvP and Endgame players and the min/maxers... and now solo players finally have something to cheer about with subclassing. Finally ZOS adds something to the game to appease the overwhelming majority of players, and subclassing is the only reason I'm returning to ESO.

Where exactly are you getting this “80% solo player” figure? Because unless you have access to internal ZOS telemetry, it sounds more like an invented stat meant to shut down disagreement than a meaningful datapoint.

Even if we accepted the premise that most players primarily solo (which is plausible), subclassing doesn’t meaningfully enhance the solo experience beyond superficial novelty. What it does do is shift performance baselines across all content, solo and group alike. That affects everyone—not just the “min-maxers” you’ve decided to scapegoat.

Appealing to “the majority” as justification only works if you can demonstrate that the change in question actually serves that majority well. Subclassing, as implemented, introduces unnecessary complexity, destabilizes identity-based builds, and accelerates power creep, all while offering minimal functional benefit to solo players who already have access to flexible, viable builds.

In short: claiming this was done for solo players doesn’t make it true.

Jierdanit · May 31

ADarklore wrote: »

So if the majority of players in ESO, by roughly 80%, are mostly solo players who don't participate in Endgame, then why should ZOS change the game to cater to 10-15% of players... actually even less because not all of Endgame players worry about min/maxing.

For years and years solo players have had to watch THEIR skills get nerfed because of PvP and Endgame players and the min/maxers... and now solo players finally have something to cheer about with subclassing. Finally ZOS adds something to the game to appease the overwhelming majority of players, and subclassing is the only reason I'm returning to ESO.

Because for someone who is only interested in roleplaying and having a fun build it barely matters if your build is 20% or even 50% less effective than what would be possible on a meta build. Most solo content is so easy that it can still easily be done with a far suboptimal build.

For someone doing PvP or endgame PvE content that difference has a huge impact on how enjoyable the game is.
That is also why saying something like "you dont have to subclass if you dont want to" is just absolutely wrong. There are a lot of people who are only having fun if they are competitive with other players (either in PvE or PvP) and in a lot of cases that is simply not possible without subclassing.

So is making the game a bit more enjoyable to 80% of the playerbase while completely ruining it for the other 20% worth it?

Rungar · May 31

i imagine at this point anything that renews interest in the game and brings in customers without massive development cost is worth it for zos. Entrenched customers can actually be bad for a game like this. Many have resisted much needed combat changes for years and it has hurt the game overall.

Jaimeh · June 2

My one grief with the arcanist is that even when using subclassing you are pigeonholed into playing around fatecarver, and the subclassed skills are slotted just to passively buff and actually used. I wish other combos had the same power, so there would be more variety in the range of optimal builds. For eg., I like the feel of NB dps skills in a rotation, but in terms of subclass combos they won't be the strongest option, so I'd be better off with an arc-based rotation for hitting the highest numbers possible.

katorga · June 2

NoSoup wrote: »

How is changing Beam from a DoT to Direct damage a sledgehammer to the skill?

It is a massive buff, imo. Reaving Blows heals with Fatecarver now, Tide-born buffs it 12%, new, and Deadly still buffs it because it is a channel. It is so strong that I don't think you'll see a single DPS build that doesn't use it.

MISTFORMBZZZ · June 3

sans-culottes wrote: »

ADarklore wrote: »

So if the majority of players in ESO, by roughly 80%, are mostly solo players who don't participate in Endgame, then why should ZOS change the game to cater to 10-15% of players... actually even less because not all of Endgame players worry about min/maxing.

For years and years solo players have had to watch THEIR skills get nerfed because of PvP and Endgame players and the min/maxers... and now solo players finally have something to cheer about with subclassing. Finally ZOS adds something to the game to appease the overwhelming majority of players, and subclassing is the only reason I'm returning to ESO.

Where exactly are you getting this “80% solo player” figure? Because unless you have access to internal ZOS telemetry, it sounds more like an invented stat meant to shut down disagreement than a meaningful datapoint.

Even if we accepted the premise that most players primarily solo (which is plausible), subclassing doesn’t meaningfully enhance the solo experience beyond superficial novelty. What it does do is shift performance baselines across all content, solo and group alike. That affects everyone—not just the “min-maxers” you’ve decided to scapegoat.

Appealing to “the majority” as justification only works if you can demonstrate that the change in question actually serves that majority well. Subclassing, as implemented, introduces unnecessary complexity, destabilizes identity-based builds, and accelerates power creep, all while offering minimal functional benefit to solo players who already have access to flexible, viable builds.

In short: claiming this was done for solo players doesn’t make it true.

He is writing that stuff under a lot of threads. The signature says all we need to know.

But some people dont understand, just because something appears for them, it doesnt mean it needs to appear for everyone.

Tannus15 · June 4

the arc class mastery is the biggest issue with balance right now.
they need to change it to something else.

ADarklore · June 9

sans-culottes wrote: »

Where exactly are you getting this “80% solo player” figure? Because unless you have access to internal ZOS telemetry, it sounds more like an invented stat meant to shut down disagreement than a meaningful datapoint.

Since you asked... check out the very current poll here... and also the video HTM made regarding solo players and how they saved ESO.

Anysra · June 30

Subclassing made me subscribe to ESO+ and play the game again. Literally. I stopped playing for ages, but the subclassing made me come back ASAP. I love this subclassing so much.