Vulkunne wrote: »

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

My Streak DK cares not for uniqueness, only for Streak. I love subclassing. Best change ever.

And I'd be a total and absolute liar if I never said, "why can't NB have streak" or you know, other things as well like certain DK passives. To be honest I felt really disenfranchised, it wasn't fair. But somewhere in the year, you know, I started to realize that maybe the fact it wasn't fair is what interested me in continuing to play NB the most you know?

Comfort is good but character is generally built on the pain and the fight to get over a challenge. So yeah, there's that. But to me this kind of feels like, like let's say we have the following standing in a line-up:

1) Batman
2) The Joker
3) Wolverine
4) Cyclops
5) The Hulk

All of these superheroes are different in their own way because they have strengths and weaknesses, including their reasons for why they do the things that they do. Some are considered good, others bad, others are like moral grey. Now imagine, just imagine, taking any of the above characters and then you cut and paste. Batman uh sending people gimmicky bombs in the mail like the Joker might do for fun, ok these two are not the same thing. Imagine combining them. Cyclops and Wolverine and the Hulk combined? I mean it just sounds crazy and wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.

It doesn't just change the powers that each of them possesses, it changes their nature. Imagine the big hero Wolverine acting like a sadistic lunatic... you know... the fans would be the first to wonder where the person they knew has gone. And so, same here. You're not a Sorc just because you can streak and you're not a DK just because you can Leap, you're not an Arcanist just because you can Beam. If it were me, I'd seriously think about not just putting something together but maybe do a favor, if nothing else to yourself and find a place in lore for the monster you created. At least try. Otherwise, you'll never be happy with anything anyways because you'll have to keep making changes to stay meta.

Making me sad talking about this.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

If streak worked as streak, but with a flame burst forward, flame trail and a cloud of smoke left behind, sure....but a lighting streak on a fire guy looks dumb. It's visually out of place.

sans-culottes wrote: »

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

Man, "anyone can be anything" is a fantasy I have always wanted, hahaha. It's hard to hear that that's a problem.

Maybe there's something fundamentally distinct in what we want from our fantasy worlds?

(The rest of it is really just the usual crooning about "there is a meta and therefore no one will do anything outside the meta" which is, again, not subclassing's problem).

The issue isn’t that “anyone can be anything.” It’s that when everyone can be everything, nothing means anything. Class identity isn’t about restriction. It’s about coherence. When visual, narrative, and mechanical consistency collapse, the world stops feeling like a world and starts feeling like a toybox.

You keep reducing criticism to preference—“some people don’t like freedom”—as if this were a flavor dispute. But what’s being critiqued is a systemic design shift that prioritizes flattening over distinction. And the consequences aren’t hypothetical. Just ask the Necromancer skill lines. Or what’s left of them. As you yourself noted, this patch has only deepened the class’s longstanding design failures.

See, I see it as a design shift that prioritizes verisimilitude of the world (the TES world) over game mechanics.

And I celebrate that, because in my opinion, game mechanics exist to serve the world/make the world something that can be engaged with, not as something ontologically primitive.

If, in your mind, it is a narrative collapse, then we have different worlds we are modeling; narratively, most people in TES have access to most types of spells or combat styles, in principle.

I agree there is a mechanical collapse. But mechanics are in the service of world-modeling, and can be fixed. I wish it were not broken, but I am not going to say "the world should be worse-modeled" in the pursuit of mechanical purity - especially given that, again, the mechanics can be repaired/fixed, because the bugs are not a consequence of the subclassing model *a priori* but rather were already a problem that subclassing made more pronounced. They SHOULD be repaired, and I have faith that (finally) they will be.

As for visual inconsistency, I hope you never encounter my characters in Oblivion or Skyrim, haha. They will use purple summoning/conjuration magic, white-rainbow Alteration magic, shimmering semitransparent wards and luminous gold from Restoration, and Shock and red Damage spells from Destruction among other colors.

I just consider that to be how the TES world works; different kinds of spells manifest in the world in different colors, and characters can manifest them freely. What you see as "inconsistency" I see as "verisimilitude".

You’re conflating two unrelated things: the visual permissiveness of single-player Elder Scrolls games and the structural demands of a class-based MMO system. Your Oblivion character using rainbow magic says nothing about whether subclassing in ESO preserves mechanical clarity or world cohesion.

You assert that subclassing enhances verisimilitude, but verisimilitude requires internal consistency. When a Necromancer can slot Templar jabs and Arcanist tentacles, the coherence of each class fantasy breaks down. The world no longer models distinct paths or identities. It models a vending machine.

Mechanics are not neutral wrappers for lore. They are part of the world-model. When the mechanics flatten, so does the world. You say they “can be fixed,” but subclassing is the fix, according to ZOS. The bugs and corpse limits are not incidental. They emerged directly from this change.

Calling a collapse of distinction “more immersive” only works if you treat immersion as a purely individual response. But game systems model shared realities. When everyone is everything, there is no frame of reference left for role, identity, or consequence. That’s not Elder Scrolls. That’s sandbox chaos wearing TES skin.

LalMirchi wrote: »

Statements are made by people and we are all people, we stae what we mean.

Yes I'm critical of people wanting to remain in the status quo and think that rigidity is a feebler tactique rather than fluidity. It's what used to be called common sense.

My basic thesis is that we are are now subject to a "Force Majeure" I.E. The studio has decided on a major change, how one reacts to that is rather revealing. However I still think that not adapting to changes is not very effective in the long run.

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

Man, "anyone can be anything" is a fantasy I have always wanted, hahaha. It's hard to hear that that's a problem.

Maybe there's something fundamentally distinct in what we want from our fantasy worlds?

(The rest of it is really just the usual crooning about "there is a meta and therefore no one will do anything outside the meta" which is, again, not subclassing's problem).

The issue isn’t that “anyone can be anything.” It’s that when everyone can be everything, nothing means anything. Class identity isn’t about restriction. It’s about coherence. When visual, narrative, and mechanical consistency collapse, the world stops feeling like a world and starts feeling like a toybox.

You keep reducing criticism to preference—“some people don’t like freedom”—as if this were a flavor dispute. But what’s being critiqued is a systemic design shift that prioritizes flattening over distinction. And the consequences aren’t hypothetical. Just ask the Necromancer skill lines. Or what’s left of them. As you yourself noted, this patch has only deepened the class’s longstanding design failures.

See, I see it as a design shift that prioritizes verisimilitude of the world (the TES world) over game mechanics.

And I celebrate that, because in my opinion, game mechanics exist to serve the world/make the world something that can be engaged with, not as something ontologically primitive.

If, in your mind, it is a narrative collapse, then we have different worlds we are modeling; narratively, most people in TES have access to most types of spells or combat styles, in principle.

I agree there is a mechanical collapse. But mechanics are in the service of world-modeling, and can be fixed. I wish it were not broken, but I am not going to say "the world should be worse-modeled" in the pursuit of mechanical purity - especially given that, again, the mechanics can be repaired/fixed, because the bugs are not a consequence of the subclassing model *a priori* but rather were already a problem that subclassing made more pronounced. They SHOULD be repaired, and I have faith that (finally) they will be.

As for visual inconsistency, I hope you never encounter my characters in Oblivion or Skyrim, haha. They will use purple summoning/conjuration magic, white-rainbow Alteration magic, shimmering semitransparent wards and luminous gold from Restoration, and Shock and red Damage spells from Destruction among other colors.

I just consider that to be how the TES world works; different kinds of spells manifest in the world in different colors, and characters can manifest them freely. What you see as "inconsistency" I see as "verisimilitude".

Anyone *can* be anything in TES. And there always is a meta - in Skyrim, you can be a stealth archer, or you can be worse. Yet, I have many playthroughs that aren't stealth archery, and yet were buckets of fun! So it ever is with metas.

Except that MMO's have different rules/requirments than single player games, especially regarding PVP or any kind of content where the player is to encounter another player. This is where your desire and logic fall apart when discussing ESO and its design direction because first and foremost its an MMORPG, not a single player game and there are specific requirements that must be met to facilitate a fair and balanced playspace. Sublcassing does away with this on multiple fronts.

This update, is a failure. Most of us can see this and subclassing is a sizable part of this.

Do you think it is impossible for subclassing to be balanced (not whether or not it *currently is*, but whether or not it *could ever be*)?

If not, why not?

If so, then your complaint isn't about subclassing or even modeling the world or anything like that; it's about balance.

For my own part, I agree things ought to be balanced as much as possible while staying within the world. But I do not believe subclassing is somehow completely incompatible with balance.

Coupled with my belief that balance is something inherently unattainable in the abstract (more akin to "perfection" than say, "20 dollars"), I am willing to tolerate some amount of imbalance.

Balance goes beyond DPS/Heal outputs or Tank mitigation.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

Man, "anyone can be anything" is a fantasy I have always wanted, hahaha. It's hard to hear that that's a problem.

Maybe there's something fundamentally distinct in what we want from our fantasy worlds?

(The rest of it is really just the usual crooning about "there is a meta and therefore no one will do anything outside the meta" which is, again, not subclassing's problem).

The issue isn’t that “anyone can be anything.” It’s that when everyone can be everything, nothing means anything. Class identity isn’t about restriction. It’s about coherence. When visual, narrative, and mechanical consistency collapse, the world stops feeling like a world and starts feeling like a toybox.

You keep reducing criticism to preference—“some people don’t like freedom”—as if this were a flavor dispute. But what’s being critiqued is a systemic design shift that prioritizes flattening over distinction. And the consequences aren’t hypothetical. Just ask the Necromancer skill lines. Or what’s left of them. As you yourself noted, this patch has only deepened the class’s longstanding design failures.

See, I see it as a design shift that prioritizes verisimilitude of the world (the TES world) over game mechanics.

And I celebrate that, because in my opinion, game mechanics exist to serve the world/make the world something that can be engaged with, not as something ontologically primitive.

If, in your mind, it is a narrative collapse, then we have different worlds we are modeling; narratively, most people in TES have access to most types of spells or combat styles, in principle.

I agree there is a mechanical collapse. But mechanics are in the service of world-modeling, and can be fixed. I wish it were not broken, but I am not going to say "the world should be worse-modeled" in the pursuit of mechanical purity - especially given that, again, the mechanics can be repaired/fixed, because the bugs are not a consequence of the subclassing model *a priori* but rather were already a problem that subclassing made more pronounced. They SHOULD be repaired, and I have faith that (finally) they will be.

As for visual inconsistency, I hope you never encounter my characters in Oblivion or Skyrim, haha. They will use purple summoning/conjuration magic, white-rainbow Alteration magic, shimmering semitransparent wards and luminous gold from Restoration, and Shock and red Damage spells from Destruction among other colors.

I just consider that to be how the TES world works; different kinds of spells manifest in the world in different colors, and characters can manifest them freely. What you see as "inconsistency" I see as "verisimilitude".

Anyone *can* be anything in TES. And there always is a meta - in Skyrim, you can be a stealth archer, or you can be worse. Yet, I have many playthroughs that aren't stealth archery, and yet were buckets of fun! So it ever is with metas.

Except that MMO's have different rules/requirments than single player games, especially regarding PVP or any kind of content where the player is to encounter another player. This is where your desire and logic fall apart when discussing ESO and its design direction because first and foremost its an MMORPG, not a single player game and there are specific requirements that must be met to facilitate a fair and balanced playspace. Sublcassing does away with this on multiple fronts.

This update, is a failure. Most of us can see this and subclassing is a sizable part of this.

Do you think it is impossible for subclassing to be balanced (not whether or not it *currently is*, but whether or not it *could ever be*)?

If not, why not?

If so, then your complaint isn't about subclassing or even modeling the world or anything like that; it's about balance.

For my own part, I agree things ought to be balanced as much as possible while staying within the world. But I do not believe subclassing is somehow completely incompatible with balance.

Coupled with my belief that balance is something inherently unattainable in the abstract (more akin to "perfection" than say, "20 dollars"), I am willing to tolerate some amount of imbalance.

Balance goes beyond DPS/Heal outputs or Tank mitigation.

Yes! I agree!

I also think this statement is about as related to subclassing as the phrase "Input lag is the primary cause of player frustration" or any number of other perfectly reasonable statements I agree with.

And that is why you do not understand why subclassing is bad for the game. You think it's only about DPS combinations or whatever. You can't even see how changing the identity of a class into a non class affects the game (or whatever these frankenstine abominations are).

How does me saying "I agree balance is about more than those things" indicate to you that I believe it is only about those things?

Sorry, I feel like the statement was a non-sequitur and now I feel like this one is equally nonsensical. *We are in agreement that balance transcends pure quantization*.

Do you want me to say "and therefore subclassing is bad"? Because I am missing some logical leap, and I don't really know where to go from here if you keep just plopping non-sequiturs down.

Because you asserted that the idea of "Balancing goes beyond DPS..." is not related to subclassing. There are multiple aspects of "balancing" to subclassing, the obvious DPS/HEAL/Mitigation and the less obivous aspect of how subclassing destroys the framework of how a players emotion is connected to the world. Subclassing destroys structure to the game and structure is absoutely necessary in order to paint a cohesive picture of the word and the emotions extracted from the world.

Ah I thought you were talking about balance as being the "ease" with which a player can explain/achieve/replicate a certain DPS/Tank/Heal number, which is definitely unrelated.

That said, and on the topic of unrelated things, I wouldn't put "the player's emotion being connected to the world" or their ability to see a "cohesive picture of the world" as a balance issue, nor as something inherently different between multiplayer and singleplayer games.

Why is my emotional connection and understanding of the TES world hinging on the "multiplayerness" of the game?

Essentially, what you are saying is "because TESO is multiplayer, restrictive classes are required for emotional engagement and cohesion, but since Skyrim and Oblivion are single player, non-restrictive classes are sufficient for emotional engagement and cohesion."

Once again, I fear I fail to understand - can you ELI5 me why multiplayer games require restrictive classes to achieve emotional engagement and cohesion while single player games do not?

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

And to put it bluntly, it looks ridiculous. I cringe at every promotional piece of art I have seen depicting sublcassed abilities on characters. Its visually incoherent with the feel of the game.

I don't know what to tell you. My oblivion remastered character is constantly covered by a purple sheen from Mysticism's Spell Absorption, while casting Damage Health and Shock spells that are bright red and blue lightning - or she casts an on-touch Absorb Health/Absorb Magicka spell that siphons orange-gold and light blue streaks from them in a tether (if I stay close enough).

It's how the series always has been, and I always found it really cool that illusion magic and conjuration magic could be used by the same character despite being obviously different Magicka employments.

I think that it's really cool that a character can fire a purple-pink wave of Detect Life magic to see through walls, so they can then use a green shimmer to fade into the background with a Chameleon spell before readying their massive frost AoE.

AZ_Taco wrote: »

People saying that subclassing will allow you to play what ever you want are technically correct. You can definitely to play a build that sounds cool but doesn't do nearly as much damage as a real meta build. So if you want to play a sucky build and never join a real PvE guild for endgame trails, then sure you can play whatever you want.

Realistically, with subclassing, there are maybe like 1-2 real builds per PvE role now (Healer, Tank, DPS). So we went from each class having a viable build for each PvE role. To around 4-8 competitive builds in the whole game.

Since there are 7 classes in the game:
No subclassing = 7 Tanks, 7 Healers, 7 Mag DPS, 7 Stam DPS = Around 28 viable builds

People will choose what is best from the classes:
With Subclassing = 1-2 Tanks, 1-2 Healers, 1-2 Mag DPS, 1-2 Stam DPS = 4 to 8 builds that are viable in the whole game.