Is there an intended direction for subclasing?

MincMincMinc · July 2025

What design philosophy does/should zos follow? As far as I can theorize there are two potential game design choices.

Do you play into only the trinity and make a skill line a dedicated damage/tank/support line? Will this lead to power creep and heading towards a singularity effect where stats are capping?
Do you balance lines individually into strong encompassing kits on their own?

Examples of the two in action

Aedric spear, assassination, animal, stormcalling (pvp meta) are all almost entirely the most efficient damage possible.
Daedric Summoning (unused) consists of a mix between tank, support, and pet damage builds. Because it is actually a balance it is not "good" at any particular thing that is worth grabbing.

Thoughts? What do you think the pros and cons are to either design pathway?

CameraBeardThePirate · July 2025

Lol no, the direction is "do whatever you want and we'll fiddle around randomly with the numbers as we please"

pinkpom · July 2025

I want damage only on the damage line, damage and recovery on the recovery line, and tank and recovery on the tank line.

Casul · July 2025

pinkpom wrote: »

I want damage only on the damage line, damage and recovery on the recovery line, and tank and recovery on the tank line.

Honestly this only really impacts the core 4 classes. All expansion classes have worked on the typical trinity lines.

I have a feeling that is the intended direction moving forward.

valenwood_vegan · July 2025

I could have used various examples, but for me... the fact that they intentionally created merciless resolve grim focus [lol I always forget which one is the base ability] in its u46 form only to completely change it one patch later should tell us all we need to know about their "direction". Blindfolded dart throwing.

Rkindaleft · July 2025

I feel like a lot of the time they just make changes that sound good in their heads but don't take the time to actually consider how it might impact real gameplay.

This was obvious in the previous PTS. They released Subclassing without any balancing and were all shocked Pikachu face when people had 180k+ parses because they didn't realise the power spike would be so sharp. Like, literally anyone who bothered to learn the ins-and-outs of combat knew basically immediately that was going to happen without even having to test anything.

Alaztor91 · July 2025

Hard to say. I assume that ZOS will continue neutering the few remaining ''unique skills'' or ''outliers'' so that they fit in their spreadsheet balancing mold until the only difference between something like Assassination and Animal Companions is the color and vfx of the skills.

Seems like it would pair pretty well with Skill Styles.

Entaro · July 2025

Rkindaleft wrote: »

I feel like a lot of the time they just make changes that sound good in their heads but don't take the time to actually consider how it might impact real gameplay.

This was obvious in the previous PTS. They released Subclassing without any balancing and were all shocked Pikachu face when people had 180k+ parses because they didn't realise the power spike would be so sharp. Like, literally anyone who bothered to learn the ins-and-outs of combat knew basically immediately that was going to happen without even having to test anything.

There was plenty of feedback at the time, and all the other times during all the other PTS cycles going back years and years. They never listen, or at the least they very selectively listen. You must also realize that they largely do not care about PvE, or parses, it is an afterthought. Balancing seems to almost always be related primarily to PvP, or their idea of it anyway.

Cooperharley · July 2025

Doesnt feel like it currently

YandereGirlfriend · July 2025

Entaro wrote: »

Rkindaleft wrote: »

I feel like a lot of the time they just make changes that sound good in their heads but don't take the time to actually consider how it might impact real gameplay.

This was obvious in the previous PTS. They released Subclassing without any balancing and were all shocked Pikachu face when people had 180k+ parses because they didn't realise the power spike would be so sharp. Like, literally anyone who bothered to learn the ins-and-outs of combat knew basically immediately that was going to happen without even having to test anything.

There was plenty of feedback at the time, and all the other times during all the other PTS cycles going back years and years. They never listen, or at the least they very selectively listen. You must also realize that they largely do not care about PvE, or parses, it is an afterthought. Balancing seems to almost always be related primarily to PvP, or their idea of it anyway.

NB change, ult-gen change, etc. has nothing to do with PvP.

NoSoup · July 2025

From what we've seen from update 46 and what's on the PTS now, I'm leaning towards thinking their long term strategy is the removal of classes and just having skill lines.

Update 46 nerfed a number of skill lines so they wouldn't be too outrageously OP. Update 47 "now that the dust has settled" is moving more in the direction of dismantling classes all together. For instance, with the removal of the max magic % buffs from sorc I just don't see how "sorc pure classes" can compete now, without subclassing to find extra sources of damage to make up for the damage and shield strength they lose from having their base stats gutted...

MincMincMinc · July 2025

NoSoup wrote: »

From what we've seen from update 46 and what's on the PTS now, I'm leaning towards thinking their long term strategy is the removal of classes and just having skill lines.

Update 46 nerfed a number of skill lines so they wouldn't be too outrageously OP. Update 47 "now that the dust has settled" is moving more in the direction of dismantling classes all together. For instance, with the removal of the max magic % buffs from sorc I just don't see how "sorc pure classes" can compete now, without subclassing to find extra sources of damage to make up for the damage and shield strength they lose from having their base stats gutted...

Pure classes do not exist anymore, that whole notion isn't a thing. Magsorc in PvP is literally irrelevant now. The entirety of stamsorc for a decade now was hurricane, streak, and Critsurge. Which is now far less viable without resolve.

For stamsorcs to be somewhat possible now you have to run storm+animal+restoring light. Problem is storm comically requires you to get crit chance out of thin air so without being funneled into acuity you are going to be falling drastically behind in pvp now that you cant run assassin.