Maybe that would be something to consider if it becomes an actual game mode, but I think it would be a distraction from the performance testing that is currently the goal.

But sure if we were to assume for a moment that vengeance is in its final form right now... I think we'd start running into the issue where everyone just picks the objectively "best" skill lines and runs pretty much the same thing. Then the most interesting and powerful individual skills would likely be nerfed, since they weren't initially designed to be combined with the other most powerful and interesting skills... and we'd be left with a bunch of bland skills that basically do the same thing... I mean even more than is currently the case. At least right now each class kinda has something unique that it brings to the table.

Without other characteristics to define our characters in vengeance, I think it really would just turn into a bunch of people running completely identical builds. Seems boring to me.

Then there's also the issue that it would bring back some of the problems from live that make people prefer vengeance in the first place (like being able to stack huge numbers of heals - just the addition of the resto staff line and vigor brought this back to some extent, but imagine if people could also stack all of the best class heals). Relatedly, this would start to bring us back to the build knowledge problem that vengeance avoids, where experienced players would understand which skill lines to combine and newer or more casual players would be more overwhelmed by all of the choices (and skill lines they might not be familiar with, having not played every class), and would be more likely to make poor choices, moving us back toward the significant build-power gap that we see on live.

But ultimately, the mode isn't finished and isn't balanced (around a final / complete set of features) yet so it's hard to answer when we don't know what it might look like in the future if it moves from a test to a game mode. But as it stands currently, no I don't think it would be helpful to add subclassing.

The benefit of class based systems is they are easier to balance than free-form skill based systems.

I've adapted to subclassing in PVE, but it is not at all balanced. I don't think it can be balanced, but that's fine when we're fighting monsters in PVE.

Classes can't be completely balanced either, but it is easier to balance 7 classes than the multitude of possibilities available by combining 3 of 21 skill lines.

I'm sitting out Whitestrake's Mayhem this year because of what subclassing as done to PVP. I'm aware of the strong combinations and could successfully play them, but that wouldn't be fun for me. I wish there was a pure class campaign.

Vengeance in any shape or form should never become a pvp mode. It was presented as a test and should be treated as a test with the purpose to improve existing PvP.

The major reason I prefer Vengeance to Live is balance. Adding the single biggest unbalancing update ZOS has ever made to this mode would invalidate it.

Voting no, but it's purely wishful thinking

I believe Vengeance is intended to improve the main Cyro experience. Given that the devs have put subclassing into PvP already, then eventually it'll have to be included in the Vengeance tests. Then we get whatever we get. IMHO that will be a less laggy version of what we have live now. Maybe with some changes to balance things better, but all I expect is less lag and business as usual.

No, infact they should remove Subclassing from normal PvP as well and make it more of a roleplay thing.

Subclassing really screwed up the dynamics of PvP but also opened it up for more creativity for the real dedicated players.

I love the idea of subclassing, however so far in a competitive scenario it has only had more downsides than upsides to it.

So no, I do not want to see subclassing in vengeance unless they can clearly adress the core issues that subclassing brings with it.

I'm thinking if subclassing was allowed most players would end up using the same skills. For testing purposes to me it seems you get a better representation of data to look at if a variety of skills are used.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I say no for now because we don't know what the source of lag is in PVP. I'm guessing the real "source" of the lag is a cumulative of a bunch of different things and not just attributable to one single element (say, use of proc sets or cross-healing, alone). If subclassing adds to the things the server has to keep track of, or makes the math more complex, then Subclassing shouldn't be added, just to keep Vengeance simple.

I also just really enjoyed the Vengeance experience, which felt more like a "classic" pvp mode more than anything. Subclassing would disrupt that feel.

This.

I don't like the cobat/skill of veng but I do love the performance of it and the size of the battles.

Adding subclassing would 100% take away from the performance improvements they have been making. People would just stick to those skills, like beam, that have a huge hit on the server for calculations.

They may implement subclassing down the road but I would argue it would be with the "new skills" they reworked. If that was the case then I don't see it being as big of a performance hit.