Reduce the amount of class skill lines to two

richo262 · August 17

Might sound like madness, but hear me out. It is to add variety and with scribing anything that might get culled that is useful gets saved by scribing.

Reducing the skill lines to two but instead they have more skills and a few more passives.
Each skill line usually (not all) has at least 1 skill that has very little purpose so a cull of that won't hurt.
Of the skills that are at risk of being removed that are useful, or could be useful, that risk being removed can instead become a base skill in scribing.

Subclassing now allows you to replace one of two skill lines with another class skill line.

This means you are now considered both classes for the purposes of scribing and wearing Infinite Archive sets.

You get given a new class name too and perhaps even new cosmetics. IE animal companion and a necro summon skill = new class and the if the primary was Necro, the bear will become a skeleton bear OR if the primary was Warden instead of summoning summoning skeletons they are corrupt spriggins. (or something similar). This is optional for the game to consider the base primary class, it can just just introduce new Skill Styles, and the player can choose what theme focus they want, whether they want to be more Warden looking or Necro looking with their skills. (Bear would need to auto unsummon in towns if it attracts a fine).

Have subclassing become more of a merge of classes.

By reducing it to two, this allows for an easier introduction to proper new class types. This could also be done at character creation, instead of class skill lines, rename them to "Disciplines" and you can choose two disciplines to start. Your disciplines determine your class.

Artim_X · August 17

No. Some balancing work could still be done, but drastic changes like the one in the OP are not needed.

Erickson9610 · August 17

We could reduce the number of Class skill lines to zero and then reorganize those skills into their proper schools of magic for anyone to draw from.

Askys94 · August 17

I want more skill lines

Chrisilis · August 17

Increase class skill lines to four. And add a 6th skill. Six skills + Ultimate. I only want to augment my class, not hybridize it out of existence 🙄

Tandor · August 17

Absolutely not, I can see no benefit in the OP's suggestion at all.

Omegacron · August 17

Wow... someone who actually wants LESS choice & freedom.

Nemesis7884 · August 18

I would rather support sub classing as the first step on the way to a completely classles system

darkriketz · August 18

richo262 wrote: »

Might sound like madness, but hear me out. It is to add variety and with scribing anything that might get culled that is useful gets saved by scribing.
Reducing the skill lines to two but instead they have more skills and a few more passives.

Each skill line usually (not all) has at least 1 skill that has very little purpose so a cull of that won't hurt.

Of the skills that are at risk of being removed that are useful, or could be useful, that risk being removed can instead become a base skill in scribing.

Subclassing now allows you to replace one of two skill lines with another class skill line.

This means you are now considered both classes for the purposes of scribing and wearing Infinite Archive sets.

You get given a new class name too and perhaps even new cosmetics. IE animal companion and a necro summon skill = new class and the if the primary was Necro, the bear will become a skeleton bear OR if the primary was Warden instead of summoning summoning skeletons they are corrupt spriggins. (or something similar). This is optional for the game to consider the base primary class, it can just just introduce new Skill Styles, and the player can choose what theme focus they want, whether they want to be more Warden looking or Necro looking with their skills. (Bear would need to auto unsummon in towns if it attracts a fine).

Have subclassing become more of a merge of classes.

By reducing it to two, this allows for an easier introduction to proper new class types. This could also be done at character creation, instead of class skill lines, rename them to "Disciplines" and you can choose two disciplines to start. Your disciplines determine your class.

Delete character creation and play archetypes, delete the open world and create a narrative tunnel
Oh yeah, that would be awesome.

(please have a good day anyway -_-')

MreeBiPolar · August 18

There are three lines in each class for a reason, specifically, to mostly fill the roles, tank, healer and damage.

MGRza · August 18

Artim_X wrote: »

No. Some balancing work could still be done, but drastic changes like the one in the OP are not needed.

Agreed, with subclassing atm, ballancing is crazy and ZOS is going to be spending months buffing and nerfing stuff trying to balance all the individual skill lines and their skills, or so we hope.

Adding massive changes now will just make things worse.

MGRza · August 18

Erickson9610 wrote: »

We could reduce the number of Class skill lines to zero and then reorganize those skills into their proper schools of magic for anyone to draw from.

We can hope that once subclassing has been balanced, new skill lines will be added. Instead of new classes, ZOS might go the route of releasing standalone skill lines that we can just subclass into our current characters.

However, with scribing and class mastery and stuff, we will have to see if it is possible or how they will go about adding something like that.

The release between the Warden and Necromancer wasn't as long as between the Necromancer and the Arcanist, so it can go either way.

MGRza · August 18

Chrisilis wrote: »

Increase class skill lines to four. And add a 6th skill. Six skills + Ultimate. I only want to augment my class, not hybridize it out of existence 🙄

That ship sailed, I'm afraid. They said they won't go out of their way to nerf pure classes, but balancing the overall game will do just that.

I run both a thief and an assassin toon, both pure nightblades with gear for those situations, so no gear that provides a massive DPS boost, today's patch does just that for these two builds.

So yeah, subclassing is the future, there is no way they are rolling it back, it might not seem like it, but running pure classes will just put our toons at a disadvantage. I have 16 fullu active toons, some subclased and some pure and the difference is massive.

richo262 · August 18

Omegacron wrote: »

Wow... someone who actually wants LESS choice & freedom.

Incorrect, I want more meaningful skills. I said increase the skills per tree. The amount of skills doesn't even need to reduce much, if it was 7 skills per tree, that would be 14, rather than 15 currently.

Furthermore, Scribing has the potential to provide even more variety. So as I said initially, scribing could house any useful skills that get culled.

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

There are three lines in each class for a reason, specifically, to mostly fill the roles, tank, healer and damage.

That is something others have wanted to move away from as it risks filling the trees with skills that are not particularly unique or useful.

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

I would rather support sub classing as the first step on the way to a completely classles system

Erickson9610 wrote: »

We could reduce the number of Class skill lines to zero and then reorganize those skills into their proper schools of magic for anyone to draw from.

What I propose is essentially the next step to get there. The next step from this point would be to turn these Disciplines into Mages Guild sub-skill lines, or some sort of theme appropriate skill line. Ie, Warden - Druids in Daggerfall or Galen provide the skill line, but due to the passive strengths provided it would be inappropriate to hold more than two Disciplines.

Once reduced to 2 skill lines per tree I would like to see the 'Disciplines' merged with the Mages Guild or something similar, and have the Nightblade decommissioned. Then the Thieves and Dark Brotherhood skill lines fleshed out with the appropriate former Nightblade skills. To do that, the passives would need to be nerfed as anybody could have them, and the content would need to go free to play (Perhaps move MOL trial to the Elsweyr expansion but obviously kept onto by anyone that has purchase Thieves and not purchased Part 2 of Elswyre [ESO+ subs that have not purchased either won't even notice]).

MGRza · August 18

richo262 wrote: »

Omegacron wrote: »

Wow... someone who actually wants LESS choice & freedom.

Incorrect, I want more meaningful skills. I said increase the skills per tree. The amount of skills doesn't even need to reduce much, if it was 7 skills per tree, that would be 14, rather than 15 currently.

Furthermore, Scribing has the potential to provide even more variety. So as I said initially, scribing could house any useful skills that get culled.

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

There are three lines in each class for a reason, specifically, to mostly fill the roles, tank, healer and damage.

That is something others have wanted to move away from as it risks filling the trees with skills that are not particularly unique or useful.

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

I would rather support sub classing as the first step on the way to a completely classles system

Erickson9610 wrote: »

We could reduce the number of Class skill lines to zero and then reorganize those skills into their proper schools of magic for anyone to draw from.

What I propose is essentially the next step to get there. The next step from this point would be to turn these Disciplines into Mages Guild sub-skill lines, or some sort of theme appropriate skill line. Ie, Warden - Druids in Daggerfall or Galen provide the skill line, but due to the passive strengths provided it would be inappropriate to hold more than two Disciplines.

Once reduced to 2 skill lines per tree I would like to see the 'Disciplines' merged with the Mages Guild or something similar, and have the Nightblade decommissioned. Then the Thieves and Dark Brotherhood skill lines fleshed out with the appropriate former Nightblade skills. To do that, the passives would need to be nerfed as anybody could have them, and the content would need to go free to play (Perhaps move MOL trial to the Elsweyr expansion but obviously kept onto by anyone that has purchase Thieves and not purchased Part 2 of Elswyre [ESO+ subs that have not purchased either won't even notice]).

You are proposing serious changes and expecting it to be free to play, this will never happen, three skill lines serve a purpose, one being damage, one healing, and one being for tanking.

It may seem like a good idea for wanting these changes, but that will totally disrupt the flow of this game, i for one, would never want what you suggested here. You are essentially suggesting they destroy toons I have spent nearly a decade building, leveling, and maxing out skill lines.

I'm all for ZOS giving us proper skills to build Fire/ Lightning and other themed builds that can step up and do what the current builds can do, but what you're suggesting is not feasible in a ten-year-old MMO.

richo262 · August 18

MGRza wrote: »

richo262 wrote: »

Omegacron wrote: »

Wow... someone who actually wants LESS choice & freedom.

Incorrect, I want more meaningful skills. I said increase the skills per tree. The amount of skills doesn't even need to reduce much, if it was 7 skills per tree, that would be 14, rather than 15 currently.

Furthermore, Scribing has the potential to provide even more variety. So as I said initially, scribing could house any useful skills that get culled.

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

There are three lines in each class for a reason, specifically, to mostly fill the roles, tank, healer and damage.

That is something others have wanted to move away from as it risks filling the trees with skills that are not particularly unique or useful.

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

I would rather support sub classing as the first step on the way to a completely classles system

Erickson9610 wrote: »

We could reduce the number of Class skill lines to zero and then reorganize those skills into their proper schools of magic for anyone to draw from.

What I propose is essentially the next step to get there. The next step from this point would be to turn these Disciplines into Mages Guild sub-skill lines, or some sort of theme appropriate skill line. Ie, Warden - Druids in Daggerfall or Galen provide the skill line, but due to the passive strengths provided it would be inappropriate to hold more than two Disciplines.

Once reduced to 2 skill lines per tree I would like to see the 'Disciplines' merged with the Mages Guild or something similar, and have the Nightblade decommissioned. Then the Thieves and Dark Brotherhood skill lines fleshed out with the appropriate former Nightblade skills. To do that, the passives would need to be nerfed as anybody could have them, and the content would need to go free to play (Perhaps move MOL trial to the Elsweyr expansion but obviously kept onto by anyone that has purchase Thieves and not purchased Part 2 of Elswyre [ESO+ subs that have not purchased either won't even notice]).

You are proposing serious changes and expecting it to be free to play, this will never happen, three skill lines serve a purpose, one being damage, one healing, and one being for tanking.

It may seem like a good idea for wanting these changes, but that will totally disrupt the flow of this game, i for one, would never want what you suggested here. You are essentially suggesting they destroy toons I have spent nearly a decade building, leveling, and maxing out skill lines.

I'm all for ZOS giving us proper skills to build Fire/ Lightning and other themed builds that can step up and do what the current builds can do, but what you're suggesting is not feasible in a ten-year-old MMO.

Your Nightblade wouldn't be destroyed, it would just need pick two Disciplines, similar to subclassing now. subclassing still locks you into your class. If it was two completely interchangeable disciplines, and they give you a class name based on the Disciplines you have chosen then no character would be bound to any particular class.

The Dragon Knight and Sorc and Nightblade don't have clear Tanking / Healing / DPS trees. They do have trees that favor those roles more than others, but they are not exclusively unlike say the Arcanist or Necromancer which do follow that formula.

ZOS has so far released Imperial City, Morrowind and Scribing for free. I am not saying they should release more content for free, even though I have already paid for them (including TG and DB) I think if they chose to release more, it would benefit the game if they chose to release those in kind as they would be prime candidates to replace the Nightblade. This could also allow new characters to start as a member of the Dark Brotherhood or the Thieves Guild, with such a Discipline already attained.

Grizzbeorn · August 18

No thank you, please.

Vulkunne · August 18

Ideally, it should be 2 skill lines and passives are a skill line by themselves. I've noticed on many standard class builds I draw about 99% of the build from 2 skill lines and not the third. This probably wouldn't bother me too much.

Fenris_Arainai · August 18

My guess is the OP doesn't play support roles

PureeEvil · August 18

richo262 wrote: »

Might sound like madness, but hear me out. It is to add variety and with scribing anything that might get culled that is useful gets saved by scribing.
Reducing the skill lines to two but instead they have more skills and a few more passives.

Each skill line usually (not all) has at least 1 skill that has very little purpose so a cull of that won't hurt.

Of the skills that are at risk of being removed that are useful, or could be useful, that risk being removed can instead become a base skill in scribing.

Subclassing now allows you to replace one of two skill lines with another class skill line.

This means you are now considered both classes for the purposes of scribing and wearing Infinite Archive sets.

You get given a new class name too and perhaps even new cosmetics. IE animal companion and a necro summon skill = new class and the if the primary was Necro, the bear will become a skeleton bear OR if the primary was Warden instead of summoning summoning skeletons they are corrupt spriggins. (or something similar). This is optional for the game to consider the base primary class, it can just just introduce new Skill Styles, and the player can choose what theme focus they want, whether they want to be more Warden looking or Necro looking with their skills. (Bear would need to auto unsummon in towns if it attracts a fine).

Have subclassing become more of a merge of classes.

By reducing it to two, this allows for an easier introduction to proper new class types. This could also be done at character creation, instead of class skill lines, rename them to "Disciplines" and you can choose two disciplines to start. Your disciplines determine your class.

why do we have three "agree" buttons and not a single "disagree" button? Or better yet, a "complete nonsense" button? It's so annoying. It's because YouTube has hidden dislikes, a huge mistake on the part of humanity.