SOLO players, the recent poll that Zeni made, made me wonder, how do you feel about subclassing?

Castagere · September 28

I was against it at first. But my two characters had around 30 unused skill points each to play with, so I went for it. My stamina Templar, I got rid of the heal grouping line since I never group and never used one skill from that line ever, and gave him the animal companion line from the warden. Playing a Temp with a bear pet is so fun.
Next was my magic DK. I did the same thing with him, but gave him the Mage Storm Caller line, and wow, that is a blast also. So for this solo-only player, it feels like a real TES game with the freedom to do what I want.

GloatingSwine · September 29

Kendaric wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

I play very much non-meta. I have no issues clearing content. I do have issues getting into most (not all) high-end trial guilds - that is a consequence of ZOS' design that fails to account for MMO player behaviour.

That's on the players though, not really on ZOS. And the possibility to either form your own group and guild always exists...

Again, that's true to a point. But what we have right now is past that point.

Example 1: You and three friends are going to run a relay race. The race organizer allows you to choose your shoes from a list of adidas running shoes, [a brand with a swoosh] running shoes, and Puma running shoes. Your friends all take adidas shoes, and you chose [the brand with the swoosh]. They argue that you should leave because you are not picking the right shoes. You argue that you should be able to pick whatever you want.
That's an example of the group being toxic, since there's not much difference and you can perform just as well either way.

Example 2: You and three friends are going to run a relay race. The race organizer allows you to choose your shoes from a list of adidas running shoes, Louboutin stiletto heels, and ballet pointe shoes. Your friends all take adidas shoes, and you chose the Louboutins. They argue that you should leave because you are not picking the right shoes. You argue that you should be able to pick whatever you want.
That's an example of the race organizer giving a poorly balanced set of choices and you being toxic for petulantly picking something ineffective for the task at hand in spite of your group.

ESO's current balance is closer to Example 2 than Example 1. We have one setup that is leagues ahead of others, and deliberately choosing not to run at your peak efficiency is quite literally griefing your group.

Yes, it should have been more balanced as I've said multiple times myself. And considering how well arcanist performed even before subclassing, I'm going to assume arcanist (not only the beam) is the main problem. It's not even necessary to perfectly balance things which would be impossible anyway.

But asking to rollback subclassing is just wrong and would drive a lot of players away.

The beam really is the problem.

Like there's another way to do Arcanist that actually outperforms the beam at single target DPS in a trial setup based on using Tentacular Dread as the crux spender.

But it's a lot harder to use and not all-cleave-all-the-time, so it isn't as dominant.

Subclassing just made beam be for everyone *and* made it much easier to support beam with the things that Herald of the Tome doesn't already provide like loads of crit and crit damage.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · September 30

I love it! Keep it as is.

Iriidius · October 2

fizzybeef wrote: »

freespirit wrote: »

I use Oakensoul and I have found subclassing has given me extra choices, I always seem to have one skill, even though I can only use five, that I cannot decide on, now I am having fun experimenting.

Typically at the present on my mains(Templars) I have two class skills, one weapon skill, one scribed skill and one subclassed skill.

I have never messed with hybrid builds, I feel no need to.

I cannot understand people who want subclassing and hybridisation rolled back, is it because their playstyle has been ruined?

Over the years every class has been hit by nerfs or buffed to excess, these things all work out over time, if we have no change the game would become a very boring place. I have never felt the need the change my characters because of skill changes, maybe I am just lazy! 🙂

Maybe because pure mag and pure stam builds are not as strong anymore?

Go hybrid or use subclassing or be left behind.

Like i know i dont need to explain this to a oakensoul user, youre probably not doing trials or any endgame content

After Hybridization there were still many pure or almost pure magicka or stamina builds in PvP, but after subclassing there are almost no pure class builds except for stubborn or uninformed players.
Many meta builds like 55kmagsorc, Magdk, (u33) magplar, magblade, acuity/frost(u36) warden, mdw/dizzy/bow stamsorc or stamarc were mostly pure classes with little or no hybridization.
Many choices from other ressource were only used because they were superior because of bad balance which could have been solved if ZOS had tried.
But Subclassing reduced all classes to 1 and will be much harder to balance.
Now everyone has Assassination with animal companions and restoring light or gravelord and stormcalling for single target and arcden for multitarget.

Cambionn · October 6

I love sub classing. Always thought it was weird my evil necromancer drew the line at summoning daedra. Or that my knowledge hungry arcanist wouldn't learn anything outside of those 3 skill lines. It's also distinctive for TES to do whatever, even in single player games most have classes. If you read Arena's manual, they have a nice bit explaining the thought behind it. Freedom to turn around and do different things than intended are at the core of the franchise.

But then, I've always played by the rule of cool without worrying about effectiveness. ESO is a game where you can do that rather easily, so unless you go PvP I never understood the need to maximise your build. Even the few times I did group PvE I was fine. We finished the dungeon no issue and had fun. But nowadays I only join groups with guild-mates or friends because I know I will get slack for not being up to standard. If anything, it are the die-hard group content people who drive people like me away.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I feel like this is the crux of the issue.
which ends up inspiring grouping with people to cover our weaknesses or to make multiple characters to see the world in many different angles. Games like Skyrim that allow you to do anything tend to follow that every player will make one character, stick with them the whole way through, and then not be interested in replaying right away because you did everything the first time. There's a reason that everybody who says "I want to replay Skyrim but as an [X] this time!" ends up with a stealth archer by the time they get through Bleak Falls Barrow.

I get most of your comment, and I don't disagree to the remarks regarding PvP and group PvE. I can see it sucks for group PvE and PvP players, and I agree it should stay fun for everyone and Zenimax needs to keep all groups in mind and that they could've done more to achieve that. I think it should be possible to do sub-classing (or something similar) while not breaking it, and the fact they didn't is bad.

But I cannot agree with this part. My Skyrim play troughs end up differently, and I rarely play as a stealth archer. I love that I can keep to the character I have in mind, without being limited by classes. Because I make my characters with a personality and history in mind, and often enough those fall in between certain classes. It is the freedom that inspires me to do different things, where the limits of other games often keep me pushed back into the same few options. It's the games where I have to choose a class where I tend to get stuck in certain roles, and stick to those.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

...and I get it. I can't wait for TES6 either. But I absolutely do not want ESO to turn into TES6.
[...]
I want ESO for the group content that I can't get from a solo game. That's the big thing that TES6 won't have,

I also don't think ESO is just a TES6 replacement for people. ESO for me, has been great these passed 10 years because I can play it alone. In fact, if I couldn't I wouldn't play it. ESO is, in fact, the only online game I keep coming back to due to this.

But that's not because I hate people or because I want a single player game and am just waiting for TES6. If anything I'm kinda sad zone chat and guild chats aren't as common as they used to be anymore. But it's simply because I the way I like interaction while playing is different from you. And because the things I like to do in-game are different. I like the interaction with people that exist next to me, rather than with or against me. I want the ever chancing world, chanced not only by new content but also people around me. Where I need to check the way things work and are now. Where my 10 years of work still count today and there is always stuff to do. Be it collecting fashion items and houses. Be it using the items I collected over 10 years of time. There is an end-game for solo'ist too that no single player game has or ever will have. And then, a new story comes and I can play that with my established character, which contains new stuff for my end game as well which I can work on once I finished the story. That is something TES6 won't have, and that no solo game can have. But solo playing ESO does.

While I get your overall sentiment, and as I said I don't disagree on that they should've looked for a way to do this without breaking PvP and group PvE. But I do think you do solo players a bit dirty with your comment. Solo players and aren't all that simple as you bring it, nor are they a monolith using ESO as a TES6 placeholder. And if you want people to see it both ways and not only thing about their own type of players, then not doing it yourself is not really helping.

Which also answers this one:

tomofhyrule wrote: »

If ESO pivots too hard to act as a TES6 proxy and drives away the group PvE and PvP playerbases, then who is going to come back to ESO when TES6 does release?

The solo players like me, who now also play ESO next to replaying the previous 5 games over an over. A 6th game really won't change that. Perhaps they will even start to do more group stuff again when the majority are solo'ist who do a dungeon casually.

old_scopie1945 · October 6

I don't mind it and do use it. That being said, if it just disappeared it wouldn't bother me one way or the other. The game was just fine for me before it ever existed. The big problem is the negative effect it has on those who preferer to play the old traditional ESO way. At the end of the day it makes me think if it was worth the hassle it has created.

Destai · October 6

So I'm mostly a solo player who will do some random dungeons here or there. I'm also an altoholic who has 15 characters.

While I was initially excited for subclassing, I foresaw how it would play it out for me. Basically, it'd be fun at first, but would result in homogenized characters. That definitely happened. I found myself making many of my characters some form of templar or arcanist, with assassination and one original skill line. Certainly makes gearing my alts easier, most of them are running tideborn/deadly/velothi ur.

That being said, I've had a few creative builds come out of it.

Necromancer Frost Mage
Magicka NB with Crystal Frags as a spammable. I really liked this build.
Magicka NB with Siphoning, Green Balance, and Shadow Magic
Stamina Dragonknight as a peak Vvardenfell Dark Elf - Animal Companions, Ardent Flame, and Assassination
Stamina Warden leaned into poison and bows, same combo as above, just different weapons/skills

Those are fun builds, but you can tell the difference between those and more standardized builds. Subclassing showed me that most classes don't really have the most enjoyable or cohesive class kits. I feel like I increasingly notice a core issue with the game. That issue is build making.

While there are practically endless combinations, not many that are fun or performant. I often subclass because the core kit doesn't flow well. From a DPS perspective, classes like Sorcerer, Necromancer, Nightblade, and to some degree, Dragonknight, don't flow as well as Templar and Arcanist. Warden's my main, so I feel like it flows well but doesn't hit as hard obviously.

It just seems most classes need an overhaul, both by themselves and in a subclassing context. The classes themselves need to better flow, there needs to be a better sense of what the spammable is and how to build around it. There also needs to be more wide reaching passives like Aedric Spear and Assassination, so that subclassing is more synergetic.

Addressing that flow and power parity between pure and subclassed builds will help greatly. ZOS has a lot of work to do with combat, with both balance issues and, and more importantly, how it's managed.

Udrath · October 6

Solo PvP is really unforgiving now. It’s like playing a fighting game but everyone has the same character, and a bunch juiced up gankers on the flanks. I just miss fighting classes, and those classes divided between stamina or magicka like in all the expansions before Blackwood.

The pacing of pvp feels really off and how since hybrid, I’d say about 90% of pvp is about running away from fighting until you can ultimate because we lost all the staying power of the past from stuff like health recovery, etc, and replaced with tons of snare removal speed abilities like race against time, falcon swiftness, streak, etc. Subclassing takes this to another level.

You’re also getting hit with 3-5 abilities at once from one person on top of proc sets, status effects/debuffs and damage is just so high for no trade off at obtaining it. Subclassing makes solo pvp not enjoyable at all.

Displaced_Salad · October 6

Tandor wrote: »

Pepegrillos wrote: »

There might be a survivorship bias. Most people sticking with the game seem to like it. At the same time, player population is at its lowest point in 8 years. Those who left or didn't come back might not like it that much.

That's speculation based on very limited data from Steam which doesn't, for example, reflect those who play on Steam but no longer launch through it.

My own view on subclassing as a solo player is that I've no continued interest in it beyond having experimented briefly with one character to see how it worked. I like playing multiple characters because they're different, and I found that switching skills around didn't really achieve anything for me, it just produced a hybrid character that was a bit of this and a bit of that.

My view is much the same. But also because the game just lacks any meaningful interest for me at this point, I have no interest in further experimentation. I hang on, but I'm not really engaged in the content - none of the newer content has been worth it (imo) and I've burnt out on older content. I've delved into group content or pvp as much or as little as I ever intend. Some of it is a player issue, and some of it is a community/developer issue for me.