"ESO was not built from launch with subclassing in mind, and the system highlighted issues with the current class skill line design that were not previously a factor but are untenable going forward."

So rather than remove subclassing, they are going to give the players a slow, piecemeal refactoring of one class after another?

Why not just remove subclassing?

I hope it goes faster than we think and turns out better than we hope for! They're months into it so I'm at hope for the best at this stage... Good luck!

TBV

7 classes 9 if you add vamp and WW , so we'll see the ended of this in 3-4years or we going to get another failed system like bybridnation thats 6 years into the game now and not finished ?????? i like the idea of BALANCE just cant see it being done when there is systems already in game ( BATTLE SPIRIT ) that gets ignored pass after pass every updates , too many half made systems is just as bad as being unbalanced and you'll never get balance when you balance around unbalanced items
this is where an dev team needs to stand up and say SORRY WE WENT THE WRONG WAY AND NEED TO ROLL BACK SUBCLASSING , class balance , skill line passives , and ALL THINGS that wasnt done in SUBCLASSING DEVELOPMENT , then should get done and re rolled out as an FINISHED SYSTEM even if that system is 3-4 years out not put your players back into development for 3-4 years when it comes to CLASS BALANCE

The really horrible downside of announcing something like this with such a stretched and vague timeframe is, that every build change will now feel like a temporary compromise. Speaking for myself, I am usually very much unwilling to proceed with build assembly during a PTS cycle, since there is always a chance that some key element of the build will get nuked.

Now you tell us that we might have to live with that level of uncertainty for years. You gave us a teaser, you said Inhale will be moved to Ardent. You could have at least specified which ability will be swapped out then. Now I am not sure if my builds with Ardent and/or Draconic are even compatible anymore, because the abilities I am using may simply become unavailable. I will certainly not spend time and resources playing those builds or working on new ones with the kits in question, until I know what I will have to work with in 2 months.

But you went ahead an basically put Damocles' Sword over any type of build by saying "We will do a thorough rework of all classes in an undefined timeframe". Yes, we needed some signs of life from you. But this is such a strategically poor move. I just can't bring myself to touch this game now, knowing that the for the near and far future it will be nearly impossible to create stable builds, as changes will trickle in - breaking builds patch by patch.

I really recommend you to get the balancing done ASAP and to postpone only the changes that require significant animation work. And even then I recommend to at least approximate the changes as much as possible. Especially the skill line rearrangements need to be locked in by the next patch. Otherwise there is simply no reason to play this MMORPG. You know, the game format that lives off steady character building and progression through deliberate action, not periodic resets for replayability.

TLDR: The change is welcome and needed. But the priorization and the timeframe are crucial. Natural changes, as the game develops, are normal and acceptable. Finding excuses to delay URGENTLY NEEDED changes will wear players out. "Seasonal balancing" is quite literally the last thing you should employ to stay relevant. It is a cheap strategy to avoid actual innovation. The Patchnotes are not supposed to be the content.

Hello all,

Please consider reading my discussion post as I believe it is relevant to the current post and dilemma we are currently facing.
@ZOS_Kevin
@ZOS_GinaBruno

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/686471/meaningful-subclassing/p1?new=1

Sub-classing can work with this, but they will have to follow the power identities. Same issue with the "play as you want"; at some point the game design lead will need to make a decision on what kind of experience people will have with each class/spec.

"Play as you want" in ESO loses meaning when everything becomes the same thing.

For classes to mean something they should be different, not just look different. This should involve trade offs. Classes in RPGs have usually boiled down to team roles such as the tank, healer and damage trinity. ESO kind of did this early on, but abanoned it almost completely in later years.

I doubt classes are the way to implement roles anymore. Instead I think combat role should work like a mundus stone, but that it actually determines that role's version of your class (and other classes you subclass into). So that the trade off between healing, damage and tankiness is more defined and impactful. Further, tying this to group finder queue roles would go a long way toward counteracting fake roles.

I don't know what ZOS has in mind for the class refreshes but with current ESO's subclassing in mind the first thing to do until we wait for whatever is in the works is probably to organize each classes' skills in tank, heler and damage trees. Then limit subclassing to requiring one of each type, but it can come from any class. This way pure classes and subclasses are more equal to one another and more feasible to balance.

With class identity in mind, maybe subclassed trees should still be stylishly themed based on the original class of the character.

Radiate77 wrote: »

A good start to Class Identity would be to identify each combination as their own respective classes, instead of insinuating that someone who Subclassed twice is still the same class they started with.

Pushing this idea that we have 7 classes when in reality, we have countless now, is the wrong move, and is sending mixed signals.

Oh, this perspective hadn't occurred to me, I like it.

Reminds of mixing primary colors to get the color circle.

Subclassing is a cool idea in theory, but was and is entirely incompatible with how ESO's classes are designed. We don't have 'classes', or even 'skill lines' so much as we have visual and thematic differences that when put together sometimes make something that's somewhat different from another assortment of stuff put together. There's functionally little difference between the assortment of 'single target deals damage from ranged' skills in the game, it just depends on what secondary effects and animation theming someone wants. These are skill-by-skill level differences, none of which really serve to shape a 'class' out of the mass of options.

The only two classes with any sort of overarching mechanic to tie the assortment of skills together are necromancer and arcanist, where giving up a skill line means giving up some options on how to generate their specific build-spend resource. None of the core classes + warden have that limitation.

I hope ZOS is really interested in implementing more...idk how to put it, tied-together classes? Something that extends through each skill line of a class's default skill lines but doesn't break if one skill line is swapped out, and is functional within a single skill line.

For DK this could be something like, for Ardent Flame, Draconic Power, and Earthen Heart respectively, contribute to a charge meter when dealing flame damage, when taking damage, and when healing, which then empowers skills to draw on the charge meter. This makes 'core' DKs with all three skill lines the most effective at building and spending, but allows another class to take, say, Ardent Flame and do it a little through dealing flame damage. They won't have the access to the other lines, but it's still 'functional' with just Ardent Flame, albeit limited without the additional contributing of Draconic Power and Earthen Heart.