What is a Class?

Radiate77 · January 27

Playing the game for over a decade I’ve often questioned what ESO would look like if you could use any skills with any setup. Over the last few years we’ve received Scribing and Subclassing and we are closer to that reality than ever, and so a question came to mind…

What is a Class?

When I see the above image, and read the descriptions of each named Class, you can see how each of their Skill Lines combine to create the overall themes matching their name.

My interpretation of this, is that a Class is a product of three skill lines mixed together.

Running off of that interpretation, how is it that we have only seven named classes yet hundreds of combinations?

If Sorcerers are described as strategists that make Daedric Pacts and use Dark Magic, what would be a Sorcerer that uses neither?

As master strategists, Sorcerers call upon Daedric pacts and dark magic as the source of their power.

Would it be safe to say that you are no longer a Sorcerer if you abandon your description for something else entirely, and what makes your new Class any less worthy of support at the level we are seeing with these new Reworks?

wolfie1.0. · January 27

Radiate77 wrote: »

Playing the game for over a decade I’ve often questioned what ESO would look like if you could use any skills with any setup. Over the last few years we’ve received Scribing and Subclassing and we are closer to that reality than ever, and so a question came to mind…

What is a Class?

When I see the above image, and read the descriptions of each named Class, you can see how each of their Skill Lines combine to create the overall themes matching their name.

My interpretation of this, is that a Class is a product of three skill lines mixed together.

Running off of that interpretation, how is it that we have only seven named classes yet hundreds of combinations?

If Sorcerers are described as strategists that make Daedric Pacts and use Dark Magic, what would be a Sorcerer that uses neither?
As master strategists, Sorcerers call upon Daedric pacts and dark magic as the source of their power.

Would it be safe to say that you are no longer a Sorcerer if you abandon your description for something else entirely, and what makes your new Class any less worthy of support at the level we are seeing with these new Reworks?

What support? They nuked my toxic poison DK....
I expect the same to happen to most of my odd builds that fit a niche theme.

Erickson9610 · January 27

I'd describe Werewolf functionally as a Class. After all, you don't get to use any abilities other than your Werewolf abilities while transformed, and the Werewolf abilities have a very solid theme and style of play.

Yeah, it's not something you pick at character creation, but you effectively replace your current Class with Werewolf when you transform, and you can't argue that Werewolf lacks a source of power (Hircine himself grants you Lycanthropy in the quest literally titled "Hircine's Gift") and a power fantasy (look at the tooltips of the skills for phrases like "Transform into a beast", "Pounce on an enemy with primal fury", "Roar with bloodlust", and "Shred enemies in front of you with your tainted claws" to get an idea of what the power fantasy is)

Soarora · January 27

For me, classes are a power fantasy.

Arcanists pull magic from Hermaeus Mora,
Necromancers are necromancers, enough said,
Templars are the “holy” knight, doing restoration magic (my templar pulls her magic from Meridia),
DKs are the pyromage (and akaviri),
Wardens are cryomage and “druid”,
Sorcerer is electromage and conjuration,
Nightblade is assassin and illusion.

I don’t consider nightblade but only illusion or only using bow skills to be a separate class. For instance, my main is based on my good ol sneak archer with bound bow and two conjured dremora build from Skyrim. So, she’s a sorcerer. For the conjuration and not for the shock destruction magic. I use shock skills but I just don’t think about it. Same for my frost warden whose supposed to be pure cryomage— I use fetcherfly, bear, netch, and shalks, I just don’t consider them a “canon” part of the build and that works fine for me.

Renato90085 · January 27

class is about having a specialized skill but normal guy
subclass is a normal guy too,but same time, he is five-star chef/track and field champion/ world class singer but not any specialized skill
also... this change is have different subclass got buff or nerf,so they dont need give system support

Radiate77 · January 27

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I'd describe Werewolf functionally as a Class. After all, you don't get to use any abilities other than your Werewolf abilities while transformed, and the Werewolf abilities have a very solid theme and style of play.

Yeah, it's not something you pick at character creation, but you effectively replace your current Class with Werewolf when you transform, and you can't argue that Werewolf lacks a source of power (Hircine himself grants you Lycanthropy in the quest literally titled "Hircine's Gift") and a power fantasy (look at the tooltips of the skills for phrases like "Transform into a beast", "Pounce on an enemy with primal fury", "Roar with bloodlust", and "Shred enemies in front of you with your tainted claws" to get an idea of what the power fantasy is)

Right, so your interpretation of a class would be what your character’s abilities consist of, and in the case of a werewolf, it’s appearance too.

Erickson9610 · January 27

Radiate77 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I'd describe Werewolf functionally as a Class. After all, you don't get to use any abilities other than your Werewolf abilities while transformed, and the Werewolf abilities have a very solid theme and style of play.

Yeah, it's not something you pick at character creation, but you effectively replace your current Class with Werewolf when you transform, and you can't argue that Werewolf lacks a source of power (Hircine himself grants you Lycanthropy in the quest literally titled "Hircine's Gift") and a power fantasy (look at the tooltips of the skills for phrases like "Transform into a beast", "Pounce on an enemy with primal fury", "Roar with bloodlust", and "Shred enemies in front of you with your tainted claws" to get an idea of what the power fantasy is)

Right, so your interpretation of a class would be what your character’s abilities consist of, and in the case of a werewolf, it’s appearance too.

The appearance is an important aspect for any Class. Namely, how Class abilities follow a theme or color scheme (such as Templar skills mainly involving light, spears, and a golden color). When you see that golden color, you would naturally think of the Templar class.

Werewolf's identity is so strong because it requires the player to give up their human form skills and appearance — the closest parallel to this is how Class Sets and their styles are restricted to characters of their respective Class. Freedom and identity are at two ends of a spectrum: the human form has great freedom at the cost of minimal identity, while the Werewolf form has great identity at the cost of minimal freedom.

As a side tangent, Skill Styles can change the visual identity of skills. Templar's golden light can be made to look blue instead, for instance. Or, skills like Volley or Puncture can be given elemental-themed Skill Styles that don't change the damage type, but make those skills visually fit better with existing archetypes or Classes.

tmacedo · January 27

Radiate77 wrote: »

What is a Class?

A miserable pile of skills...

Sorry, couldn't pass the joke.

Emeratis · January 27

My definition of a class is similar to yours. Originally what drew me to eso as a mmo, despite being a huge Elder Scrolls fan, was the freedom it gave for character builds compared to other more restrictive mmos. Even in beta testing, while I enjoyed the skill lines' system, I questioned why everything was open to be picked and chosen except for the designated class lines. It did not help that even early on npcs had dozens of classes more than even player characters have today. The Elder Scrolls as a franchise has often had more open ended interpretations of classes and a lot more options for players.

My dissatisfaction with the eso class system has grown over time for various additional reasons. Warden as a class feels very shoehorned, and I often have warden characters gravitating to one of the diverging themes (ice mage, druid, ranger/animal handler) while feeling like one of the three do not fit. I have characters like my bosmer spinner, who I made in 2015 as a sorc, but from both logistically in terms of the waste of everything to remake a character you've had for years for no other reasons than a class change and also because the sorcerer thematic also fits her somewhat as a spinner, was left feeling lacking her true identity before subclassing existed. I also noticed a trend that standalone skill lines added to the game like psijic felt far easier to add into the game and balance into the existing skill ecosystem than a full new class (because let's be honest, every dlc class has had balance issues compared to the original four on launch and in the years that followed after).

I do often wonder what could be if the class skill lines became more like building blocks than as they currently are. Could we start getting archetypes that are highly requested by many but difficult if not impossible in the current landscape of classes (bard, monk, hydromancer, artificer, etc) or ones that could exist in the current class landscape but even with sublcassing feel lacking synergy to function in a rewarding manner in combat currently (battlemage, elementalist, etc)?

My friend and I recently talked about classes in eso and history. The original class system was even more restricting than it is now. Near launch, as they reminded me, dks were largely considered the only tanks, same for templars with healer, etc. There were people who enjoyed nightblade and templar tanks, or people who enjoyed sorc healers who played what they loved and talked about wishing it could be better until ZOS eventually supported them and a more open vision of classes and roles. I kinda hope something similar happens with class lines.

My vision for eso and classes is to add more thematic lines and focus on building how they interact in combination with one another, perhaps even taking role into account. Ideally the original classes of eso would still exist in the system, but those of us who did not have a class we desired fully represented would have that as well. If you go back to the link for npc classes in eso, you will notice how they have overlap of skills and themes but mix and match them in a way similar to how some of us would have preferred to see subclassing implemented, have skills that players have never had access to that are interesting and could be made player skills, and show that a type of system like that could be made for players too possibly. I know this idea is radical and not everyone might like it, but as I've gone into in great detail above, I've never loved the class system in eso, and how much or little I tolerated it has varied over the years. In how I would prefer it, nothing would be lost and much would be gained.

The class overhauls are already happening and have needed to happen for a while. I just want to see it thought through in a way that opens up doors and makes the game feel more true to the Elder Scrolls franchise. It may be difficult but I think in the long run, similar to the original opening up the classes in terms of roles, it would feel more rewarding.

As you can tell, I've thought about this a lot over the years, especially in the past year since subclassing opened up the floodgates but was implemented in a way that was frustrating to see. I've posted bits and pieces in the forums but mostly shared my thoughts with my friends who also play. Your question and this thread feels like a good place to talk about it, though, so thank you for that.

Paramedicus · January 27

There are no classes in ESO (hyperbole fyi). The game finds itself in a strange position between the freedom offered by TES games and the limitations imposed by MMORPG, so the result is rather bland. For me, the best example of this are sorcerer or warden's pets. ZOS could build a cool system around them, where you level up your pet and choose its skills (yes, your pet would be like a companion => summoner class). This would create a completely different playstyle, and IMO, that's what fundamentally defines class, not the color of the skill's visual effects or lore behind it. Instead, we have another DoT nicely disguised as a pet.

nightbringer1993 · January 27

Classes nowadays are a pure joke since subclassing, and this class refresh will take way too long and classes like necromancer are once again going to be nerfed like hell, especialy if no class changes exept for the class being refreshed are made each patch.

DK looks like an oblivion knight sometimes, out of the deadland. It looks like a mix of a hell knight and dragon knight.

Sorcerer is an oblvion storm mage right. Summoning daedras and using dark magic and lightning. The theme is ok.

Warden, this class is a joke. A mix of a ranger and some sort of frost mage addicted to mushrooms. and the charm they added to the class with scribbing looks like the guy is giving drugs to his foes.

Templar has a nice theme here, a sacred spear, and light as its weapon and holy power to heal themselves and others. The class has a proper theme.

Arcanist is basicaly a warlock of Mora. The beam is a weird skill, I don't know why they added such thing to the game other that make an OP easy gameplay to make damage.

NIghtblade is supposed to be somesort of assassin, but sometimes it looks like a blood mage. It also fits the vampire theme.

Necromancer, the most nerfed and destroyed class in the game. It does not even rely on minions because its summons are just too weak. There was the blastbone that was good, but ZOS ultimatly destroyed it by introducing a skeleton that runs towards its master to hurt him but actualy gives him a buff, where is the logic in this. This classes seems like the classes they hate the most and if they hate it so much, why did they even released it? There was so much potential in this class that has been ruined.

Now concerning subclassing, this was the worst thing that happened to this game, and instead of doing sublcassing they should have started by refreshing classes first. Necromancer especialy because it is the classes that people has been asking for a refresh for a long time.
Now we see demonic mages weilding holy weapons and magic. Just as if good gods would allow dark mages to use their magic. Where is the logic in that? Nightblade is no longer a nightblade because people just use the assassination skill line for damage buffs.
Then classes like wardens are used as a base class in PvP to have access to charm in order to troll people and get them stuck in walls. The game is a joke nowadays, and I hope things will change, but I have been having this for a long time and I don't see things properly changing, I still believe the class refresh order is wrong and that some classes like necromancer are more in need that others gameplay and balance wise.

kotisovich · January 27

After subclassing it defines mastery script. Also sets from infinite archive depend on class, thats it

tomofhyrule · January 27

In this game, a Class is a balance handle.

Yes, to anyone who comes from the mainline games, it seems restrictive. But ESO is a different genre than the mainline games, and as such different mechanics are needed.

Since ESO involves competitive multiplayer content like PvP and endgame PvE, it needs to care about balance a lot more than the mainline single-player games. Nobody cares if your Skyrim Stealth Archer makes going through old barrows trivial, or if your Oblivion 100% Chameleon suit can make clearing dungeons out a breeze, or if you can stack potions in Morrowind enough that one attack does enough damage to crash the game. It’s your world, go for it.

But ESO is not one person’s world. It’s shared. And as such, it needs to have some restrictions to keep some semblance of balance. As to how good that balance has been so far… that’s questionable. But nobody can deny that throwing away most of those rules like they did last summer didn’t completely destroy that balancing handle and set players against each other.

I think that the D&D Class system (where you can only get the most powerful abilities of your Class by staying with it, but multiclassing gives you many more options) would have been a better design for Subclassing than what ESO went for, because then it gives the choice of either hard focusing the power and identity of one Class, versus the flexibility and versatility of having multiple. Either way, it is a tradeoff. The current system is really “do you want all the power with none of the drawbacks, or do you want to deliberately kneecap yourself?” An RPG should be about choices after all, and “I want it all” should not be a choice you can make.

And just because you have a set Class doesn’t mean you can’t still have lore for each character. I have one character for each Class, and each has minimum 6 pages worth of backstory on why that Class makes sense. I know everyone always talks about how “Warden makes no sense!” but mine is a Skaal - what makes more sense for a nature-worshipping animal-loving Nord from the northernmost reaches of Tamriel? Sure, some of the skills may look weird, but we have only 12 bar slots to fit a total of 18 Class skills, not counting any non-Class skills. It can fit if you’re creative enough. I also think my Sorc is a great example since his story makes him an elementalist monk. Most of his non-lightning stuff comes from his sets and other skills, and it ended up being a really fun build - not a good build per se, but good enough for overland shenanigans and really fitting for him as a character.

And sure, sometimes things fit better to mix them. That’s possible too. But what isn’t and shouldn’t be possible is to have everything all at once.

As for the current restrictions we have: the Class sets and styles should be unlocked now that skill lines can be swapped at will. I even think that, if they can justify the dev time without taking too much from anything else, a Class Change token so you can choose your Mastery Script or keep multiple of the same line should be a thing.

I really want more Classes. Especially in a post-Subclassing world, more Classes essentially means more skill lines for any of your characters. I’ve currently got two character backstories that I’m dying to use - one would fit really well with an Artificer Class, and the other is completely stealing Necro from my current one, so I’d race/name swap the current one and give that character to another Class. That’s another part of letting them write their own stories is that as he developed, he made less and less sense with that Class, so I’d love to remake him with something more fitting. As to what… I might like the orginally-planned Battlemage, or something like an Ansei or something stam-focused. I could even see swapping some of my characters around if it was good enough now that a few others are defining themselves. It’s all fun to see what clicks.
But most of all, I love the creativity of writing characters within a framework and seeing how they develop. My Arcanist was one of those who just clicked once I was making him - he was originally just an ancillary character in his brother’s (my Warden) story, but them the Arcanist Class released and he basically wrote himself in. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing your characters take shape.

Emeratis · January 27

tomofhyrule wrote: »

In this game, a Class is a balance handle.

Yes, to anyone who comes from the mainline games, it seems restrictive. But ESO is a different genre than the mainline games, and as such different mechanics are needed.

Since ESO involves competitive multiplayer content like PvP and endgame PvE, it needs to care about balance a lot more than the mainline single-player games. Nobody cares if your Skyrim Stealth Archer makes going through old barrows trivial, or if your Oblivion 100% Chameleon suit can make clearing dungeons out a breeze, or if you can stack potions in Morrowind enough that one attack does enough damage to crash the game. It’s your world, go for it.

But ESO is not one person’s world. It’s shared. And as such, it needs to have some restrictions to keep some semblance of balance. As to how good that balance has been so far… that’s questionable. But nobody can deny that throwing away most of those rules like they did last summer didn’t completely destroy that balancing handle and set players against each other.

I think that the D&D Class system (where you can only get the most powerful abilities of your Class by staying with it, but multiclassing gives you many more options) would have been a better design for Subclassing than what ESO went for, because then it gives the choice of either hard focusing the power and identity of one Class, versus the flexibility and versatility of having multiple. Either way, it is a tradeoff. The current system is really “do you want all the power with none of the drawbacks, or do you want to deliberately kneecap yourself?” An RPG should be about choices after all, and “I want it all” should not be a choice you can make.

I understand your criticism and I have thought of that and other counterpoints to opening up the class system for way too many hours. I do want to point out a few inherent assumptions though that go against my intent.

A balanced multiplayer game and a lot of freedom do not have to be conflicting ideals. I play other multiplayer games with pve and pvp elements that have thousands of moving parts of skills, items, and character customization that works relatively well. It can be done. As you mentioned, one can question the logistics of time and effort of dev resources versus whether it's worth it but I think many others including myself have expressed a desire to see the class system in eso more reflective of Elder Scrolls thematically. Again, I am aware of the relative cost of what I'm asking in terms of resources and time and effort. I've spent my own amount of time spitballing ideas on how to make it work (one I come back to is three morphs to each skill with a warrior/mage/thief lore thematic to give skills role and mode diversity and without people feeling like they are losing an option of a skill so someone else with a different playstyle can gain it).

I think another thing to note is that for those of us who feel limited by the classes, we see the skill lines thematically first and functionally secondary. As it stands and as you pointed out, in terms of a multiplayer game, the skill lines are tied to how they function in terms of tank, healer, dps, pvp, pve, etc. I think this is the heart of the tension of the class and subclassing system for players of different views. You and I both do harder content and are aware that as you go up the ladder in content difficulty, the choices you make become far more limited. Aesthetic and flavor give way to the bare minimum requirements to complete the content. Those bare minimums are often generous enough to allow choices, but how I ideally prefer to play and build based on thematic just doesn't exist past a point currently. Skill styles can somewhat doctor this problem, but we have very few skill styles and I suspect we won't see a ramp up in skill style releases until after the visual overhaul of classes portion is done.

I have my own gripes with the D&D class system, especially depending on what edition you are referring to, but I won't get into those here. I will just say on that point as I stated above, people who want more open class options and skill lines are seldom ever citing more power, they are often citing character and thematic of the lines. I think that's the major thing I see overlooked time and time again when class debates crop up and why the D&D multiclassing comparison does not land. Another issue with the comparison is that D&D in recent editions has about 13 core classes that represent a lot of traditional fantasy archetypes. ESO has 7, and within those the core class archetypes from general fantasy are poorly represented or not at all. For example, originally when I started ESO, I felt nightblade was a fitting representation of ranger and rogue, but warden also has ranger thematics too. In my first post I went into detail about warden's identity crisis and how people pick the class often because themes of plants/nature, ice, and animal husbandry are all highly desired fantasy archetypes, but often do not like all three being lumped together as they are.

I did snip part of your post for brevity but I personally have never liked the class restricted gear/scripts and would prefer them to all be on the table for players to use or as you said an option given for class changes to be implemented since neither existed until very recently and many of us have had our characters for decades. I also am in agreement with you on wanting more classes (or as I said at the very least class lines). Because we're in agreement overall there I didn't want to add too much there. I also similar to you want more character slots and class options to create more characters so I concur there.

I appreciate this talk even if we don't completely agree. The back and forth also helps hone ideas and put them out there for ZOS to take or leave what they find helpful. I think no matter how we feel about the class system, we all want a better game where players are happy. I truly believe these kinds of discussions help us get there and bridge divides in our game and community.

Radiate77 · January 27

Emeratis wrote: »

My definition of a class is similar to yours. Originally what drew me to eso as a mmo, despite being a huge Elder Scrolls fan, was the freedom it gave for character builds compared to other more restrictive mmos. Even in beta testing, while I enjoyed the skill lines' system, I questioned why everything was open to be picked and chosen except for the designated class lines. It did not help that even early on npcs had dozens of classes more than even player characters have today. The Elder Scrolls as a franchise has often had more open ended interpretations of classes and a lot more options for players.

My dissatisfaction with the eso class system has grown over time for various additional reasons. Warden as a class feels very shoehorned, and I often have warden characters gravitating to one of the diverging themes (ice mage, druid, ranger/animal handler) while feeling like one of the three do not fit. I have characters like my bosmer spinner, who I made in 2015 as a sorc, but from both logistically in terms of the waste of everything to remake a character you've had for years for no other reasons than a class change and also because the sorcerer thematic also fits her somewhat as a spinner, was left feeling lacking her true identity before subclassing existed. I also noticed a trend that standalone skill lines added to the game like psijic felt far easier to add into the game and balance into the existing skill ecosystem than a full new class (because let's be honest, every dlc class has had balance issues compared to the original four on launch and in the years that followed after).

I do often wonder what could be if the class skill lines became more like building blocks than as they currently are. Could we start getting archetypes that are highly requested by many but difficult if not impossible in the current landscape of classes (bard, monk, hydromancer, artificer, etc) or ones that could exist in the current class landscape but even with sublcassing feel lacking synergy to function in a rewarding manner in combat currently (battlemage, elementalist, etc)?

My friend and I recently talked about classes in eso and history. The original class system was even more restricting than it is now. Near launch, as they reminded me, dks were largely considered the only tanks, same for templars with healer, etc. There were people who enjoyed nightblade and templar tanks, or people who enjoyed sorc healers who played what they loved and talked about wishing it could be better until ZOS eventually supported them and a more open vision of classes and roles. I kinda hope something similar happens with class lines.

My vision for eso and classes is to add more thematic lines and focus on building how they interact in combination with one another, perhaps even taking role into account. Ideally the original classes of eso would still exist in the system, but those of us who did not have a class we desired fully represented would have that as well. If you go back to the link for npc classes in eso, you will notice how they have overlap of skills and themes but mix and match them in a way similar to how some of us would have preferred to see subclassing implemented, have skills that players have never had access to that are interesting and could be made player skills, and show that a type of system like that could be made for players too possibly. I know this idea is radical and not everyone might like it, but as I've gone into in great detail above, I've never loved the class system in eso, and how much or little I tolerated it has varied over the years. In how I would prefer it, nothing would be lost and much would be gained.

The class overhauls are already happening and have needed to happen for a while. I just want to see it thought through in a way that opens up doors and makes the game feel more true to the Elder Scrolls franchise. It may be difficult but I think in the long run, similar to the original opening up the classes in terms of roles, it would feel more rewarding.

As you can tell, I've thought about this a lot over the years, especially in the past year since subclassing opened up the floodgates but was implemented in a way that was frustrating to see. I've posted bits and pieces in the forums but mostly shared my thoughts with my friends who also play. Your question and this thread feels like a good place to talk about it, though, so thank you for that.

No problem! Thank you for your perspective.

I’ve been meaning to open this topic up for discussion for quite some time, but with our first Rework rounding out with iconic skills like Lava Whip now requiring Dragonknight as a base class, it is now becoming an incredibly more important topic to talk about.

Radiate77 · January 27

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I really want more Classes. Especially in a post-Subclassing world, more Classes essentially means more skill lines for any of your characters. I’ve currently got two character backstories that I’m dying to use - one would fit really well with an Artificer Class, and the other is completely stealing Necro from my current one, so I’d race/name swap the current one and give that character to another Class. That’s another part of letting them write their own stories is that as he developed, he made less and less sense with that Class, so I’d love to remake him with something more fitting. As to what… I might like the orginally-planned Battlemage, or something like an Ansei or something stam-focused. I could even see swapping some of my characters around if it was good enough now that a few others are defining themselves. It’s all fun to see what clicks.
But most of all, I love the creativity of writing characters within a framework and seeing how they develop. My Arcanist was one of those who just clicked once I was making him - he was originally just an ancillary character in his brother’s (my Warden) story, but them the Arcanist Class released and he basically wrote himself in. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing your characters take shape.

What I love about Subclassing, is that if we got a new starter Class, we would theoretically have hundreds of new Classes.

An argument for new marketable Classes becomes stronger in our new setting, and it makes me excited for the future.

Personofsecrets · January 27

It's a miserable little pile of secrets

Radiate77 · January 27

Personofsecrets wrote: »

It's a miserable little pile of secrets

What is this reference? 😂

I saw @tmacedo make a comment along the same lines.

tomofhyrule · January 27

Emeratis wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

In this game, a Class is a balance handle.

Yes, to anyone who comes from the mainline games, it seems restrictive. But ESO is a different genre than the mainline games, and as such different mechanics are needed.

Since ESO involves competitive multiplayer content like PvP and endgame PvE, it needs to care about balance a lot more than the mainline single-player games. Nobody cares if your Skyrim Stealth Archer makes going through old barrows trivial, or if your Oblivion 100% Chameleon suit can make clearing dungeons out a breeze, or if you can stack potions in Morrowind enough that one attack does enough damage to crash the game. It’s your world, go for it.

But ESO is not one person’s world. It’s shared. And as such, it needs to have some restrictions to keep some semblance of balance. As to how good that balance has been so far… that’s questionable. But nobody can deny that throwing away most of those rules like they did last summer didn’t completely destroy that balancing handle and set players against each other.

I think that the D&D Class system (where you can only get the most powerful abilities of your Class by staying with it, but multiclassing gives you many more options) would have been a better design for Subclassing than what ESO went for, because then it gives the choice of either hard focusing the power and identity of one Class, versus the flexibility and versatility of having multiple. Either way, it is a tradeoff. The current system is really “do you want all the power with none of the drawbacks, or do you want to deliberately kneecap yourself?” An RPG should be about choices after all, and “I want it all” should not be a choice you can make.

I understand your criticism and I have thought of that and other counterpoints to opening up the class system for way too many hours. I do want to point out a few inherent assumptions though that go against my intent.

A balanced multiplayer game and a lot of freedom do not have to be conflicting ideals. I play other multiplayer games with pve and pvp elements that have thousands of moving parts of skills, items, and character customization that works relatively well. It can be done.

I do agree with this. It absolutely can be done, and I feel that a lot of the consternation about Subclassing could have been prevented had the balance (Refresh?) happened before the floodgates were opened.

What we got though was essentially a method to say “anyone who chooses to run anything other than these specific lines is playing wrong.”

I’m not against Subclassing per se, but I am against the idea that some people present that it’s somehow wrong to prefer using the three lines of the same parent Class. I don’t think that they’re completely antithetical to the Elder Scrolls universe as they are, and even Classes like Warden that most people call out as specifically being a muddled mess are ones that I have no problem with because I do see the use cases.

It also does come down to freedom in creativity as well. I’m the type of person who likes being creative with some boundaries to springboard off of, but something too open paralyzes me with indecision. It’s why if I’m playing The Sims or something, I’ll start with a prebuilt house and decorate up from there, but I can’t deal with a completely from-scratch.

The one place that I do feel that Subclassing could be massively contentious though is PvP. One of the big things to consider in a PvP scenario is how to counterplay, but Subclassing means it’s much harder to see what others’ capabilities are and therefore try to intelligently counterplay them. However, I’m not a big PvPer, so I can’t really comment on how much seeing a Warden suddenly go invisible or streak away will affect PvP in general.

I think another thing to note is that for those of us who feel limited by the classes, we see the skill lines thematically first and functionally secondary. As it stands and as you pointed out, in terms of a multiplayer game, the skill lines are tied to how they function in terms of tank, healer, dps, pvp, pve, etc. I think this is the heart of the tension of the class and subclassing system for players of different views. You and I both do harder content and are aware that as you go up the ladder in content difficulty, the choices you make become far more limited. Aesthetic and flavor give way to the bare minimum requirements to complete the content. Those bare minimums are often generous enough to allow choices, but how I ideally prefer to play and build based on thematic just doesn't exist past a point currently. Skill styles can somewhat doctor this problem, but we have very few skill styles and I suspect we won't see a ramp up in skill style releases until after the visual overhaul of classes portion is done.

I would say that theme and form are still extremely important to me even if I don’t choose to Subclass. I do like the theme of a Class as a whole and I prefer trying to keep my characters’ abilities consistent across their lines.

But the major issue was with the DLC Classes specifically tying a line’s theme to a set role, which - once the floodgates were opened without safeguards - allowed people to stack lines specifically based on function with no regard to theme beyond “do big deeps” (or the support equivalent thereof). That I dislike greatly. And the fact that that was so ungodly much stronger than any thematic build, even one that was capable previously, made it so unfun.

Trials in general have been miserable lately since HMs and above are balanced specifically around the idea that all supports must source every buff in the game and all DPS must be at crit cap with the beam of massive cleave. But Dungeons are normally not as strict since there are only 1/3 as many people, so it can’t be assumed that they have every buff going in. As such, there is more freedom to go in with a build you enjoy and still be able to complete high level content. My dungeon prog does allow me to stay pureDK even though that’s not the hyperoptimized build, but that hasn’t stopped us from getting our trifectas, and it allows me to have more fun since I can recognize my character as a person and not a sweatbot.

I appreciate this talk even if we don't completely agree. The back and forth also helps hone ideas and put them out there for ZOS to take or leave what they find helpful. I think no matter how we feel about the class system, we all want a better game where players are happy. I truly believe these kinds of discussions help us get there and bridge divides in our game and community.

Yes, thank you. I don’t think that most people are wholly against Subclassing as much as they’re against the way it was implemented. I know I could care less about what other people do in the world themselves, but once what they do starts to affect me (i.e. I start being told that I am not allowed to bring my main to content or I need to build him into some unthematic abomination so I can throw out an extra buff for an extra 2 DPS), that’s when I start to take issue. And the clumsy rollout of Subclassing where all feedback was ignored with a “but why would anyone ever want to pick the base three lines when you could pick other lines?” combined with the devs saying “we’re not nerfing pure classes!” (which they absolutely did) and then coming back six months later with “well, Subclassing is way more powerful than pure classes, oopsie!” was… unwelcome, to say the least.

I’m sad that this Refresh is going to go until the end of 2027, since that suggests that we’re not likely to see a new Class/a new set of three Skill Lines until 2028 at the earliest. That means it’ll have been 5 years since Arcanist, when the ESO has dropped a new Class every three years on average (3 from launch to Warden, 2 to Necro, 4 to Arc). I desperately need two more Classes, and the longer I have to wait, the more I end up coming up with orphaned character backstories that only need a Class to fit them.

Emeratis · January 27

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I do agree with this. It absolutely can be done, and I feel that a lot of the consternation about Subclassing could have been prevented had the balance (Refresh?) happened before the floodgates were opened.

What we got though was essentially a method to say “anyone who chooses to run anything other than these specific lines is playing wrong.”

I’m not against Subclassing per se, but I am against the idea that some people present that it’s somehow wrong to prefer using the three lines of the same parent Class. I don’t think that they’re completely antithetical to the Elder Scrolls universe as they are, and even Classes like Warden that most people call out as specifically being a muddled mess are ones that I have no problem with because I do see the use cases.

It also does come down to freedom in creativity as well. I’m the type of person who likes being creative with some boundaries to springboard off of, but something too open paralyzes me with indecision. It’s why if I’m playing The Sims or something, I’ll start with a prebuilt house and decorate up from there, but I can’t deal with a completely from-scratch.

I have characters that I do not wish to subclass at all as well. My dk healer is a Mehrunes Dagon priestess who is a gifted geomancer and pyromancer. All of dk's base skill lines fit her comfortably thematically, even moreso with the heal additions to dk in the rework. I know some people have said or implied otherwise but in the systems I propose I very much wish for the original classes of the game to remain not just viable but supported. For some people, the pureclass options fit and fit well for their characters. For me it fit some while others it didn't. For some people they'd rather just have the freedom. I'd rather see all three of the above get love and support in game. I want to be clear that there is nothing wrong with the base classes if you like them and want to keep it that way and I hope nothing I've ever said implies otherwise.

I also understand that some people find too much freedom paralyzing and stressful, but I do wonder if more community driven builds or archtype guides would remedy that some? It kinda reminds me of the card games I also play. Some players love experimenting with cards and building fun decks that fit a theme. Others would rather netdeck and play. I think eso can offer similar.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The one place that I do feel that Subclassing could be massively contentious though is PvP. One of the big things to consider in a PvP scenario is how to counterplay, but Subclassing means it’s much harder to see what others’ capabilities are and therefore try to intelligently counterplay them. However, I’m not a big PvPer, so I can’t really comment on how much seeing a Warden suddenly go invisible or streak away will affect PvP in general.

PvP has had a major problem with visual clarity and information gaps before subclassing and until other parts of the game change I feel it will not get better. I admit I have not played as much pvp in recent years, but I used to pvp a lot from 2015-2019. There are a lot of longstanding pain points and frustrations in pvp that need dealt with, and while subclassing contributes to those, I do not think it creates anything that wasn't already existent in some form in a pvp setting that was frustrating to deal with.

I know that in the adjacent topic of skill styles, I worried if skill styles would be limited out of fear that a skill style reskin being too dramatically different from the base skill might create visual confusion in a gamebreaking way, but some of the skill styles released like the Hollowjack Unblinking Eye or Mirrormoor Blade Cloak can make the skill look very different than it's base so it seems that is not currently a consideration for ZOS despite other pvp based games offering strict rules on what a reskin should or should not do for pvp fairness.

Again, not discounting the overlap in problems but I think that should be a different, more pvp centric discussion, but I also think the class and subclassing changes do need to at least keep pvp in mind and not just balance for pve.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I would say that theme and form are still extremely important to me even if I don’t choose to Subclass. I do like the theme of a Class as a whole and I prefer trying to keep my characters’ abilities consistent across their lines.

But the major issue was with the DLC Classes specifically tying a line’s theme to a set role, which - once the floodgates were opened without safeguards - allowed people to stack lines specifically based on function with no regard to theme beyond “do big deeps” (or the support equivalent thereof). That I dislike greatly. And the fact that that was so ungodly much stronger than any thematic build, even one that was capable previously, made it so unfun.

Trials in general have been miserable lately since HMs and above are balanced specifically around the idea that all supports must source every buff in the game and all DPS must be at crit cap with the beam of massive cleave. But Dungeons are normally not as strict since there are only 1/3 as many people, so it can’t be assumed that they have every buff going in. As such, there is more freedom to go in with a build you enjoy and still be able to complete high level content. My dungeon prog does allow me to stay pureDK even though that’s not the hyperoptimized build, but that hasn’t stopped us from getting our trifectas, and it allows me to have more fun since I can recognize my character as a person and not a sweatbot.

I do very much agree that players can be satisfied with the original classes of the game and still have picked those largely or entirely based on thematic. I mostly was trying to express here that those who have little to no attachment to their base class are more likely to feel thematic is very important to them but also that the base game thematics do not fully fit what their vision is for a character. As I mentioned in the post, a lot of common archetypes just are not present currently and I think that adds to the frustration.

I concur that trial hardmodes have been absolutely miserable lately for similar reasons. I am subclassing on my main in trials to get my achievements but outside of good company, it's felt far less fun lately to prog things. My dungeon group is just getting out of a long hiatus and we're extremely behind in achievements so while we're all catching up I have less I can say for challenge versus playing something enjoyable since we're doing dated content or challengers we haven't finished yet before moving up to tris but it's good to know that dungeons have a bit more breathing room. I guessed as such given four players versus twelve means some buffs are just not going to be there logistically.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Yes, thank you. I don’t think that most people are wholly against Subclassing as much as they’re against the way it was implemented. I know I could care less about what other people do in the world themselves, but once what they do starts to affect me (i.e. I start being told that I am not allowed to bring my main to content or I need to build him into some unthematic abomination so I can throw out an extra buff for an extra 2 DPS), that’s when I start to take issue. And the clumsy rollout of Subclassing where all feedback was ignored with a “but why would anyone ever want to pick the base three lines when you could pick other lines?” combined with the devs saying “we’re not nerfing pure classes!” (which they absolutely did) and then coming back six months later with “well, Subclassing is way more powerful than pure classes, oopsie!” was… unwelcome, to say the least.

I’m sad that this Refresh is going to go until the end of 2027, since that suggests that we’re not likely to see a new Class/a new set of three Skill Lines until 2028 at the earliest. That means it’ll have been 5 years since Arcanist, when the ESO has dropped a new Class every three years on average (3 from launch to Warden, 2 to Necro, 4 to Arc). I desperately need two more Classes, and the longer I have to wait, the more I end up coming up with orphaned character backstories that only need a Class to fit them.

I think we're very much on the same page more than we're not. Subclassing or a system like it is something I wished for this game since the early years, and while I love the idea of it and what it could bring to the game, only the foolish would say it was implemented well. I also think we can all agree that subclassing first and then class overhaul after was a "cart before the horse" situation. It didn't work and it built a lot of frustration and resentment. I wish that the order of the two reveals was reversed but we can't go back and time and fix that, we can only work with what we have now and try to mend discomfort and upset. I also lament how long the class refresh is going to take as it does make the whole thing feel more uncomfortable while we're all in collective limbo.

Ah, similar to you I've been sitting on some characters for years now and am restless for more character slots and class/archetype options. Here's to hoping they come sooner rather than later for us.

Radiate77 · January 27

I just want to say thank you @tomofhyrule & @Emeratis for honoring the spirit of this thread.

Oftentimes it is incredibly easy to overlook the areas where we intersect on ideals, and I’m glad that hasn’t happened yet.

spartaxoxo · January 27

For me, a class is a ZOS made thematic setup that consists of three skill lines that are intended to work together to enable a type of power fantasy. Werewolf is a special hybrid of a class and an ult.

Builds are player created setups used to interact with the game world.

Radiate77 · January 27

spartaxoxo wrote: »

For me, a class is a ZOS made thematic setup that consists of three skill lines that are intended to work together to enable a type of power fantasy. Werewolf is a special hybrid of a class and an ult.

Builds are player created setups used to interact with the game world.

See this is what I was looking for. I wonder how many others look to ZOS’ recognition of player made classes for validity, which further begs the question, how hard would it be for them to attach a name to each combination?

And also, I agree that builds are player created setups used to interact with the game world, but more closely, you can examine this comparison.

-Build 1 uses all Sorcerer skills and is wearing Relequen for single target damage.

-Build 2 uses all different, but thematically similar Sorcerer skills found within the same three lines, is wearing Coral Riptide for AoE damage.

Notice how both builds are still a Sorcerer, yet different builds, and that is an important distinction.

spartaxoxo · January 27

-Snipped for brevity-

Radiate77 wrote: »

Notice how both builds are still a Sorcerer, yet different builds, and that is an important distinction.

I would go so far as to say if you're base class is a sorcerer than your class is a sorcerer regardless of other skill lines or number of sorc skills slotted.

Your build might be "summoner," or whatever but you're class is sorcerer.

Not because of viewing builds and classes as some difference in importance. But because I think it becomes very difficult to communicate if there are a thousand different custom names for the same or similar setups.

So if I were to say make a "summoner," I would say "I'm a sorc (class) summoner (build name)" with xyz setup. And my build may include a mix of skill lines, weapon skills, scribed skills, etc.

Radiate77 · January 27

spartaxoxo wrote: »

-Snipped for brevity-

Radiate77 wrote: »

Notice how both builds are still a Sorcerer, yet different builds, and that is an important distinction.

…Not because of viewing builds and classes as some difference in importance. But because I think it becomes very difficult to communicate if there are a thousand different custom names for the same or similar setups...

You make a great point with this. What would be a good way to approach names for different skill line combinations?

Maybe a Prefix-Suffix system? Or perhaps what if they bundled multiple combinations into a single archetype, one such example…

Dragon-Knight

For Dragonknight we have the base three skill lines, Ardent Flame, Draconic Power, and Earthen Heart… but what if you swapped out Ardent Flame for Winter’s Embrace or Stormcalling?

Dragons are not exclusive to Flame.

Maybe this would be confusing at first, but wouldn’t it evoke the same imagery when you heard the name used for all three options?

Creating a net for skill line combinations might be the best way to approach our new classes, and the answer might be as simple as just increasing our number from 7 to 14, or 21.

tmacedo · January 27

Radiate77 wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

It's a miserable little pile of secrets

What is this reference? 😂

I saw @tmacedo make a comment along the same lines.

Its an iconic dialog in Castlevania Simphony of the Night at the beggining, when Richter confronts Dracula. It's famous due to how bad the dub is.

Radiate77 · January 27

tmacedo wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

It's a miserable little pile of secrets

What is this reference? 😂

I saw @tmacedo make a comment along the same lines.

Its an iconic dialog in Castlevania Simphony of the Night at the beggining, when Richter confronts Dracula. It's famous due to how bad the dub is.

I just watched a video, that’s hilarious.

So you never answered my question in the OP, what is your definition of a Class?

I’m curious to hear as many opinions on this as possible.

TX12001rwb17_ESO · January 28

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I'd describe Werewolf functionally as a Class. After all, you don't get to use any abilities other than your Werewolf abilities while transformed, and the Werewolf abilities have a very solid theme and style of play.

Yeah, it's not something you pick at character creation, but you effectively replace your current Class with Werewolf when you transform, and you can't argue that Werewolf lacks a source of power (Hircine himself grants you Lycanthropy in the quest literally titled "Hircine's Gift") and a power fantasy (look at the tooltips of the skills for phrases like "Transform into a beast", "Pounce on an enemy with primal fury", "Roar with bloodlust", and "Shred enemies in front of you with your tainted claws" to get an idea of what the power fantasy is)

Yet your half the size of most NPC Werewolves, cannot really feel powerful when you're Werewolf is the runt of the litter.

Ratzkifal · January 28

Class

[1] a set or category of things having some property or attribute in common and differentiated from others by kind, type, or quality.
In the context of a game, what members of a particular class have in common are usually skills and/or theme. A templar healer and a templar dps have not many shared abilities, but they still share a theme. In other RPGs these are further divided and you get Paladin and Priest. Templar combines a set of common RPG character archetypes into one class.

This is why I think subclassing destroyed class identity, as a Templar with tentacles isn't much of a Templar anymore, even if they still use holy magic. If the game had been made with subclassing in mind 11 years ago, it might have been more akin to Morrowind's classes, where a class is a particular combination of major and minor (starting) skills.
If I had been in charge of it back then, I would have given player access to all skill lines and then told them "pick 5 among any of these. This determines your class. You can change it later but five is all you'll ever get at any given time." Then you'd be able to have 3 templar skill lines, heavy armor and a weapon, or you'd be able to drop your weapon and armor line and instead pick up Ardent Flame and Daedric Summoning. Needless to say the class skills we have now probably wouldn't exist the way they do under that paradigm, but you get the point. And if anybody asks you about your build, simply stating the name of your class would tell them which 5 skill lines you picked. A perfect mix of the freedom to choose everything, while also having comprehensive and meaningful limits. New skill lines could be added at any point without the fear of breaking something because people will have only 5 at most.

Radiate77 · January 28

Ratzkifal wrote: »

…This is why I think subclassing destroyed class identity, as a Templar with tentacles isn't much of a Templar anymore, even if they still use holy magic...

Now my question is this, how has the identity of a Templar been destroyed in this situation?

Using tentacles, in theory you are no longer a Templar, but something else entirely, yet someone who wants to play a Templar can still do so. Sure it won’t be optimal until their rework comes around, but how many other unnamed classes share that in common?

What about those player made classes and their viability when these reworks are done?

At the current trajectory with skills that read “for each Dragonknight ability slotted” or “when using a Dragonknight” how are classes contrived by three separate base class skill lines going to survive in this environment?

Are any of the classes I’ve named in my Signature overperforming? What happens to let’s say, Druid, when Animal Companion skills require a Warden base class, Stormcalling skills function based off of how many Sorcerer skills are slotted, and Earthen Heart passives are designed to function for Dragonknights?

Ratzkifal · January 28

Radiate77 wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

…This is why I think subclassing destroyed class identity, as a Templar with tentacles isn't much of a Templar anymore, even if they still use holy magic...

Now my question is this, how has the identity of a Templar been destroyed in this situation?

[... ]Sure it won’t be optimal [... ]

You answered your own question. Especially in PvP you are being subjected to what everybody else is doing with their new subclassing freedom. And they are using it to stack Animal Companions, Assassination, Storm Calling and Aedric Spear. Sometimes Gravelord. At least one of those skill lines, but usually two, will be found in every current PvP build that's any good. If you aren't running this, the people that are will stomp you into the ground. In PvE the main issue comes from Arcanist simply being a lot better than all the other classes thanks to Herald of the Tome allowing them to deal big damage in a noncomplicated way, while gaining a big shield and having big AOE damage on top that makes the toughest content in the game considerably easier, but at the cost of everyone now having to be an Arcanist or using Herald of the Tome.

Radiate77 wrote: »

[...] but how many other unnamed classes share that in common?

Which is why I'm saying class identity was destroyed rather than saying "templar identity was destroyed".

Radiate77 wrote: »

What about those player made classes and their viability when these reworks are done?

Those will still be there, but they won't be as obnoxiously overpowered, because after the reworks the relevant passives and abilities are spread out more evenly so that every skill line offers a similar level of power as another so that the delta between pureclass and subclass builds is minimal. If you ask me personally, subclass builds can be a lot weaker than pureclass builds, but I don't think ZOS will let it come to that, so don't you worry.

Radiate77 wrote: »

At the current trajectory with skills that read “for each Dragonknight ability slotted” or “when using a Dragonknight” how are classes contrived by three separate base class skill lines going to survive in this environment?

They'll be just fine. You still get to choose which to pick and if Ardent Flame, Draconic Might and Earthen Heart have an equal powershare, equal to that of every other class, subclass builds are not at a disadvantage. Pure dragonknight only has one +10% crit damage bonus. A subclass build can get +30% from three different classes. That more than makes up for not getting the full bonus from passives that read "for each Dragonknight ability slotted". I'm not aware of any "when using a Dragonknight" clause anywhere. Which week of PTS did they add that?

Radiate77 wrote: »

Are any of the classes I’ve named in my Signature overperforming? What happens to let’s say, Druid, when Animal Companion skills require a Warden base class, Stormcalling skills function based off of how many Sorcerer skills are slotted, and Earthen Heart passives are designed to function for Dragonknights?

From the ones you listed, in PvE, no they aren't. In PvP your Death Knight is quite the nasty combination and so is Druid. Elementalist can be quite nasty also depending on the skills and sets you use.
But you asked me what happens to that "class" you made if they put limits and restrictions onto those skill lines. Nothing really. You don't really care about optimization if that's your current build. Nothing wrong with that, but it's weird to complain about optimization concerns if you aren't optimizing. You just continue using the build you were using and shrug off the nerfs like you are already shrugging off the meta, or you adapt and change your build the way we've all been doing whenever nerfs came our way. Just remember that it was subclassing that made these nerfs necessary in the first place.