Official Discussion Thread for "ESO Dev Updates—February 2026"

Radiate77 · February 19

Also, thank you @code65536 that was exactly what I am saying.

ivaylo.krumoveb17_ESO · February 19

AedanHalcon wrote: »

I really don't like the class mastery stuff. It feels like a real backtrack on subclassing. Tying anything powerful to a baseclass makes me feel like I'm losing stuff if I decide to Subclass. When especially after the class reworks are done it will end up just being a buff considering I thought the whole Idea was to to balance around skill lines while providing synergy between the class skill lines. Which is exactly what I wanted as it would lead to a careful weighing of the up and downsides of swapping out a skill line while also not punishing you too hard for swapping one out for flavor. For example I have a Nord Arcanist who uses the winters embrace skill line and in my head its almost more important to her Identity than any individual Arcanist skill line so I wont remove it and she loses a benefit with no trade off as I'm not subclassing her for a meta reason.

Yeah, they've created this mess and now they want to undo it by imposing even more drastic imbalance. Honestly, I don't expect anything good from this combat design team, especially with *this* combat director. They don't have a clue what they are doing. They just iterate in the hope they can blindly hit the right path. In the meantime the veteran players are leaving in droves.

Btw, these class mastery passives are just a copy-pasted idea proposed in this very forum. This may tell you how desperate they are to find а solution to the problems they themselves created.

Elvenheart · February 19

I really like the idea of class mastery passives. I think that combined with the rework of the class skill lines this will put Subclassing on a more even footing and bring back more class diversity even at the top levels. Of course, we won’t know until we see how it all plays out, but I’m cautiously optimistic. 🙂

Rev Rielle · 12:13AM

Radiate77 wrote: »

...
My concern is this, what happens at the end of the road? When all Skill Lines are balanced to each other? What incentive would one have to use a Subclass from another Class, if they become weaker by doing so?
....

If one becomes obviously weaker; they'll address that. There is no end of the road when it comes to class/build balance, et cetera.

From the stream I believe it's fairly clear that their goal is to not have either sublcassing or single class builds consistently significantly stronger than eachother for the majority of content in-game. As Brian and Alec (actually everyone) both mentioned during the stream, there's nothing that's set in stone, everything can be adjusted as they deem necessary as time goes by to work towards that ideal.

That ideal? I feel their goal is, regardless of role (tank/dps/heal) there will be a wide variety of build options, both containing subclassing and single-classing choice options, that will enable players to participate in content and perform at the highest level, or being able to express themselves more individually with novel builds and play-styles. Skill lines, class identity, single-class mastery, et cetera, will always be some of the tools available that can be adjusted to work towards this.

Will they ever get there? No, of course not, no such game has ever gotten to a place of true balance for any extended period of time, and ESO is more complicated than many. However, that certanily doesn't mean they shouldn't a) try new things, and b) continually work towards that goal. And that's what they're doing.

React · 12:22AM

Radiate77 wrote: »

@React thanks for signal boosting a horrible addition to the game bro. You’re really advocating for the community on that one.

Class Mastery Skill Lines will bury the 99% of build combinations not utilizing the top 3 Skill Lines. Don’t talk about that though.

Listen man, it's fine if you love subclassing. I've seen you post about it here multiple times. I think subclassing was a mistake, and so do many other PVP players I talk to on a daily basis. If the PvP population numbers are any indicator of subclassing's popularity, I'd say this opinion is that of the majority as well since we're sitting at all time low cyrodiil population daily on PC NA.

What I'm signal boosting is that I think they're heading in the right direction by continuing to introduce mechanics which encourage you to play a pure class over a subclass build. It's not an easy job for them to undo the damage caused by the completely careless introduction of subclassing, and I applaud their efforts so far. These passives aren't perfect, but they've got all the time in the world to buff/nerf things, or change their functionalities entirely.

Seraphayel · 12:27AM

Radiate77 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Kallykat wrote: »

I was most interested in the things Jason talked about. I still have a lot of questions, but it was good to hear at least a little more about those upcoming features.

You can always post your questions here. Just know we may not be able to answer specifics until we are just a little closer. But we will also be able to give more clear answers once that content is up on PTS as well.

Kevin you guys are making a bad turn with Class Mastery Passives, I get that the values are subject to change, but this cannot exist post-Refresh.

It can and should. Class Mastery is the right way to tackle the subclassing issues. A pure class build should always be as strong as a subclassing build, if not stronger. Subclassing was meant to diversify the gameplay, not min-max everything else out of existence (which is the case now).

You subclass Sorcerer for your Templar to e.g. get access to Streak, not to combine some passive effects for maximum outcome. That should have always been a pure class thing.

Aliyavana · 1:04AM

This might be too early to talk about as not much information was revealed yet on the stream, but the new Thieves Guild logo is making me nervous. The location is not confirmed, but the logo on the right seems to have a blue color scheme like the Welkynd Stones that Ayleids use. I am hoping instead it is a reference to something else like a skyshard because we see one used on Balfiera in the retired tutorial.

The image that was provided below on stream seems to be Bretonish looking in appearance which I assume hints at the setting, and I am very worried that we will get more Ayleid content in High Rock due to the new TG logo assuming it takes place there. A common complaint is that the Direnni get no spotlight in their own province of High Rock, but Ayleids who have a chance to appear in almost every province have a larger presence than the Direnni. I hope I am proven wrong and that it is not referencing the Ayleids if its High Rock content.

Ratzkifal · 2:57AM

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Feels kind of ironic that I wouldn't get any drops after pointing this out and tripple checking that everything is setup correctly for me. Missing drops due to time zones doesn't feel good? Imagine watching the stream, thinking you are getting drops and only realizing afterwards that apparently nothing worked and you still didn't get drops.
I'd say that's another point in favor of using redeem codes over twitch campaigns when it comes to the official ZOS streams. It's just more reliable that way.

Sorry you had issues with the drops. Please put in a ticket with customer service and they should be able to assist. If you provide me with the ticket number, I will also follow up with customer service.

@ZOS_Kevin Ticket Number is 260219-003848
Not the first time this happened but the first time it happened this way. It doesn't even display for me that there ever was a drop campaign. It's not even among the closed campaigns. Very strange. Some people said it's a bug on Twitch's end but I can't confirm or deny that.
By the way, what is the right way to enter a support ticket for Twitch drops? I did it through Billing/code redemption issues, but there isn't exactly a "proof of purchase" for drops. I just attached a screenshot of my earliest twitch message in the livestream chat, since it doesn't display any ESO drop campaign for me at all.

ZOS_JasonBarnes · 3:06AM

Aliyavana wrote: »

This might be too early to talk about as not much information was revealed yet on the stream, but the new Thieves Guild logo is making me nervous. The location is not confirmed, but the logo on the right seems to have a blue color scheme like the Welkynd Stones that Ayleids use. I am hoping instead it is a reference to something else like a skyshard because we see one used on Balfiera in the retired tutorial.

The image that was provided below on stream seems to be Bretonish looking in appearance which I assume hints at the setting, and I am very worried that we will get more Ayleid content in High Rock due to the new TG logo assuming it takes place there. A common complaint is that the Direnni get no spotlight in their own province of High Rock, but Ayleids who have a chance to appear in almost every province have a larger presence than the Direnni. I hope I am proven wrong and that it is not referencing the Ayleids if its High Rock content.

Can confirm ... the logo is not Ayleid related.

Radiate77 · 3:40AM

React wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

@React thanks for signal boosting a horrible addition to the game bro. You’re really advocating for the community on that one.

Class Mastery Skill Lines will bury the 99% of build combinations not utilizing the top 3 Skill Lines. Don’t talk about that though.

Listen man, it's fine if you love subclassing. I've seen you post about it here multiple times. I think subclassing was a mistake, and so do many other PVP players I talk to on a daily basis. If the PvP population numbers are any indicator of subclassing's popularity, I'd say this opinion is that of the majority as well since we're sitting at all time low cyrodiil population daily on PC NA.

What I'm signal boosting is that I think they're heading in the right direction by continuing to introduce mechanics which encourage you to play a pure class over a subclass build. It's not an easy job for them to undo the damage caused by the completely careless introduction of subclassing, and I applaud their efforts so far. These passives aren't perfect, but they've got all the time in the world to buff/nerf things, or change their functionalities entirely.

ESO’s overall population has dipped.
Naturally, the PvP population will dip too.

You can say there’s a correlation, but there was almost NOTHING good about 2025 content-wise. The best we got was a mix-up of what existed prior and zero balance shake-ups.

You’re absolutely right when you say that they have all the time in the world, 2 years is a long time… assuming they keep up pace on these reworks. I said it earlier, Class Mastery lines are great in the meanwhile, but these Refreshes are solving the imbalance of Subclassing. Why do we need another imbalance, but sanctioned?

Radiate77 · 3:50AM

@ZOS_JasonBarnes hey, just wanted to say that your passion for the game was contagious, it’s great to see you guys as excited as us to get our hands on the content you’ve worked so hard on.

That said, I love the Thieves Guild in prior games, and have been waiting to hear about what happened after Hew’s Bane.

Lord_Hev · 4:27AM

I'm almost terrified to feel a sense of optimism. But all this is looking incredible and reassuring.

Still not sold on the challenge difficulty and being unintentionally griefed by other people not playing by the same rules, but I appreciate that it is something at least.

DenverRalphy · 4:34AM

Lord_Hev wrote: »

Still not sold on the challenge difficulty and being unintentionally griefed by other people not playing by the same rules, but I appreciate that it is something at least.

Yeah, I was actually surprised when it was openly confirmed that..."Yeah, it can be abused", and then shrugged it off like "whatcha gonna do".

[edit] To be clear.. that was summarized by me. But it's actually not far off the mark.

React · 4:37AM

Radiate77 wrote: »

ESO’s overall population has dipped.
Naturally, the PvP population will dip too.

You can say there’s a correlation, but there was almost NOTHING good about 2025 content-wise. The best we got was a mix-up of what existed prior and zero balance shake-ups.

Sure the lack of content certainly didn't help, but I believe one of the main reasons behind the low population is very likely how subclassing was introduced. I've seen this sentiment shared widely not only amongst the PVP population, but the endgame PVE population too. Most of the people I've seen who are absolutely 100% onboard with full, no limits subclassing are those who prefer to play ESO like a single player or roleplaying elder scrolls game, but I think it is important to remember that this IS an MMO and proper combat balancing IS important for the overall health of the game.

It really is a "genie out of the bottle" situation. In the context of ESO as an MMO, subclassing objectively should not have been introduced the way that it was. There should have been limitations or drawbacks to the system in place at launch, and a proper balancing pass should have been done on the scale of what these reworks are now aiming to accomplish over the course of two years. But because they didn't do that, they now have no choice but to take major steps in the opposite direction. They can't simply revert the system, as obviously there would be many people dissatisfied with that and we all have spent tons of hours grinding out subclassing relating things. But they have to do something, and they are absolutely on the right track with the class re-balancing and now these class mastery passives.

Radiate77 wrote: »

You’re absolutely right when you say that they have all the time in the world, 2 years is a long time… assuming they keep up pace on these reworks. I said it earlier, Class Mastery lines are great in the meanwhile, but these Refreshes are solving the imbalance of Subclassing. Why do we need another imbalance, but sanctioned?

We don't know if these reworks will solve the imbalance of subclassing, though. It looks good for dragonknight so far, but who is to say that we won't land back in the same place when all is said and done and every class has been reworked? You have to consider how absurd the power difference is between a meta subclassing build and just about any given pure class at the moment. It isn't even close. A few in-class dependencies like what we're seeing with DK are a start and DK itself may play best as a pure class for now, but once the other classes are also buffed it seems unlikely that in-class dependencies on par with those on the reworked DK will be enough alone to encourage pure classing as a competitive option to subclassing.

I don't see an issue with the further incentive being added with these class mastery options. I think it's a continued step in the right direction alongside the class dependencies within the reworks themselves, and I hope they stay the course.

Red_Feather · 4:49AM

Please use those class mastery passives to also make subclassing feel different depending on what your main class is. Or at least something similar to that class mastery passive. Because your main class influencing how you use subclassing would be cool instead of everyone using the same 3 skill ines.

Freelancer_ESO · 5:05AM

Really liked the stream.

Would it be a consideration at all with U50 to maybe slightly nerf some of the higher performing abilities at the same time that you are adding the Class Mastery? The logic being that the buffs from the class mastery can leave the Pure Class players at roughly the same or a better point even with minor nerfs to some potentially over-performing areas.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · 6:06AM

The communication and upcoming changes are a breath of fresh air. That presentation was well done and the new changes are content are headed in the right direction. Thank you for listening!
If the class mastery will let my Warden main compete in end game and be on leaderboards like it did before, Im totally on board.
Pure classes SHOULD be able to hit like the aedric/herald/assassination combo.
Hopefully we will see trials with less than half of the dps running fatecarver again. Really looking forward to seeing the new DK out there as well.
And we are all really excited about grouping for the new overland and Night Market. It feels good to be able to add new things like this to our guild itinerary and we will definitely be there to participate.

Aliyavana · 6:25AM

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Aliyavana wrote: »

This might be too early to talk about as not much information was revealed yet on the stream, but the new Thieves Guild logo is making me nervous. The location is not confirmed, but the logo on the right seems to have a blue color scheme like the Welkynd Stones that Ayleids use. I am hoping instead it is a reference to something else like a skyshard because we see one used on Balfiera in the retired tutorial.

The image that was provided below on stream seems to be Bretonish looking in appearance which I assume hints at the setting, and I am very worried that we will get more Ayleid content in High Rock due to the new TG logo assuming it takes place there. A common complaint is that the Direnni get no spotlight in their own province of High Rock, but Ayleids who have a chance to appear in almost every province have a larger presence than the Direnni. I hope I am proven wrong and that it is not referencing the Ayleids if its High Rock content.

Can confirm ... the logo is not Ayleid related.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! Thank you!

Ruthless · 6:39AM

keep up the streams they are great

Bubosh · 7:06AM

Class mastery is the best thing happening in 2026, not sure if it can fix the damage subclassing has caused but I was happy to see it introduced in the stream and also twitch chat was going insanely happy about it. Please don't change the direction because only few ppl are voicing it to be the end, we all know subclassing was one of the biggest negative shake ups for player population dropping to the ground in eso and having this class mastery system can be the fix to have the player population being fixed again too. Better would be turning off subclassing fully in any pvp environment or any leaderboard environment in my opinion but that class mastery is at least something so pure classes can be again viable since as many people stated here too a subclass should never be better than a mastered pure class.

twisttop138 · 12:03PM

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Lord_Hev wrote: »

Still not sold on the challenge difficulty and being unintentionally griefed by other people not playing by the same rules, but I appreciate that it is something at least.

Yeah, I was actually surprised when it was openly confirmed that..."Yeah, it can be abused", and then shrugged it off like "whatcha gonna do".

[edit] To be clear.. that was summarized by me. But it's actually not far off the mark.

But I mean does someone getting more xp really matter in the long run. The devs seem to feel the same way. What business is it of anyone's if I grind xp with someone on normal. That sounds horrendous and boring but not really a cause for concern. That may not be what you're referring to, but instead people one shotting the mobs I'm fighting on my vestige difficulty. I guess I see the concern but like Finn said, I'm pretty much in the it already happens in game now camp. We're just gonna have to see how it plays out. They're very committed to not separating anyone so we're getting what we're getting.

twisttop138 · 12:05PM

Does anyone know of a written cliff notes version of this stream? I've become the guild discord ESO news broadcasting guy. I was at work and only got to catch part of it and was busy with kids last night.

heimdall14_9 · 1:04PM

@ZOS_ALEC VERISH has said things will be looked at based off players feedback and at this point i am afraid for this as every last ZOS development member i've tagged in any of my post BUT 1 has been ignored even one that shows very clearly an forbidden action being done

https://youtu.be/XEAjLeMk-qE

THE " ONE-ACTION" RULE is 100% not being applied here as with 0 actions from player actions are taking place using script that senses the players location and activities to automatically do actions without the player needing to do anything but set it and forget it

so how am i to think that player feedback means anything to ZOS development, when they show an blind eye to something that is FORBIDDEN

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_JasonBarnes

Renato90085 · 1:37PM

heimdall14_9 wrote: »

@ZOS_ALEC VERISH has said things will be looked at based off players feedback and at this point i am afraid for this as every last ZOS development member i've tagged in any of my post BUT 1 has been ignored even one that shows very clearly an forbidden action being done
https://youtu.be/XEAjLeMk-qE

THE " ONE-ACTION" RULE is 100% not being applied here as with 0 actions from player actions are taking place using script that senses the players location and activities to automatically do actions without the player needing to do anything but set it and forget it

so how am i to think that player feedback means anything to ZOS development, when they show an blind eye to something that is FORBIDDEN

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_JasonBarnes

This is a private video..

heimdall14_9 · 1:56PM

Renato90085 wrote: »

heimdall14_9 wrote: »

@ZOS_ALEC VERISH has said things will be looked at based off players feedback and at this point i am afraid for this as every last ZOS development member i've tagged in any of my post BUT 1 has been ignored even one that shows very clearly an forbidden action being done
https://youtu.be/XEAjLeMk-qE

THE " ONE-ACTION" RULE is 100% not being applied here as with 0 actions from player actions are taking place using script that senses the players location and activities to automatically do actions without the player needing to do anything but set it and forget it

so how am i to think that player feedback means anything to ZOS development, when they show an blind eye to something that is FORBIDDEN

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_JasonBarnes

This is a private video..

https://youtu.be/XEAjLeMk-qE

try this and ty

Freelancer_ESO · 2:24PM

twisttop138 wrote: »

Does anyone know of a written cliff notes version of this stream? I've become the guild discord ESO news broadcasting guy. I was at work and only got to catch part of it and was busy with kids last night.

Somebody else wrote this up on reddit

https://old.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1r9i3na/zos_february_dev_stream_notes/

Destai · 3:02PM

Overall this was a great stream. I'm really happy with all of the effort you guys are putting into communication now. You guys have some really cool personalities there. Jason, Kira, and even Alec really are enjoyable too watch. Finn's got a great personality too. I like seeing the passion that goes into the game. Those kinds of things stave off burn out, at least for me.

Honestly, my only point of concern is still PTS. It sounds like it's still too late to make really big changes. That's fine for most things, but I worry if we get another U35 or U46 where the core assumptions or solutions are flawed. Ultimately, bigger changes need to be exposed to us sooner and vetted.

I've asked this a few times, and haven't seen a response, but will a release be pulled if it's completely maligned on PTS? Right now, all of the changes sound really promising. I just think it'd be good to know your teams can now recognize when their internal ideas aren't matching up to expectations or player wants.

Again, I'm really happy with how things are turning out. Class mastery sounds like an attractive feature. I'm glad some nuanced thought has gone into it making sure both subclassing and pure classing should be viable. I appreciate that careful treatment. I have 18 characters, having both options viable is really valuable. Having this come out sooner or later helps reduce some of imbalances in the current subclassing implementation.

Night Market sounds like a good feature. I wonder if it will eventually replace trials as the main larger group endgame PVE content. I'm not terribly interested in at the moment, but I'm sure I'll eventually come around to it.

I'm more interested in the base game zone refreshes. Having new activities to do there is going to keep me engaged - provided the rewards are worth it. I have one TG/DB themed character, so it'll be cool to revisit them.

Keep up the good work guys!

twisttop138 · 3:09PM

Freelancer_ESO wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

Does anyone know of a written cliff notes version of this stream? I've become the guild discord ESO news broadcasting guy. I was at work and only got to catch part of it and was busy with kids last night.

Somebody else wrote this up on reddit

https://old.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1r9i3na/zos_february_dev_stream_notes/

It's so funny. I'm at work so I didn't check reddit. I go on break, see your comment and boom. I get a reddit notification on this list. Thank you.

tomofhyrule · 3:33PM

Thank you for the information. It is good to see the new improved communication, and I hope to see it continue. PTS this cycle did feel great for the first time in a while, and I’m actually excited to see the U50 PTS to play with my werewolfbear.

I will echo the above on how, if PTS gives little time to make major changes, that it would be great to get massive overhauls to go up early (perhaps in a PTS off-cycle - it’s not actively testing right now) so feedback can be given. There are plenty of decent overhauls like U33’s account-wide achieves, U35’s DoT changes, and U46’s Subclassing that had major ripple effects on the population and may have benefitted from more feedback earlier in the cycle and more time to cook.

Class Mastery sounds like a really cool thing. I have long thought that ESO, just by virtue of it being multiplayer, must have some different mechanics than mainline TES games. Classes is the mechanic to help modify balance. Opening the floodgates with Subclassing, while it does make it more like the single-player games, just leads to frustration and consternation in any competitive arena now.

I do favor the D&D style of Class: if you stick with one Class all the way, you are subject to that Class’s weaknesses but have access to the most powerful abilities of that Class. Multiclassing allows you to be more versatile and cover your own Class’s weaknesses with the strengths of another Class, at the expense of not having access to the highest-level abilities of either. That is choice. That is what makes it an RPG. The new Mastery system does seem to be going in that direction. The simple idea of “I want all the strengths and none of the weaknesses” inherently goes against an RPG.

Having said that, with Mastery and still locked Class sets (and styles, which should be unlocked already), it would be nice for the team to reconsider a Class change token. I myself have two characters I want to swap Classes for, and the current solution is to either delete and remake them or to use a Race/Name/Alliance swap token for each.
Which, don’t get me wrong, I’m about to do.

The new stuff in Season One is somewhat less interesting to me personally. I definitely think the stories in ESO have been its weakest point (the writing has fallen off severely since the Wrothgar-Summerset era), and I’m personally not really into the unlawful guilds (though the TG characters were great… provided they’re not going to be Flanderized like every other returning character has been so far) and I can’t handle the Elder Scrolls series’s most insufferable overused annoyance. The idea that 2026 will essentially give us as much content as 2025 did, except trading the hands-down best type of content (Dungeons) for experiments but keeping the wheel churning for the content which is not as impressive is not a good feeling. I really hope the team reconsiders and allows traditional Dungeons to return in 2027.

As for other new content, I have been dying to get new Classes in, but that obviously can’t happen until this Class Refresh/fixing what Subclassing broke is finished. That’s 2028 at the earliest, which is 5 years since Arcanist. So far, ESO averages 3 years between Classes (3 from release to Warden, 2 to Necro, 4 to Arc), so that’s a long wait… and then even longer for another after that. It does feel bad that Subclassing not only wrecked balance in general, but now the team is spending a full two years of nothing new for combat to fix the mess they got into. I really hope the team is considering new Classes and have some ready to go; I’d love to see what a post-Subclassing Class would look like, and I’m desperately waiting to be able to play an Artificer or the OG planned Battlemage or something.

Can’t wait for U50 PTS (I’m guessing end of March?) and beyond to play with the new stuff!