Silaf wrote: »

Tallon_IV wrote: »

Silaf wrote: »

Tallon_IV wrote: »

How does something optional make people quit? I don't like subclassing either, so I just don't use it?

You are forced to use it in trial groups. And you are forced to use the same setup as a dps. Are you a new player?

Cut the snark and find a new group then, because I've never been forced to use it in a vet trial.

If you play in a guild the raid leader requires a certain setup.
Is this such a mindblowing news for you?
Are you going to tell me that a raidleader ascking a certain setup in unusual?

Do you complain to ZOS that the groups also require you to run certain sets, certain addons, even certain armor weights, and carry multiple builds to swap to between encounters?

Another one of these threads. I really doubt subclassing is going anywhere as they would not remove a "play your way" option that has been adopted by many players who truly enjoy being able to better tailor their characters. I'd believe most players on average are not truly concerned with meta and subclass because they want to and not because they have to.

I feel these requests are always misdirected; people are upset because it's unbalanced but if it was weaker then they'd probably not care. So no, it's not subclassing itself that is the issue, it's the resultant performance domination that is being worked on.

I do find it strange how upset some people are, because most high end players are already following metas and have for years. They will chase the needed sets and wear those. Use the needed skills. They will follow an exact rotation to the T. Even mages mostly changed out of staffs into daggers at some point even if they didn't make a mage to use daggers. I don't see this being the current "meta" being all that different.

Silaf wrote: »

Tallon_IV wrote: »

How does something optional make people quit? I don't like subclassing either, so I just don't use it?

You are forced to use it in trial groups. And you are forced to use the same setup as a dps. Are you a new player?

What trials lock you out if you're not subclassed or wearing the flavor of the month meta? I have pure class DPS builds that run vet content all the time.

I know a lot of players that do as well.

Eso has always been a Class based game.

Except for all of the weapon/guild/world/pvp skill lines that never were restricted to class. And for years you'd see the same ones being used all over.

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

Subclassing is a broken cherry picking exploitation system. It can not and will not ever be balanced. Even with these Class Mastery Passives, Pure Classes are inferior. Everyone can clearly see this now. No extra work is required for Subclassing and there are no drawbacks or rules for Subclassing. More than enough skill points already existed in game. Just like before, everyone used writs to level their skill lines, this was already going on except we didn't have discipline artisan.

Entire Guilds have disbanded over this broken system. And still are. Prog teams have broken up. Ten year vets were crying as they emptied their craft bags. Our characters were removed from leaderboards and replaced with cherry picked blender builds. Eso has always been a Class based game. Everyone who has ever purchased it knows this because its the first thing you do when you log in. It is not Skyrim, World of Warcraft or any other game.

The state of combat has never been so bad in Eso and it is expressly due to the broken unrestricted Subclassing system. It needs to go. Its been a year, we want our characters back. These underwhelming Class Mastery Passives are not enough to compete against Subclassing. And never will be. Any new Classes they add will be immediately broken down for exploits by Subclass.

Its not theory crafting, its buff and skill shopping with a calculator because there are no rules or real drawbacks to it whatsoever.

"Entire civilizations have been wiped off by introduction of subclassing"
"Tears flowed like rivers from the vets eyes as they destroyed their unused mats in rebellion over subclassing"

Or maybe people just moved on because there is nothing really to do after playing this game for few years, running same mechanics in same 10 or so trials? PvP gets boring too. Collected everything there is to collect, achieved all that interests them. People quit online games all the time lol, its not a forever game. Drop in when new content comes in, and then get off again.

Also in Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim you could run around as a heavy armored bowman necromancer levitating firemage, so idk what you are on about.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Ordinator199 wrote: »

Also in Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim you could run around as a heavy armored bowman necromancer levitating firemage, so idk what you are on about.

Neither Morrowind, Oblivion, nor Skyrim were an MMO.

In a single player game, it's much easier to have a completely open-ended system because balance is a complete non-issue. The bosses really don't care if you choose to play easy-mode or hard-mode or RP your way through or whatever you're going to do. It's a single-player game. You can live in whatever world you choose.

In an MMO, you have to face the fact that other people are around. Even for people who are really hardcore on the "ESO is an Elder Scrolls game that allows many people around but it's not an MMO!" you can't get away from the fact that other people being in the game is a part of the game. That means that balance must be a consideration, and that means that some game mechanics must differ from single-player games to account for balance. It's not just your world anymore.

Subclassing did not care about balance at all. And it was essentially dropping a nuke on endgame. The devs should have planned it better if they wanted to implement it, and that would require forcing players to choose which they wanted. I know, imaging having to make choices in an RPG instead of just getting everything for nothing, right? Still "do you want to be OP or RP?" is not a choice.

Oh, and if we want to be fully pedantic about "the Elder Scrolls series has never blocked you from [skill] or [weapon type] or [armor type]!" it totally did back in the Arena days when The Elder Scrolls was a thinly-veiled variant of D&D.

I am not against balance, but the way it was presented in his post was like world is ending. Yet outside of semi-organized groups tier and up (10% of players or so) people still struggle to break 30k-50k dps subclass or no, so this overpowered talk mainly is about "good players".

Go do vmol with a pug 10 times, 10 year old trial or 11 now, centred around 30-40k dps ceiling i think? You will be amazed how many times you will still wipe even outside of twins, and thats the general metric game developers are focused on. If you want to run a trial with same 10-15 guys who know all mechs, using top end buff sets. Of course it will all be overpowered and super easy, thats why they made trifectas.

What they actually of done, is make it so every skill line gets a type, for example dragon knight:
Ardent Flame -> offensive
Draconic Power -> support
Earthen Heart -> defensive

You cannot have 2 of same types subclassed (on top of subclassing 2 skill lines from different class) , so no assassination skill line (offensive type) for you, from which you actually use 0 skills and just slot ulti for passive gain, unless you want to give up your ardent flame for it. Would be more balanced that way.

As for the arena:



You see lots of "skyrim fan base" trying out morrowind (heavily modded or not, with modding community still frequently pushing out new mods for it), but very few people go "Yeah, bro that arena games looks like something i truly want to try as elder scrolls fan", real elder scrolls started with Morrowind, just like GTA started with GTA 3. So what happened in those calculator games does not matter whatsoever, "puts on George Lucas Hat" - "It ain't cannon".

Ordinator199 wrote: »

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

Subclassing is a broken cherry picking exploitation system. It can not and will not ever be balanced. Even with these Class Mastery Passives, Pure Classes are inferior. Everyone can clearly see this now. No extra work is required for Subclassing and there are no drawbacks or rules for Subclassing. More than enough skill points already existed in game. Just like before, everyone used writs to level their skill lines, this was already going on except we didn't have discipline artisan.

Entire Guilds have disbanded over this broken system. And still are. Prog teams have broken up. Ten year vets were crying as they emptied their craft bags. Our characters were removed from leaderboards and replaced with cherry picked blender builds. Eso has always been a Class based game. Everyone who has ever purchased it knows this because its the first thing you do when you log in. It is not Skyrim, World of Warcraft or any other game.

The state of combat has never been so bad in Eso and it is expressly due to the broken unrestricted Subclassing system. It needs to go. Its been a year, we want our characters back. These underwhelming Class Mastery Passives are not enough to compete against Subclassing. And never will be. Any new Classes they add will be immediately broken down for exploits by Subclass.

Its not theory crafting, its buff and skill shopping with a calculator because there are no rules or real drawbacks to it whatsoever.

"Entire civilizations have been wiped off by introduction of subclassing"
"Tears flowed like rivers from the vets eyes as they destroyed their unused mats in rebellion over subclassing"

Or maybe people just moved on because there is nothing really to do after playing this game for few years, running same mechanics in same 10 or so trials? PvP gets boring too. Collected everything there is to collect, achieved all that interests them. People quit online games all the time lol, its not a forever game. Drop in when new content comes in, and then get off again.

Also in Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim you could run around as a heavy armored bowman necromancer levitating firemage, so idk what you are on about.

It is not as you say in any way. I will bring them to the forums. Because what is a joke to you is our Guilds. And our friends. And clearly Zos needs to hear it from more people. Something we spent ten years of building and putting together is far from a mockery. I will be sure to deliver this post to them as well. I can only hope they do remove Subclassing so people who keep pushing this broken system understand how everyone else does that their characters were destroyed. Or nerf it so badly its completely inferior to anything else.

Some of those comments are so cringe.

No one I know enjoys subclassing and only uses it because they feel forced into it; for else their power would drop dramatically. Me I detest it altogether, but also see the roleplay and immersion value of it (for others.) You can't remove this anymore.

Instead I hope the class masteries will level the playing field, even if I currently don't see it happening. Seems that class masteries allow pure classes to be equal to subclasses in 1 area of choice. DPS can be equal, tankiness can be equal, support depends on class. Warden and Dragonknight support definitely, for the others though it is uncertain.

Yet they can not achieve the omniscence of subclass builds, and this is why I think most people will return to subclassing after the novelty wears off. Pure classes finally offer some arguments and will be good for specific builds (mostly in PvP) but it's not enough. So my hope at the moment only rests on the class reworks. Still I am immensly excited for Update 50, as is everyone I know. It will be a wild patch; maybe the best in 10 years.

Some people seem to think their opinion is the absolute truth. No, it’s just a single opinion.

In all seriousness, and setting aside that there isn't direct, incontrovertible proof of the premise (that scores of players are quitting and it specifically is because of subclassing), the answer is threefold:

1. Because some players do like subclassing, so outright deleting the functionality as opposed to balancing it would alienate part of the community. (While I will not be so presumptuous as to guess how many people like it, vs hate it, vs are ambivalent to it, I can say there 100% is proof of all three opinions on the forums. So they all exist.)
   
2. It has been too long, now. Players have adapted and functionality has been evolved due to the introduction of subclassing. It's Pandora's box and it isn't practical to rip it out. The only time ZOS can really reverse course in that dramatic of a way is when the changes are only on PTS. I have seen them do it.... once, I think. :P But after something is interwoven into the game the way subclassing is now (especially as it is part of combat), they can't "just delete" it.
   
3. Culturally, ZOS has never been one to back down and say "yep, this didn't work, we're completely 100% reversing this idea." Even in the face of extremely varied, passionate, voluminous, and/or deep explanations and alternate suggestions, like the Bosmer racial change, AwA, or the perfected arena weapon decision, ZOS stays firm. They are, just recently, trying to address feedback more quickly and clearly, but even still, I think something would have to be clearly catastrophic for them to pull even "experimental" content, as evidenced by the fact that the Night Market has a bunch of achievements tied to it. ZOS appears to be pretty big on the "our game, our vision" concept. I'm neither criticizing nor praising it here, just mentioning it.

Therefore, they are doing the most logical thing to address negative feedback about subclassing, balance, and how it has impacted the feel of the game and enjoyment of "pure" classing - they are overhauling the classes. It's up to each individual player who dislikes subclassing to decide if they can wait it out and find things they like about the game while they wait, or leave and potentially come back when all the class updates are finished. But it's obvious ZOS has heard the feedback and is trying to listen, in my opinion. We'll see how it goes.

I like it as an optional alternative. If you don't like it, just don't play it.

While no one should be arguing that subclassing is balanced, because it's clearly not, it is clear that people being forced to play specific builds only applies to I'm assuming a small portion of the playerbase. And I feel that small portion of the playerbase has always been "forced" to play in certain ways if they are in guilds that value extreme optimization over everything else.

I'm not sure what content is not clearable without subclassing since not many new things have been released since subclassing was. If guilds requiring it because it makes things faster/easier, well that's their choice but let me know if I'm wrong that content in organized guilds would suddenly not be clearable without subclassing.

Because as far as what I've gathered, we've had power creep, but that shouldn't mean older builds can't finish content.

And if guilds would rather disband than let some of their members play without subclassing, well that's a choice I guess.

AScarlato wrote: »

While no one should be arguing that subclassing is balanced, because it's clearly not, it is clear that people being forced to play specific builds only applies to I'm assuming a small portion of the playerbase. And I feel that small portion of the playerbase has always been "forced" to play in certain ways if they are in guilds that value extreme optimization over everything else.

I'm not sure what content is not clearable without subclassing since not many new things have been released since subclassing was. If guilds requiring it because it makes things faster/easier, well that's their choice but let me know if I'm wrong that content in organized guilds would suddenly not be clearable without subclassing.

Because as far as what I've gathered, we've had power creep, but that shouldn't mean older builds can't finish content.

And if guilds would rather disband than let some of their members play without subclassing, well that's a choice I guess.

That's where problems from the past are being exacerbated.

No, Subclassing is not needed. It is perfectly possible to complete content without going that way. Remember, peopel have been clearing content before June 2025, so it's totally possible.
But practically... there's a massive hole in endgame that a lot of people are falling into now.

Endgame is not a on/off switch. It's a continuum from normal Trials to vet Trials to Trial HMs to Trial trifectas. Before, there were guilds which capped out at normals or social guilds that ran vets every so often, or more sweaty guilds that progged HMs, up to the hypersweat trifecta runners and scorepushers. Obviously, the higher you were on that continuum demanded more and more out of your builds, but a lot of people could find their places.

All of that changed with U35 though. It's easy to meme on U35's meganerfs killing endgame, but it absolutely did. Those hypersweats bounced back within days and kept scorepushing with their groups. The normal community also kept going since they didn't really feel those nerfs much since they were targeted at higher-level players. But those vet/vet HM players? Decimated. And they're not the type who were involved in "thou must have these specific skills and sets" guilds, so they just lost a lot and were not in the mindset of "let me change my character and be a hypersweat." A lot of those mid-tier endgamer guilds folded in the aftermath.

Subclassing just made the issues worse. Again, normals who don't deal with endgame much don't have an issue. Hypersweats will use the best possible option and now are breaking records left and right (also therefore being more exclusionary in their requirements). But for those people who say "I am very good at playing this build and used to do vet HMs with this build" now don't have a home - their choice is to drop down to a mode which they find too easy, or to advance to a mode that is too hard and also demands they stop playing the thing they want to play. The mid-tier endgame crater is still there.

I like to play without Subclassing. But especially as a support, where I'm expected to source loads of buffs for the group, choosing not to do so is me directly choosing not to do my job for the group. Now, I have a choice between "play the way I want!" and "don't be a selfish [snip] and do my job properly." Understandably, that's not fun.
I have one social guild I run with where I allow myself to have fun - the others in that group are coming to just have fun, so I allow myself to have fun as well by playing the build I choose to. But I also have a trifecta prog where me showing up to play the way I want directly hurts the group as a whole, and that's really not as much fun.

Why I want is that mid-tier back. I enjoyed going for HMs with my build with a bunch of people who were a) capable of doing HMs and b) are prioritizing fun over sweating. But I've seen how much it eroded in the last few years. I've seen over the past year how my other social guild has gone from running weekly vet trials to not even being able to fill normals anymore. I've seen guilds that prioritized "bring the character you want to this HM" fold because that meant the content was harder to do and people burnt out faster.

The great yearning for Flawless Dawnbreaker instead of Soul Harvest.