Elder Scrolls Online Subclassing Q&A – ‘Power Level Will Go Up Some, But We’re Fine Where It Is’
During the ESO Direct, ZeniMax Online Studios unveiled what's coming this year to the popular MMORPG Elder Scrolls Online. You can read about all of it here, from the new subclassing feature to the Season of the Worm Cult (which continues the original game's storyline) and more.
Wccftech was among select outlets that accessed the presentation beforehand. Afterward, key developers from ZeniMax Online Studios (Studio Head Matt Firor, Game Director Rich Lambert, and Executive Producer Susan Kath) answered several questions from the assembled press. You can find the full transcript below.
'I personally love the interesting mix of architecture that we have. It's Argonian and High Elf kind of put together. I love the wall that we've got in there; it's splitting the zone in two. And then, this isn't specific to Solstice, but I freaking love subclassing. It opens up so many opportunities for builds.' - Rich Lambert
Why did you decide to change from an annual Chapter model to the content pass?
Matt Firor: With the chapter mode, we did a lot of great content over the years, but most of it hit in June. It was a big moment and it didn't leave a lot of time for the team to make content over the rest of the year. What it really did is it locked us into this cadence that made it so we couldn't experiment as much as we wanted. This will free us up so that we can put time into doing
things like the Cyrodiil Champions test, for example. Take some time out of the content pipeline and move it into how we can make the game better, how we can make systems that are already in the game better, and what we can do to shake things up.Will subclassing work with my current character build?
Rich Lambert: Yes. That's the most important part of subclassing: you don't have to reroll a new character in order to do it. You can just take the class that you already have or a character that you've already spent all this time and effort with and roll out new abilities and new skill lines to it.
How will this seasonal pass affect ESO Plus?
Susan Kath: Not significantly, because you're still getting access to the things that traditionally you got access to as part of ESO Plus. It is just a way to group the content over the entire year kind of into one package that you can pre-purchase, so you have access to it all the moment that we release it.
What is your favorite thing about the new Solstice zone?
Rich Lambert: There's so much. I personally love the interesting mix of architecture that we have. It's Argonian and High Elf kind of put together. I love the wall that we've got in there; it's splitting the zone in two. And then, this isn't specific to Solstice, but I freaking love subclassing. It opens up so many opportunities for builds.
Is subclassing a part of the base game update?
Rich Lambert: It is, yes.
Will subclass abilities be weaker versions of the original ones or the same?
Rich Lambert: They are the same. The only penalty that you have is that those abilities cost twice as many skill points to use. That was the trade-off. In order to give you more flexibility, you have to be even more invested in the character.
How will you balance the FOMO (flavor of the month) with these seasons?
Rich Lambert: That's a really good question. I think what we have shown in the past is with new things that we do, there's always a little bit of that FOMO, but we will sometimes bring things back. We will also make sure that super exclusive things are generally easy to get so that you don't feel like you have to grind every single day of the season in order to get it. Those are the pillars that we're leaning on for the seasonal stuff. Some of it is FOMO, though. It's a season, it's active; go and play and do the things and experience it while it's there.
Will subscribers of ESO Plus have access to the content pass with their active subscription?
Susan Kath: Well, there's the content pass, and then there's ESO Plus. No, it is not included in ESO Plus.
Matt Firor: Just like the Chapters before weren't included in ESO Plus. There will be content throughout the year that is included in ESO Plus, but what is in the content pass for Seasons of the Worm Cult is not included in ESO Plus, just like last year's Chapter was not included in ESO Plus.
How do you plan on balancing subclassing? For example, taking the Arcanist and using a Templar beam, will that be way overpowered?
Rich Lambert: That was the biggest concern when we first started pitching this. In particular, the dungeon team were like, don't break our Trials. We've done a lot of testing on that and yes, power level will go up some, but we're fine with where it is. We haven't done anything to dramatically nerf things or reduce a lot of power from the abilities. We want this to be fun and we want players to experiment and make cool things.
How are we going to access the subclassing feature?
Rich Lambert: There's a little bit of friction in terms of how you unlock it. If you are someone like me or Matt who's played Elder Scrolls Online forever and have multiple level 50 characters, then all those skill lines are unlocked and the only thing you have to worry about is leveling the actual abilities on your character. If you are a player that only has one character, then you can go through a number of quests and train those skill lines in order to be able to use them. We thought about a bunch of different ways to make this as widely available as possible.
Can you further explain the new content pass?
Susan Kath: By purchasing the content pass this year, you will have access to the Fallen Banners dungeons. You have Seasons of the Worm Cult part one and part two and you have the Soul Wall event. The Soul Wall event, however, is unique in that everyone will be able to participate, but the experience if you have purchased the content pass is going to be different.
Rich Lambert: Yeah, there's more stuff. I think the best way to explain it is with the Chapter model. The content pass encapsulates everything for the entire year. If you have ESO Plus, you still get the dungeons, the way it's always been.
Matt Firor: If people are a little confused about it, this year is a transition between last year's Chapter model and next year. This year, we already had content in the pipeline, and so we're doing this bridge year where we have some items that feel a little bit like the Chapter did, but we're calling it a content pass just so we can put some extra things in it and get people ready for what's coming next.
How much will the content pass cost and what will it include?
Susan Kath: I cannot tell you that right now as I don't remember it.
Matt Firor: The basic idea is that if you want to go to the zone of Solstice, you have to buy the content pass. Then there are some things around the edges, but that's the big thing.
Rich Lambert: You get to participate in the Soul Wall event even if you don't have Solstice. There's some things you can't do in there, but you can help the server work towards unlocking things.
Susan Kath: Matt spoke to it very succinctly. It is a transition year for us. It is spreading things out a bit. You could think of it very much akin to what you have seen in the past, but it's spread out, it's changed up a little bit and it'll change more as we go into the next year. But the base game of Elder Scrolls Online is still getting updates throughout the year. That doesn't change.
'The entire server is working towards the goals of the event, and there's a number of stages. I'm not going to go too deep into things, but there's a number of stages that you work towards. You help set the camps, you help fend off attacks on those camps, and then the last stage is actually going into the wall area and bringing it down for the entire city. This is something we've never done before and I'm super excited for this.' - Rich Lambert
Will the Writhing Wall event be a real-time experience shared among all players, similar to how Fortnite events are usually conducted?
Rich Lambert: Sort of. The entire server is working towards the goals of the event, and there's a number of stages. I'm not going to go too deep into things, but there's a number of stages that you work towards. You help set the camps, you help fend off attacks on those camps, and then the last stage is actually going into the wall area and bringing it down for the entire city. This is something we've never done before and I'm super excited for this.
How does subclassing maintain class exclusivity?
Rich Lambert: I knew that question was going to come up. One of the core tenets of subclassing is that you can't change your original Elder Scrolls Online class. You have to have at least one skill line from your original class in there. If I'm a Templar, I can drop two of the skill lines, but I have to keep one of them. That allows us to retain some of that class identity. It still makes your class choice important, but you have this flexibility to really turn it into a hybrid of whatever you want.
How will you reintroduce the existing systems for Elder Scrolls Online players who come back after a while?
Susan Kath: The returning player stuff, the welcome-back stuff, is very near and dear to my heart because when joining the team here at ZOS, that is exactly what I was. I have played the game numerous times since launch. Coming in as a returning player, these two got earfuls from me in my first few months back where I was pinging them and going "Oh my God, I don't know how to do this and this is really frustrating to me." I'm really excited about this system. As a longtime MMO player, not just of Elder Scrolls Online, I've fallen in love with the games that I've played over the years and they all feel like home to me in some way or another. Coming back to a game, it's like slipping into a book that I'm familiar with. It is comforting and I would like to make it as easy as possible for people to come in. The answer to the actual question is that is part of what the whole welcome back experience is all about.
We've found numerous things, like Golden Pursuits, that have been a great way to bring people to content that they may not have experienced before that's happened since they've left and returned. That is just one of the ways that plays into that system. I think it's going to be really cool, and it's all based on the player as well.
Matt Firor: That's actually a good point. All you have just seen was about all the new content that's coming up and some new systems, but we're still doing all the other stuff that we talked about over the course of the last 6 months, which is making the new user experience better, making the returning user experience better, etc. We redid the graphical look and feel of the starting islands in the last update, and we're continuing to do main game tutorial work.
Are there any planned social features or improvements for guilds, such as exclusive cooperative content, internal events, or more robust management tools?
Rich Lambert: How about I just say we have some things planned for guilds that we're not quite ready to talk about yet? But we understand this is a big thing for players.
What was the primary objective of the UI rework?
Matt Firor: To make the game feel more modern. In 2014, on PC, it was a different world than it is now. We made our console UI in 2015 to be a little more forward-looking and less old-school MMO, so the work we're doing now is making the PC version and bringing that up to the same level. It's about making it cleaner, more intuitive, and just making it look and feel better.
Rich Lambert: And also make it easier to maintain. It's a combination of things.
The starter zones just got a facelift, like you mentioned. Are there any plans to enhance other visual aspects of Elder Scrolls Online, such as character hair?
Matt Firor: We have a list of things that we're enhancing. Everything that you're thinking about is on a list somewhere, but obviously, we can't do everything all at once. We have a cadence that we're trying to hit to make other zones in the game look better. We've already talked publicly about making combat look and feel more modern and better, which includes everything you're just talking about, except for possibly hair.
Rich Lambert: We actually just introduced hair, too!
Matt Firor: All of these things are on a list, and by going to a cadence that isn't locked into the calendar year, we get to do these things. That's the big message from us.
'We have a list of things that we're enhancing. Everything that you're thinking about is on a list somewhere, but obviously, we can't do everything all at once. We have a cadence that we're trying to hit to make other zones in the game look better. We've already talked publicly about making combat look and feel more modern and better, which includes everything you're just talking about.' - Matt Firor
What more can you tell us about the recent Cyrodiil Champions experiment and possible new PVP content?
Rich Lambert: It was a phenomenal test for us, orders of magnitude better than I think a lot of us thought was going to happen. It really showed that that original vision that we wanted for this massive scale PVP, we can do it. Now, what we are doing is digging through the mountains of data, because there were some spikes, it wasn't all perfect. We are digging through the mountains of data and seeing where those problems were and what we can do to solve them, and then we're going to continue to roll out more tests.
The next one is probably going to happen sometime after Update 46. But the goal is to make incremental progress on this and continue to reintroduce more things, because what we did in the Cyrodiil Champions test was as bare bones as we could make it so we could really prove whether it was the ability system.
Going to the Solstice zone, how does the size of Solstice compare to regions added in previous Chapters? Does the change in cadence mean there may be years with no region added at all?
Rich Lambert: Maybe. It's comparable in size to your previous chapters; it's just split in half.
What do you think really sets this season's new environments apart from what we've already seen?
Rich Lambert: It's partly the mix. It's Argonian and High Elf, which just sounds weird but makes sense. It's also this tropical feel. Solstice is a tropical island mixed with some Cold Harbour and other fun stuff. It's just a different vibe and feel.
Any further details about the new Trial?
Rich Lambert: I always say this and people think I'm full of it, but the team always finds new ways to impress and push the boundaries of our technology. They've done some things. In particular, there is a fight where you have multiple bosses and you're moving around between platforms and just doing crazy cool things. Again, they one-upped themselves with this Trial, and I can't wait for people to jump in there and start playing with it.
'I always say this and people think I'm full of it, but the team always finds new ways to impress and push the boundaries of our technology. They've done some things. In particular, there is a fight where you have multiple bosses and you're moving around between platforms and just doing crazy cool things. Again, they one-upped themselves with this Trial, and I can't wait for people to jump in there and start playing with it.' - Rich Lambert
Are there plans to introduce new dungeons for four players?
Rich Lambert: Quarter one and quarter three are the dungeon updates. It's four dungeons in total. We've already launched two this year with Fallen Banners, and the other pack is in the third quarter. I can't remember the name of what we called it, but there's two more dungeons on the way.
Will subclassing be usable everywhere, such as Trials? How do you expect it to impact the build diversity?
Rich Lambert: Yes, it's everywhere. It's part of the base Elder Scrolls Online game. The hope is that this opens the door for even more cool builds and definitely spreads out some of the current meta. I mean, it's going to break the current meta. It'll be really interesting to see what players come up with. The meta is something that we talk about a lot. It's really pushed by a certain number of players that this is the only way to do a thing, and that's not entirely true, but I think this is going to open up a lot more flexibility.
Will subclassing allow you to select skill lines or pick skill by skill?
Rich Lambert: It is skill line wise, and then you can pick the skills within that skill line. You can't cherry-pick the best skills from each line.
Will subclassing worsen the issue of hybrid changes and Scribing, undermining the distinct identities of the classes?
Rich Lambert: There's going to be some of that naturally, just because you're going to be able to have multiple skill lines that aren't from your class. But that also very much fits the mold of what our game is, which is play whatever you want.
Matt Firor: It is what Elder Scrolls is all about: player freedom. We have to put some box around it; we're just making the box a little bigger with this.
How will subclassing avoid the problem where everyone equips certain powerful abilities, such as Radiant Oppression? Players will be concerned about this.
Rich Lambert: We're concerned about it as well. That goes back to the meta and shaping up the meta. In our internal and external tests, we have found that there's a huge amount of diversity in terms of builds and skills and whatnot. What some players think works and is the only way to do it isn't necessarily the right way.
You mentioned plans for new Elder Scrolls Online players who want to start their journey in a game that has been there for more than 10 years. Can you please explain this a bit more?
Susan Kath: We've already begun rolling out the first of the new player improvements since November. We did some more in this most recent update, refreshing the new player zones and really looking closely at the new player experience. We've put a lot of research into that, seeing where people were struggling to get into the game. Our plan is to continue to support that.
Again, as Matt said, this decision to move away from the Chapter model is so that we can return to things like this. We can make some changes and see if this makes the new player experience even better. We'll watch it for a while, come back, and make some more changes. That's not something that we've had the luxury of being able to do for a while.
Matt Firor: It's a ten-year-old game but still, millions of people play Elder Scrolls Online for the first time every year. We have so many new players that come in all the time. During the pandemic, we had so many people playing the game that we had to focus on server stability and making sure that the game was going to hold together. Now that we're getting into the back end of the swing of things, it's 'let's make this game as good as possible for new players and returning players.'
Rich Lambert: The ultimate goal with the new player stuff is to make sure that players understand all the things that are in the game because there's a ton of stuff, and we don't do a particularly good job of surfacing all of those things.
What's the future for companions and crafting? Will we see new recipes and companions each season or similar?
Rich Lambert: I don't know about each season, but companions are pretty popular with our player base and so we will find ways to continue to build on that system.
Matt Firor: If you think about companions, we've added new systems to the game since launch, at least one a year. Companions, the card game, the housing. These are all things that we can pull from when we're putting a new season together to make a really compelling season. That gives us a lot of flexibility.
Why is now the right time to continue the base game story?
Matt Firor: I was waiting for that question. Most of the questions here so far have been about systems, which is great because a lot of people play these games for character development, but Elder Scrolls Online is centered around storytelling and our storytelling is probably the best in the industry. We love what we do here and the main story of the game when it launched had unbelievable voice talent and really cool characters. We brought many of these characters back in different Chapters and in different situations, but we haven't actually told the next version of the story of what happened after the Planemeld didn't happen.
This is cool for us because we get to bring these characters back in the same way that they were in 2014 when the game launched. You're going to see a lot of familiar names and voice talent. It's just super fun and nostalgic for us to be able to go back and extend the story going forward. Just seeing Raz and Gabrielle, these people were part of our lives early on, because we tested this game internally for many, many years and we know these characters very well.
Could you provide more information about the returning characters, especially about a specific necromancer?
Rich Lambert: No, that's a story spoiler! But hey, the Worm Cult's coming back. That should be a big enough thing.
Will we have the opportunity to test everything that was mentioned on the Elder Scrolls Online PTS server? If so, is there any information on when that might be?
Rich Lambert: Next Monday.
Thank you for your time.
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