Best Of
Re: DPS makeup of vKA HM runs on ESOlogs, Updates 43-46
The main issue as I see it is not that fatecarver is too easy or too strong, but that we no longer have multiple viable options that would/could have competed with Fatecarver for differing skill levels, allowing other classes to make a niche for themselves as additional "in-between" options of full weaving builds and Heavy Attack builds, just to different levels of complexity.
Plar (pre-U35) had old Jabs (closest to fatecarver in the mix of supreme AoE + offense + defense, but was melee so more risky than fatecarver)
Sorcerer (pre-2020) had Crystal Blast (still required good weaving and casting it every GCD with no bonus defensive utility, but provided strong ranged AoE option)
Necro (pre-U41) had stalking blast bones (in between the other 2, since it's once per 3 seconds but required doing other things in between casts)
All 3 of these abilities have been either completely removed from the game (Blast and Stalking) or reworked to not only be worse than before, but also significantly worse than fatecarver (new jabs).
This creates the issue where the top tier players who could likely clear trifecta content with no gear equipped remained unaffected by the loss of these abilities, the players who never engage with end-game content remain largely unaffected outside of losing something they enjoyed using/liked the theme of, but the middle-tier player (which would be 90% of those who want to get into end-game content which is most prog groups and most "social" groups that also do the harder content) were left with only 1 option. Fatecarver, whereas if ZOS had not removed those other abilities, these mid-tier players would have multiple options to choose from to work their way up to becoming an end-game player/progressing into the more complex weaving builds via steps, not just 1 giant leap. i.e. there would have been a clear progression path for these players, starting with Oaken heavy attack builds (most forgiving playstyle), moving onto non-oaken HA builds, then onto fatecarver, then moving onto jabs (more risk due to melee and healing instead of shield), then moving onto necro (or sorc) (much more weaving and no defense utility on the spammable but strong ranged AoE that compares to fatecarver for cleave heavy content), then onto a full complex min-max top DPS weaving build.
These clear stepping stones, if they weren't removed, would have also allowed these mid-tier players the option of still participating in end-game content while remaining at any of these stages of "difficulty" (in-case they hit a wall, or simply don't enjoy harder/more complex rotations) because all of these options were/would have still been viable for the cleave heavy content that is being designed today to account for fatecarvers existence.
TL//DR:
We used to have multiple mid-tier options between HA/Fatecarver builds and weaving builds, but the abilities these builds were built around got removed/adjusted over the years and as such, the mid-tier players, that such changes in this game over the years has driven away in droves, feel as though there's nothing in the game for them, outside of fatecarver (which many may not like for different reasons, such as became bored of the playstyle, don't enjoy the playstyle at all, don't like the theme, etc.).
ZOS needs to look into bringing back some of these old/removed abilities that enabled these solid stepping stone builds that allowed players to progress through to end-game without needing to surmount this giant chasm that exists between HA/fatecarver builds and the complex weaving builds with nothing in-between.
Plar (pre-U35) had old Jabs (closest to fatecarver in the mix of supreme AoE + offense + defense, but was melee so more risky than fatecarver)
Sorcerer (pre-2020) had Crystal Blast (still required good weaving and casting it every GCD with no bonus defensive utility, but provided strong ranged AoE option)
Necro (pre-U41) had stalking blast bones (in between the other 2, since it's once per 3 seconds but required doing other things in between casts)
All 3 of these abilities have been either completely removed from the game (Blast and Stalking) or reworked to not only be worse than before, but also significantly worse than fatecarver (new jabs).
This creates the issue where the top tier players who could likely clear trifecta content with no gear equipped remained unaffected by the loss of these abilities, the players who never engage with end-game content remain largely unaffected outside of losing something they enjoyed using/liked the theme of, but the middle-tier player (which would be 90% of those who want to get into end-game content which is most prog groups and most "social" groups that also do the harder content) were left with only 1 option. Fatecarver, whereas if ZOS had not removed those other abilities, these mid-tier players would have multiple options to choose from to work their way up to becoming an end-game player/progressing into the more complex weaving builds via steps, not just 1 giant leap. i.e. there would have been a clear progression path for these players, starting with Oaken heavy attack builds (most forgiving playstyle), moving onto non-oaken HA builds, then onto fatecarver, then moving onto jabs (more risk due to melee and healing instead of shield), then moving onto necro (or sorc) (much more weaving and no defense utility on the spammable but strong ranged AoE that compares to fatecarver for cleave heavy content), then onto a full complex min-max top DPS weaving build.
These clear stepping stones, if they weren't removed, would have also allowed these mid-tier players the option of still participating in end-game content while remaining at any of these stages of "difficulty" (in-case they hit a wall, or simply don't enjoy harder/more complex rotations) because all of these options were/would have still been viable for the cleave heavy content that is being designed today to account for fatecarvers existence.
TL//DR:
We used to have multiple mid-tier options between HA/Fatecarver builds and weaving builds, but the abilities these builds were built around got removed/adjusted over the years and as such, the mid-tier players, that such changes in this game over the years has driven away in droves, feel as though there's nothing in the game for them, outside of fatecarver (which many may not like for different reasons, such as became bored of the playstyle, don't enjoy the playstyle at all, don't like the theme, etc.).
ZOS needs to look into bringing back some of these old/removed abilities that enabled these solid stepping stone builds that allowed players to progress through to end-game without needing to surmount this giant chasm that exists between HA/fatecarver builds and the complex weaving builds with nothing in-between.
Re: Scroll reset timer adjustment.
WaywardArgonian wrote: »You better leave ZOS comments from the past out. The current state of Cyrodiil is not good. It is time they listen to the players that are a big fan of this game without ravishing it.
My plan of changing the scroll reset timers from 60 min to 30 min will not change anything about the fights. The 5 min reset after dropping and access only for the faction that initially picked it up will remove the possibility of farming by 2nd and/or 3th parties for a long period. This plan will open new insights and might even reduce performance issues. See it as a quick win that should not be disputed with by trying to feed on it. It is a very good idea.
I won't leave ZOS comments out of it because when random people suggest radical changes under the guise of the current mechanic not being within 'campaign values', it is highly relevant to see what ZOS themselves have actually stated about this gameplay in the past. Portraying something as an objective truth when it is in reality the result of one's personal frustrations with the game does not make for a compelling argument, and indeed we have yet to see one here.
I think old comments without a link are invalid. If a ZOS representative said something in the past, it might have been a long time ago, and they might be wrong now. In my opinion, shortening the reset timer from 60 minutes to 30 minutes would make the game more enjoyable in its current state, with less farming time. Our groups take scrolls almost every day, and we don't need more than 30 minutes to get anywhere. I can offer another argument. These days, we have more speed improvements (buffs, gear, rings, new classes, etc.), and those are used by the scroll bearers. So, the 60 minutes are no longer necessary.
Would you be able to provide a video of your group taking the scroll showing the current time and campaign population?
It would be interesting to understand for context of your argument.
Return Senche-raht Statue, Battle-Bound.
This statue was part of a gift promotion 2019 where you had to send furnishings gift to at least two different individual accounts via the Housing Editor or the Furniture section of the Crown Store. With the total value of gifts must be at least 1,000 Crowns or more on the same platform and region.
The statue was then later added to your collections, not an item. Even though playing during this time, I somehow missed this promotion and I'm sure others did as well, which is a pity since it's a nice statue and one that is added to collections is great. We have too few normal looking statues in game as it is, so that this has never returned is disappointing.
@ZOS_Kevin Letting the others know that having this promotion appear again would be nice, or have it as a reward for some other small and simple promotion or event.
The statue was then later added to your collections, not an item. Even though playing during this time, I somehow missed this promotion and I'm sure others did as well, which is a pity since it's a nice statue and one that is added to collections is great. We have too few normal looking statues in game as it is, so that this has never returned is disappointing.
@ZOS_Kevin Letting the others know that having this promotion appear again would be nice, or have it as a reward for some other small and simple promotion or event.
Re: The Weather Control with New Update U45
I can't wait for all of my houses to have rain. Perfect for my Argonians 
Re: Would it be neat to have a Jabberwocky as a creation from Sheogorath
Instead of trying to shoehorn things from other IPs into ESO, why don't we actually try to put things from TES lore into ESO first?
Also can we go one week without having to see that overused ninny and his overly-sanitized brand of "this is the Prince of Madness, but we can't legally have him do anything grittier than 'lol so random'" Seriously, there are other Daedric Princes who have significantly less development that deserve it.
Also can we go one week without having to see that overused ninny and his overly-sanitized brand of "this is the Prince of Madness, but we can't legally have him do anything grittier than 'lol so random'" Seriously, there are other Daedric Princes who have significantly less development that deserve it.
tomofhyrule
11
Re: How to trigger hero's return for someone who plays a few days a month?
If we could activate it on our end or by request, it could be exploited indefinitely.
This is a good point... but it would be really nice if we could activate it one time by request. After that, give it whatever cooldown is needed... once per season or something. Or even limit the rewards based on how many times you've done it, and adjust it so it re-teaches old skills and introduces new ones...
Not just thinking about my daughter, but in the past month I've met active players who've been going for years and don't know about shrines that reset attributes, people playing for three months and not understanding how to make a horse faster, or people who still wear 8 pieces of a 5-piece set. I want to tell them "go do this tutorial, it was actually helpful" but there's no way to make it happen if you're a regular player.
ShawnF
2
Re: DPS makeup of vKA HM runs on ESOlogs, Updates 43-46
Necro was in its first couple years overpowered; and it kept being nerfed.
Arcanist was the new shiny thing with Necrom but has not really been nerfed that much.
Every new combat change seems to nerf the wrong class.
Arcanist was the new shiny thing with Necrom but has not really been nerfed that much.
Every new combat change seems to nerf the wrong class.
Renalds
6
Re: DPS makeup of vKA HM runs on ESOlogs, Updates 43-46
I picked Kyne's Aegis because I think (perhaps erroneously) that it is more single-target-dps-friendly than some of the newer trials, and therefore is less likely to skew towards arcanists. The numbers speak for themselves, though. It will be interesting to see if the nerf to Arc Banner changes anything in Update 47. All data from https://esologs.com/zone/statistics/14
Lets be real though, these stats are a bit cherry picked and don't really convey the real story. Look at the top ten dps from update 46 on the logs.
Out of the top 10 half are arcanists, but only 2 used fatecarver in their rotation. Yet, of the top ten, every player had assassination in their rotation. The reason you've seen such a growth in Arcanist as a base class has more to do with their skill lines complementing other skill lines better than any other class, more so than "fatecarver is the only way".
Yes, fatecarver will be greatly helping the mid tier players, but mid tier players will always flock to the easiest rotation possible even if it isn't the best option. Personally I don't see any need to nerf fatecarver and I'd go as far to say that other skills don't even need to be buffed, the one thing that can probably do with a buff which will even everything out is buffing light attacks. A good buff to light attacks will keep the mid tier players in the spot they're in now while allowing non-beam players with the skills (and over inflated egos that so desperately need to be miles above the pack) out pacing any beam build. We also need to be mindful of how the nerf to merciless is going to affect the average beam build, its a sizeable chunk of wp/sp damage they're losing which is probably going to require an added dot to their rotations to match U46 DPS.
As the original poster stated, these stats are from Kynes Aegis because it's the least arcanist favoured newer trial. So yes, these stats are purposefully cherry picked, but not in the direction you think. It's well known that single target focused builds can outperform fatecarver builds in single target damage. Where the problem lies is AoE damage. Fatecarver is far superior to anything else in terms of cleave damage and it's not even close. This makes the vKA logs even more worrying, that a trial which is pretty much entirely single target focused, is still dominated by beam builds. Your suggestion to buff light attacks, even though I'm all for it, wouldn't solve the issue at hand. The merciless nerf is going to do absolutely nothing to beam builds, because it doesn't solve the underlying issue with the class balance, which is the lack of AoE options to compete with the beam.
I picked Kyne's Aegis because I think (perhaps erroneously) that it is more single-target-dps-friendly than some of the newer trials, and therefore is less likely to skew towards arcanists. The numbers speak for themselves, though. It will be interesting to see if the nerf to Arc Banner changes anything in Update 47. All data from https://esologs.com/zone/statistics/14
Lets be real though, these stats are a bit cherry picked and don't really convey the real story. Look at the top ten dps from update 46 on the logs.
Out of the top 10 half are arcanists, but only 2 used fatecarver in their rotation. Yet, of the top ten, every player had assassination in their rotation. The reason you've seen such a growth in Arcanist as a base class has more to do with their skill lines complementing other skill lines better than any other class, more so than "fatecarver is the only way".
Yes, fatecarver will be greatly helping the mid tier players, but mid tier players will always flock to the easiest rotation possible even if it isn't the best option. Personally I don't see any need to nerf fatecarver and I'd go as far to say that other skills don't even need to be buffed, the one thing that can probably do with a buff which will even everything out is buffing light attacks. A good buff to light attacks will keep the mid tier players in the spot they're in now while allowing non-beam players with the skills (and over inflated egos that so desperately need to be miles above the pack) out pacing any beam build. We also need to be mindful of how the nerf to merciless is going to affect the average beam build, its a sizeable chunk of wp/sp damage they're losing which is probably going to require an added dot to their rotations to match U46 DPS.
I hear you, but your talking about the top 10 players. Millions of people play the game so the top 10 sweaty people playing in PC with mods, add ons and all types of glitchy stuff means nothing tbh.
The average every day player (a mid tier player according to you) is using fatecarver due to how its better then every spammable in the game. No spammable in the game can be used at range, do big damage, provide a damage shield, hit multiple targets, easy to sustain and requires no skill, which is what most of you still fail to realize.
When it comes to the assassination skill line, people mainly use it for the passives not for any sort of skill that can be spammed thats broken, so this is okay. You can mix the assassination skill line with any other skill line in the game as a damage dealer and still look different and be using different skills then someone else. Thinking about it now, the assassination skill line is the most diverse dps skill line. Some people may use the ultimate, some may use the execute, some might use that bow skill (the one that everyone was slotting passively) unlike Harold of the Tome where majority of people using it have to use the tentacle arm, fatecarver, inspired scolarship, whatever arena weapon skill, and cloak since almost everyone in PvE used daggers.
Well what's the issue here, is it how much a single skill is being used or how visible it is? Because when you look through the dps logs Killer's blade, Merciless resolve and Soul harvest are on far, far fffaaaaarrrrr more builds than fatecarver. Yet the issue is fatecarver? If you look through the logs and ask the question, which skills are the crutch skills based on how many people have them slotted, then the answer would be the NB skills. But no, fatecarver is the issue? Is it just because as a player you're more prone to noticing fatecarver because its more visible?
The issue is how invasive Herald of the Tome is as a skill line when it comes to subclassing. Both Herald of the Tome and Assassination are by far the strongest skill lines, but if you were to actually compare them and think why people are relatively fine with one (in PvE) and opposed to the other one. If you have a DK and you switch Earthen Heart with Assassination, you still feel like you are playing DK, because most of the Assassination's power comes from the passives and even with skills you can simply opt not to use them, and still gain almost all of the benefits from the skill line. Now compare this to Herald of the Tome, if you want to utilize the skill line, you have to keep creating and consuming crux. This requires you to use either runeblades or flail as spammable, and either fatecarver or tentacular dread to consume them. So even in the best scenario, you will have to switch your whip for runeblades and shove in tentacular dread to boot, not mention a fatecarver build which requires you to pretty much forget about your base class and just beam or create the crux to beam. The tentacular dread build is much less invasive, so people don't tend to complain about it as much, but the passives on Herald of the Tome are still way superior to any of the other skill lines.
This is what actually cherry picked data looks like if you want to make a point against the beam ↓
vOC HM class distribution
Every single arcanist was using beam that I checked through though I'm sure someone was mad enough to try a dread build and I just couldn't find it.
Re: How necessary are player character backstories to you? (anonymous poll)
In ESO, not necessary at all. None of my characters have a backstory. In some other games (not all), I like to have one. The SP Elder Scroll games, for example. I like to come up with a story for why my character is in prison, or in Skyrim, why they were crossing the border.
AzuraFan
6
Re: How to trigger hero's return for someone who plays a few days a month?
Monthly Active Users likely log in too frequently to get this. It’s an incentive for players who have been gone for longer and who may see no reason to return. MAUs already have a reason to return regularly, even if they do so on a less frequent basis than WAUs or DAUs.
Last month it was reported here on the forums that an account last logged into in April had it active by mid-June. It seems about two months at most to trigger by that account, and perhaps as little as six weeks.
The rewards are also designed for the length of time to trigger it. They’d probably lower the rewards if it could be activated in 2/3 or 1/2 of the time it takes to trigger now. If we could activate it on our end or by request, it could be exploited indefinitely. (Not saying you’d do that, but there are always bad actors out there.)
Last month it was reported here on the forums that an account last logged into in April had it active by mid-June. It seems about two months at most to trigger by that account, and perhaps as little as six weeks.
The rewards are also designed for the length of time to trigger it. They’d probably lower the rewards if it could be activated in 2/3 or 1/2 of the time it takes to trigger now. If we could activate it on our end or by request, it could be exploited indefinitely. (Not saying you’d do that, but there are always bad actors out there.)
