PTS Patch Notes v1.2.0

kirnmalidus

Sakiri wrote: »

Snit wrote: »

Oberon wrote: »

And nary a mention of fixing the universally hated "you cannot mount while in combat" game mechanic that very seriously impacts healers in Cyrodiil.

The solution to this should be simpler. Whatever causes a Heal to put you in combat for several minutes, with no enemies within range, needs to be identified and changed. It feels like a bug, not a design decision.

I'm also tired of having to run for a good minute after the rest of my group has mounted up, simply because I cast a heal a while back.

Your hot is still ticking on someone.

That's why.

Healers know why it's happening, they just don't like that it is happening.

necronyteub17_ESO

I just went and bought something new to play. I thought about it awhile after writing my post last night, and I think they are going to implement this nerf again for sorcerers.
They aren't going to listen to anyone here about there concerns and frustrations, that much is obvious.
Heavy armor ISNT designed for a sorcerer, and we require light armor to get the magicka bonuses we need to be effective PURE CASTER.

If I want to use heavy armor I would be a tank . Basically why the hell would you change bolt escape to such a degree that you CANNOT escape ?

I mean holy crap are you stupid or something? You stand in battle to fight and kill , then all of a sudden its going badly , you know your about to die but you cannot use your escape ability because you was fighting using magicka in the first damn place, and now your out.

Anyone that's used it knows that 1 bolt or 2 even will NOT get you out of the fight and save you.
To many other classes have travel abilities or skills that exceed 28m . Hell I have one that's 38m that's an attack.

Well anyhow I just bought Wildstar and im cancelling this crap before I waste any more time with it. Maybe check back in a couple months and see whats up, but for now I can play wildstar that has Open World PVP, and more true classes then this game.

Instead of 4 classes that the only difference is race trait, and get nerfed every damn patch . Screw this

Xnemesis

necronyteub17_ESO wrote: »

I just went and bought something new to play. I thought about it awhile after writing my post last night, and I think they are going to implement this nerf again for sorcerers.
They aren't going to listen to anyone here about there concerns and frustrations, that much is obvious.
Heavy armor ISNT designed for a sorcerer, and we require light armor to get the magicka bonuses we need to be effective PURE CASTER.

If I want to use heavy armor I would be a tank . Basically why the hell would you change bolt escape to such a degree that you CANNOT escape ?

I mean holy crap are you stupid or something? You stand in battle to fight and kill , then all of a sudden its going badly , you know your about to die but you cannot use your escape ability because you was fighting using magicka in the first damn place, and now your out.

Anyone that's used it knows that 1 bolt or 2 even will NOT get you out of the fight and save you.
To many other classes have travel abilities or skills that exceed 28m . Hell I have one that's 38m that's an attack.

Well anyhow I just bought Wildstar and im cancelling this crap before I waste any more time with it. Maybe check back in a couple months and see whats up, but for now I can play wildstar that has Open World PVP, and more true classes then this game.

Instead of 4 classes that the only difference is race trait, and get nerfed every damn patch . Screw this

Oh you are upset you cant escape because you use magica to fight? Try and use stam abilities while rolling, blocking, sprinting, and sneaking then we will talk again... anyways have fun in wildstar.

also it literally went from a 300 cast to a cap of 450 cast if you use it again. And thats only the case if you dont have any ability cost reduction jewelry. If you use it 4 times its 300+450+450+450 thats very minor.

Most_Awesome

Make everything based off of magica, light armour for ranged, medium for melee. And just use stamina for blocking,running,cc break.

Valerien

Looking at the Nightblade changes I can't see anything there that would make me think that the concerns of nightblade players has been addressed or even considered.

Can you please get some fixes in the the Nightblade ASAP. Being horribly underpowered is not fun, I don't know what difficulty is expected in the game or the death ratio you plan for. But if a class can't comfortably take down 3 opponents then you will find the experience is not a pleasant one when the game is full of encounters that require to be able to do this or more.

sweinhart2006

Ive been playing NB from the start. Ive tried bow/dw/1h+shield. I relied heavily on the dw line of abilities and I can barely do more damage than when Im running around with sword/shield, Except I have very little survivability with dw. At least with sword and shield I can stun mobs and focus one at a time. It seems that for a NB to be even a little effective, you have to roll with very specific builds. I didn't want to play caster but any other melee spec isn't viable. I've been close to canceling my subscription because of how frustrating dw is, and doesn't sound like this is getting fixed anytime soon. This game is seriously making me miss EQ2. Melee dps should be the highest, not the lowest, and it shouldn't require a very specific build to be even moderately effective.

crystal_coppolab14_ESO

Natjur wrote: »

I love that you guys are working hard on trying to improve the game.
But its too little to late for a lot of us.....
All the best

This made me chuckle. This game has been out for 2 months (a little over for those that had early access). I am baffled by how many people expect this game to have everything fixed in an instant. There are games past and present that have been around for years that still have bugs and balancing issues and haven't seen new content in years. And you guys get upset over 2 months? Really?! LOL!

crystal_coppolab14_ESO

Rhoric wrote: »

Still no option to allow grouping for solo only content. This is a big issue. Need to allow an option for this.

I am confused by this comment. Are you talking about solo dungeons or the solo quests? Isn't the definition of solo content to be done solo, so why would they make it groupable? Or maybe I just misunderstand what you are talking about.

Drachdhar

Tamanous wrote: »

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

Hey more nerfs to DK. I freaking quit.

Do you honestly think that DK is balanced against content and other classes right now? You are investing too much emotion into your character and ignoring all the many issues many other players are going through using other classes.

It is about the betterment of the game ... not your own feelings whilst ignoring larger, global game issues.

HippieTheGreat wrote: »

No werewolf fixes yet either. I cry

Other than that, looks good.

I can't imagine they could put full investment into skill line and class balancing right now due to this also being a content patch. I firmly believe that a more extensive balance patch could likely shift the balance too far and create too many bugs at once. It's nice seeing smaller changes nearly every path and thus allowing time to judge the changes live.

The problem is not that DKs are too good... Its all the other classes not being good enough.

OtarTheMad

I have a DK and while I am happy with the changes/nerfs to the class I also hope that Zenimax does not change so DK's have the same survivability as a Sorcerer, cause they shouldn't.

I knew the Bolt Escape nerf was coming despite all the defense for it in the forums and it kind of sucks. It just means that when you have battle in the fields I will either have to stay away and keep at a distance where I can do damage but also get away or I will just have to stay away from ground battles and just siege. I know some might read this and say "get better, god, you suck blah blah blah blah" but I have a VR 11 Sorc and I use bolt escape the way it was probably intended which is to create some distance between you and the melee fighter so you can go back to casting your spells and not taking damage... cause... well Sorc's don't have much survivability in melee situations. I don't really spam it unless I am trying to chase down a Sorcerer who uses it 50 times to get away... then I'm chasing after you with it.

Oh well, good changes, hope we have more solo content coming up cause that would be great too and THANK YOU for the changes to Dark Summoning... that class is now usable in PvP... PLEASE don't take that away in the live version lol cause I would love to use my Clannfear and my Twilight to take out some guards by targeting things.

Farrar

Kadoozy wrote: »

Farrar wrote: »

Igneous Shield (Obsidian Shield morph): This ability now increases the healing you deal to allies for 5 seconds instead of increasing your shield value.

This has to be the most moronic change have ever seen in a MMORPG, it is so ill thought out the dev concerned has lost it.

Why would anyone use a skill point in this after patch.

And After the patch are the skill points going to be 'freed up' or do we have to use hard earned gold to reclaim it, latter = subs canc!

It literally increased the shield by about 50 points. That means absolutely nothing at endgame. Honestly this just makes a healing DK even more viable with a skill nobody used in the first place.

Lot more than 50 points buddy, as a DK tank I can assure you, using this skill before each pull (trash) gives the healer thinking time. It has also saved a fair amount of wipes for groups have been in.

Its worth 698 HP's at rank IV (for the caster), its actually a pretty major nerf to any tank who reads tool tips when building their toon.

The whole point is: why would a tank who uses this in it's present format, suddenly by some major epiphany start wanting to be a healer?

Nerf tanks out of the game, what you end up with is a lot of players sat round LFG, tanks if anything should be getting slight buffs to encourage players to take up the role, same for healers, in any MMORPG there are always enough DPS players.

What do you see spammed more often in game chat.... Looking for DD or Tank or healer?

crystal_coppolab14_ESO

glitchmaster999 wrote: »

So this is the nightblade balance we have been waiting for? Two useless skills (one of which is mechanically useless) buffed and only thing that makes nightblades ok being nerfed? Please say that is just a rough push before you buff the hell out of everything.... and the dragonknight ability that hits harder out of stealth than surprise attack got a buff.....

They specifically tell you that they are making adjustments slowly as to not break of op any class. Patience is a virtue.

khele23eb17_ESO

crystal_coppolab14_ESO wrote: »

They specifically tell you that they are making adjustments slowly as to not break of op any class. Patience is a virtue.

Sure it is. Like the patience to release a game when its actually ready... We should be patient and wait to have the game fixed but they dont need to be patient with asking us for money?

kirnmalidus

Eternalflame wrote: »

The classes are just supposed to be starting points, making any class better with a weapon/armor would ruin the point of the system and player progression. I think they should reduce the cost of weapon abilities (Especially bow) because unlike Magicka, Stamina is used for sprinting, dodge rolling, CC breaking, e.t.c. They should leave room for both using abilities and doing all of these things. Magicka builds become more powerful when the only thing they are using their resource for is abilities, and their Stamina bar is free to sprint/dodge/CC break/interrupt/block

Otherwise they might as well remove Stamina abilities from the game.

This. This is the most fundamental issue in the game right now and needs to be addressed. So far Zenimax has not even acknowledged this issue specifically (that I am aware) much less given us any hope that they will be dealing with it at all, ever.

kirnmalidus

necronyteub17_ESO wrote: »

I mean holy crap are you stupid or something? You stand in battle to fight and kill , then all of a sudden its going badly , you know your about to die but you cannot use your escape ability because you was fighting using magicka in the first damn place, and now your out.

And that is exactly how stamina builds feel about using their stamina abilities and not being able to CC break or dodge if they do. Maybe this is how Zenimax intends solve the stamina/magicka build imbalance.

OtarTheMad

kirnmalidus wrote: »

Eternalflame wrote: »

The classes are just supposed to be starting points, making any class better with a weapon/armor would ruin the point of the system and player progression. I think they should reduce the cost of weapon abilities (Especially bow) because unlike Magicka, Stamina is used for sprinting, dodge rolling, CC breaking, e.t.c. They should leave room for both using abilities and doing all of these things. Magicka builds become more powerful when the only thing they are using their resource for is abilities, and their Stamina bar is free to sprint/dodge/CC break/interrupt/block

Otherwise they might as well remove Stamina abilities from the game.

This. This is the most fundamental issue in the game right now and needs to be addressed. So far Zenimax has not even acknowledged this issue specifically (that I am aware) much less given us any hope that they will be dealing with it at all, ever.

I don't agree I am sorry. The classes were supposed to be a starting point but some classes should be better than others with certain things. NB's should make better dual wielders and bow users, DK's should be better with 1h/2h and etc. I understand what you're saying but making every class just as good as others with skills would eliminate the unique qualities of that class... I mean why not just eliminate classes and just roll with a generic skill bar.

kirnmalidus

crystal_coppolab14_ESO wrote: »

Rhoric wrote: »

Still no option to allow grouping for solo only content. This is a big issue. Need to allow an option for this.

I am confused by this comment. Are you talking about solo dungeons or the solo quests? Isn't the definition of solo content to be done solo, so why would they make it groupable? Or maybe I just misunderstand what you are talking about.

It's people who want to be able to bring friends along for the forced solo stuff in the main quest and guild questlines, because they find it too difficult.

kirnmalidus

OtarTheMad wrote: »

I have a VR 11 Sorc and I use bolt escape the way it was probably intended which is to create some distance between you and the melee fighter so you can go back to casting your spells and not taking damage... cause... well Sorc's don't have much survivability in melee situations.

If this is true then why do you have an issue with the change? If you are really using it that way at most you should need to hit it twice to get some distance and that will now cost you 150 extra magicka, which isn't really that much.

Jaztica

Did anyone here play Diablo 3 when it first came out? There were maybe 1-2 viable end-game builds for each class. Good loot was all but impossible to find. Then the devs nerfed the few viable builds that existed - ranged classes couldn't survive, melee were kiting bosses with throwing weapons for 10 minutes to beat them, and a lot of people stopped playing.

Almost 2 years later Blizz releases an expansion (RoS), fixes all the builds to give a dozen or more viable builds per class in many cases (depending on gear / playstyle), fixes unique/set gear to be more powerful, and suddenly people are interested & playing the game again.

There is a lesson to be learned here for ZOS devs. Right now ESO feels a lot like D3 at release (or post initial nerf) except that ZOS has to be careful because they do not have Blizz' pedigree in the community's eyes, so they have more to lose by dallying and not fixing the balance ASAP.

AngryNord

Rhoric wrote: »

Still no option to allow grouping for solo only content. This is a big issue. Need to allow an option for this.

Amen

kirnmalidus

OtarTheMad wrote: »

kirnmalidus wrote: »

Eternalflame wrote: »

The classes are just supposed to be starting points, making any class better with a weapon/armor would ruin the point of the system and player progression. I think they should reduce the cost of weapon abilities (Especially bow) because unlike Magicka, Stamina is used for sprinting, dodge rolling, CC breaking, e.t.c. They should leave room for both using abilities and doing all of these things. Magicka builds become more powerful when the only thing they are using their resource for is abilities, and their Stamina bar is free to sprint/dodge/CC break/interrupt/block

Otherwise they might as well remove Stamina abilities from the game.

This. This is the most fundamental issue in the game right now and needs to be addressed. So far Zenimax has not even acknowledged this issue specifically (that I am aware) much less given us any hope that they will be dealing with it at all, ever.

I don't agree I am sorry. The classes were supposed to be a starting point but some classes should be better than others with certain things. NB's should make better dual wielders and bow users, DK's should be better with 1h/2h and etc. I understand what you're saying but making every class just as good as others with skills would eliminate the unique qualities of that class... I mean why not just eliminate classes and just roll with a generic skill bar.

I think you misunderstood me. I'm addressing the issue with magicka vs. stamina builds, and the problem is universal for all stamina builds in all classes. The fact is that stamina is used for non ability actions (CC break, dodge, sneak, running) and magicka is not. I'm not asking for all classes to be the same and have the same skills, just that stamina and magicka be more comparable in terms of how they are utilized as resource pools.

Persecom

[*] Bolt Escape: After you use this ability, using it again within 4 seconds will cost 50% more.

Arwyn

PROVISIONING MATERIALS IN VETERAN LEVEL ZONES....

One day maybe....

Sheaden

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

Hey more nerfs to DK. I freaking quit.

Dragonknight
Ardent Flame
Extended Chains (Fiery Grip morph): COST DECREASED. BUFF
Flame Lash (Lava Whip morph): INCREASED the DAMAGE AND HEALING for this ability’s activated follow-up attack. BUFF

Draconic Power
Dragon Leap: minimum range requirement has been removed. BUFF
Burning Talons (Dark Talons morph): Decreased DOT duration. BUFF damage wasn't decreased only the duration so it's more bursty. buffity buff buff

Earthen Heart
Igneous Shield (Obsidian Shield morph): This ability now INCREASES HEALING you deal to allies for 5 seconds instead of increasing your shield value.
Petrify: This ability NOW DAMAGES enemies when the effect ends. BUFF

Wish they'd nerf my class like this.

Aoifesan

Nightblade
Assassination
Assassin’s Blade: This ability’s visual effects are now easier to see.

So What, that wasn't an issue. What IS an issue is the ability NOT activating to do damage or healing even though we can SEE the ability fire off and hear it as well.
Incapacitate (Haste morph): This ability now increases heavy attack damage.
Sorry with your 5 abilities and only two bars this ability still sucks badly enough not to make the cut
Master Assassin: This passive ability now increases spell power in addition to weapon power. Its stun duration increase has also been added to the tooltip.
Congratulations you learned proper documentation
Reaper’s Mark (Mark Target morph): This ability’s weapon and spell damage buff no longer stacks with itself – the duration of the damage buff will now just refresh upon each kill.
If you could stack this more than twice before one wore off you DESERVED the benefit, the extra 2pts of damage was hardly a problem
Shadow
Path of Darkness: Increased the damage for this ability, and it can now be seen by all other player characters. Also fixed an issue where it was ticking more times than intended on a target.
Refreshing Path: This ability will now heal your allies, and the healing done has been slightly increased.
Unless slightly means tripled you still have better options in the restoration staff line
Refreshing Shadows: This passive ability is now always active, and no longer requires you to use another ability.
The only good thing in these notes and it's still *meh*
Siphoning
Leeching Strikes (Siphoning Strikes morph): The tooltip for this ability now shows the correct percentage of health recovery.
So sorry it was too hard to learn to do find and replace in your code to replace all the 2.0 with 4.0, I'm so glad your programmers saved time for all these other changes by commenting that 2% was good enough
Magicka Flood: This ability now correctly increases your maximum magicka.
Yeah bug fixes
Siphoning Strikes: This ability now restores slightly less resources, and will no longer desync your resource bars upon use.
Sigh. This is the only ability that helps make us competitive, removing the 22% damage reduction is the correct course not THIS
Soul Siphon (Soul Shred morph): Edited the tooltip for this ability so it’s more consistent with all other tooltips, and fixed an issue so the upgrade tooltip now states that it does less damage than the base ability.
A morph to any ability let alone an ultimate should NEVER reduce the amount of stuff and things it brings to the table
Strife: Fixed an issue where the red glow from this ability would last longer than intended.
So sorry the red glow offended your sensibilities

These are the patch notes that were to be so Exciting for Nightblades!!!1!.

Color me totally unimpressed.

Ysne58

crystal_coppolab14_ESO wrote: »

Rhoric wrote: »

Still no option to allow grouping for solo only content. This is a big issue. Need to allow an option for this.

I am confused by this comment. Are you talking about solo dungeons or the solo quests? Isn't the definition of solo content to be done solo, so why would they make it groupable? Or maybe I just misunderstand what you are talking about.

The forced solo quests. In a game where the devs promised we could play how we like. This flies in the face of that promise.

Corithna

I see so many people whine and complain about stamina builds. And for the most part, at least from what I'm seeing, it's due to the need to reserve enough stamina to roll away from a mob quickly when you get caught up in one of their telegraphed attack graphics, or to block which also eats up your stamina.

As it stands my preferred methodology for dealing with the mobs on over world pve content, is to stay mobile, utilize cc's, *bow draining shot does a great job in this respect, and basically single target burst dps down mobs one at a time. I focus my buffs on regeneration across the board and ensure I'm utilizing all my resources fairly evenly. I'm feeling fairly comfortable against VR5 mobs on my VR2 night blade with this.

However I do think that the double resource drain from block/roll dodge exclusively hitting stamina while magicka is available exclusively for ability casts is what is underlying the general push by the many players towards caster builds. It tends to feel like this is a natural build that players can arrive fairly easily after only a cursory examination of the class design. What is more difficult, at least for players who are new to this game is finding ways to mitigate how much stamina is drained by both of these. Or to put it another way, it is not as apparent to most players who only have a cursory understanding of the game mechanics. So even if a balance is achieved between magicka and stamina builds there will be a natural tendency towards the current *preferred build setup.

I propose two things to help even things out. First off, and yes I know this would be a departure from the classic TES way of doing things, have both block and stamina draw equally from both resource pools, allowing additional drains to occur on a penalty basis if one of the two resources is already too low to allow for the action to happen. For instance Lets say that a block or a roll dodge has a resource cost of 100. So long as there is enough of both pools available 50 is drawn from each. However lets say my stamina is very low and I have only 20. Then automatically it would draw M/S 80/20 with an extra penalty to Magicka in some amount. 10 or 15% would to me feel about right so the end cost would be at most 95/20. This would be a more forgiving mechanic, allowing players to see a greater benefit to distributing points more evenly. There are of course additional details that would have to go into such a system but it's an option.

Secondly addressing the disparity between aoe dps and single target dps. Recently a pass was done to help ensure all aoe's are only hitting 6 mobs per cast this is a good first step in bringing things under control. The next step I think should be to ensure that for equal resources spent any aoe's per mob dps is equal to 1/6th the dps of a single target ability of equal cost. These two things alone are too simplistic on their own in order to bring about a real balance. For one critial hits for the single target spell will feel far more powerful as compared to crits on a per mob basis for aoe's. I think the best fix for that would be to make each 'tick' of an aoe dot, or each cast of a one off aoe count across the board when a crit is calculated. To put it another way single target dot, three ticks, second one crits. The aoe equivalent of this would be three ticks second one crits for every mob hit/effected by the aoe.

There are obviously some problems with the above scenarios. For one the 1/6th dps per mob assumes that a player will always hit at least six mobs. And that would be just to be on par with single target dps. This problem is exacerbated by the deck building schema where we have only 5 + 1 spells on our cast bars at any one time. Next such a system would even itself out far better in systems where mobs last for while during a fight. In other words fights that are longer then at least a minute in duration. Currently packs of mobs are taken down in anywhere from 3 to 10 seconds. Which is where it makes sense for most players to want to utilize a caster build so as multiply the amount of XP/VP acquired per fight.

In the end I think they are taking the right approach, small incremental changes enacted over time until a good balance can be found. I know that feels frustrating to the 'I want it now' crowd. Experience however has shown that such an approach usually yields up better results in a shorter period of time then making large course corrections repeated. The later approach tends to destabilize everything and then you really do end up with a major mess on your hands.

Spacefiddle

Recent dev blog post states "hey, we know NBs aren't in great shape, we're going to tweak them up slowly." I read these notes, and the only real change I see is a nerf... and on the rest of the classes, some *radical* changes to how some skill morphs work.

This doesn't seem to be uptuning NBs at all, and some of the other changes are large enough to warrant a skill point refund (which, by the way, I never got the *last* time it was supposed to happen) for the affected skills.

Seems like a bit of a disconnect.

Gusion

I didnt see any fixes for the lost achievements during the last big patch, I have also heard the God of Schemes quest is now bugged which makes getting into vet content near impossible. I just reached VR1 and have not started the quest yet for fear of not being able to complete it.

The last patch I lost over 600 achievement points!

Xsorus

Burning Talons damage was decreased, it takes all but 3 seconds of signing on PTS to see that it was nerfed.