How to make "other" builds meaningful

ArRashid

So, the main problem with only 1 build (resto/destro+light)being "good enough" for endgame content is ANIMATION CANCELING. Which is spamming light attack interrupted by an instant skill interrupted by bash. Repeated endlessly, only ever interrupted to refresh a DoT or two.

How to get rid of animation canceling exploiters? You need 2 things:
- make light attacks a less viable choice
- provide an alternative

The first one is actually easy to achieve. The problem is that the "simple" solution of lowering light attack damage would [snip] off many people who DO NOT abuse animation canceling, and they just want to strike down target on very low HP very quickly. The actual solution:

Make each light attack stack a debuff on player, that would decrease his light attack damage by 15-20% for 5-10 seconds per hit, ofcourse refreshing the duration while stacking. That would mean player can use 1-2 light attacks without noticing drastic damage decrease, but it would completely disable any hopes of animation canceling, because you'd return to half damage after just few rotations.

The other one is for COMPENSATING for loss of animation canceling (because ZOS insists on dps checks in VR+ boss fights).
For that, I suggest increasing heavy attack damage drastically (50% at least). And of skills with cast time - or reduce their cast time equally. That would give every weapon equal buff. It's not fair to deal just a tiny bit higher damage with attack you charge for almost 3 seconds as with an instant skill.

That will also take care of some resource management issues (less skill spamming, more weapon swinging) and it would open up more possibilities than just the one way to play..

Also, if this ever gets implemented, please fix attack speed stat first.. attack speed doing NOTHING at all for ranged weapons seems rather inappropriate.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

ArRashid

For those who'd immediately say that heavy attacks would deal too much damage from stealth in PvP:

From my point of view, the root of most PvP problems is that crouching is OP as ***. Totally. I mean, if there was a guy sitting in the field behind my house, I'd see him from 200+ m, not 5. It's ridiculous how they implemented it, and they should immediately disable it.

- it's nice to deal +50% from behind (which is default sneak bonus)
- it's nice that nightblade can become briefly invisible

- it's NOT nice to constantly get ambushed by people you don't see just because they hit Ctrl!

Disabling crouch "stealth" in PvP would go a long way to achieve some sort of realism - people would finally start using natural obstacles to ACTUALLY HIDE - trees, rocks, etc..

And then, if you passed a guy PROPERLY hidden from your sight while wandering around cyrondil, and (even if) he one shots you from the back, you should think "GG, that was an awesome kill" rather than "Effin OP stealthers!"......

c_vergnaudb16_ESO

it should be interresting only if it the third person camera was removed.

ArRashid

That could be done I guess..in cyrondil only though.
Or at least fixing the 3rd person view into the low zoom, so when you see someone behind you, it's too late to do anything (keep in mind people often initate from range anyway - Snipe, Ambush, etc).

I myself find zooming out to max equally uncomfortable as first person view - it's just disorienting. I'm playing only as far as I need to see my character's boots, to see if I'm not standing in AoE, and that's all I need.

guybrushtb16_ESO

ArRashid wrote: »

Make each light attack stack a debuff on player, that would decrease his light attack damage by 15-20% for 5-10 seconds per hit, ofcourse refreshing the duration while stacking. That would mean player can use 1-2 light attacks without noticing drastic damage decrease, but it would completely disable any hopes of animation canceling, because you'd return to half damage after just few rotations.

I absolutely agree that animation cancelling is a problem that needs to be adressed, but I don't agree with the solution at all. If anything, animation cancelling should be nerfed directly; there is no inherent need to touch normal uncancelled animations at all. Furthermore, I like that animations *can* be cancelled after all; becaue a quick reaction might require that occasionally.

If possible, I'd like to see a solution like "every full light/heavy attack animation gets a set duration, and if you cancel while the animation is running, you get a fraction of the damage corresponding how long it ran." If it ran for 50%, you'd get 50% damage and so on. They could even put a slight modifier on it to discourage fishing for procs maybe, but all in all, that should discourage animation cancelling enough IMO.

ArRashid

guybrushtb16_ESO wrote: »

ArRashid wrote: »

Make each light attack stack a debuff on player, that would decrease his light attack damage by 15-20% for 5-10 seconds per hit, ofcourse refreshing the duration while stacking. That would mean player can use 1-2 light attacks without noticing drastic damage decrease, but it would completely disable any hopes of animation canceling, because you'd return to half damage after just few rotations.

I absolutely agree that animation cancelling is a problem that needs to be adressed, but I don't agree with the solution at all. If anything, animation cancelling should be nerfed directly; there is no inherent need to touch normal uncancelled animations at all. Furthermore, I like that animations *can* be cancelled after all; becaue a quick reaction might require that occasionally.

If possible, I'd like to see a solution like "every full light/heavy attack animation gets a set duration, and if you cancel while the animation is running, you get a fraction of the damage corresponding how long it ran." If it ran for 50%, you'd get 50% damage and so on. They could even put a slight modifier on it to discourage fishing for procs maybe, but all in all, that should discourage animation cancelling enough IMO.

That could work too. I just didn't want to get rid of actual animation canceling completely for the same reason you mentioned - sometimes you NEED to cancel what you're doing to save your life.

I think it would be possible to rather ignore incomplete animations completely (think it would be easier on the server by a tiny bit, we don't need even less responsive combat) - after all, when you NEED to cancel an animation, you usually do so to save your life. That means you need BLOCK, and not the damage from "almost finished" light attack.

k4ntermoose

You realize every build can animation cancel. Its not an exploit , it was intended.

I don't think you understand why people light weave with their builds. Resto 10% dmg boost is part of the issue, while giving back mana and HP.

Not to mention all the buffs/skills for Light and Heavy attacks. What would be the point? (NB haste would do what then? Hey go attack faster with nerfed damage, yay! )

OH and these all mighty light attacks, you can nerf away I would still be able to pull 1200 dps in trials on my NB. Geared DW builds (NB) are doing the same, if not more then me on certain bosses.

Stam builds are JUST NOW getting the attention they need. Its not a 1 patch fixes all situation.

And if you're having resource management issues and pulling under 750 dps in trials, why are you there?

Cook up another half brained scheme to fix this game.
Moar QQ plz.

ArRashid

Gotta love those saying that something that require rapid pushing and clicking in the exact order in a rotation endlessly was "intended". What was it again?
Left click -> push -> hold right+click left -> repeat

---

all in less than a sec, repeat endlessly?
They just don't know how to get rid of it without reworking whole combat system, because those who can't (or refuse to) abuse it, are not welcome in endgame - pretty much forcing all people to do it. They can't even punish people for it, because they'd hit majority of their remaining player base.

I refuse to do that ridiculous thing which looks like an epileptic attack, so I'm rather exping my alts till they fix the issue. I have time. I can wait. That's the magical thing about MMOs, you can do other stuff...while waiting.

k4ntermoose

Gotta love people that come to a 5 button MMO and think its not button mashing.

This your first MMO? Ever play wow?
Macro your rotation to 1 or 2 buttons. No?

Sorry, tech there are 10 skills and 2 ults. But best dps is from 2-3 skills being spammed while keeping an attack rhythm going.

No one is forcing you to do it, its just the way to do the most DPS. No one is forcing you to do trials, or to complete them, or to have 1400 dps when you do them.

This is what we have been given, and making the most out of it. Why should us players who have gotten good at this game make it EVEN EASIER for the people who can't press 1x, 2x, 3x3x3x3x3x . etc? Gaming mice even come with programmable macro buttons nowadays. Yeeesh.



No i think you're right , each class should be given Generic dps skill" 1 thru 5. All do 1000 damage. You can only press 1 - 5 during fights and each skill is a 1 second cooldown.

ArRashid

k4ntermoose wrote: »

Gotta love people that come to a 5 button MMO and think its not button mashing.

Why 5 button? You can obviously do with one...

k4ntermoose

I already explained what a macro is.

I don't use them, like i said pressing LMB and 123 is easy enough already. (Oh and in case you're wondering when below 25% i press LMB and 4).

You are right tho, other builds need to be allowed to properly work. But without overhauling the game, it just won't happen. Removing the 10% dmg boost to resto staff needs to come long before a "light and heavy attack" nerf - which will just kill everything stam or light/heavy attack builds even more so.

Circuitous

As someone who uses animation canceling: making the light attack do less damage won't stop it. If the light attack does any damage, it's more than the skill would've done on its own without significantly adding to the cast time.

Used "properly" this animation canceling lets you cut short an attack with an exceedingly long animation to do an interrupt, which normally has far too short of a window to let that animation play out. It's an amazing thing, and I love that it exists. I wish more people used it.

If anything, shield bash shouldn't do damage if it isn't actually interrupting something.