Update 35 Combat Preview

ShadowProc

Wait. Maybe I need to read it again. They said make weaving not scale. You will still have more DPS than those that don’t weave.

So “the sky is falling” is coming from “oh my godz my dps is lower”? Lol. Zos keep being you.

PS fix the ball group problem. Ty.

Tannus15

VaranisArano wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

The most disturbing part about the whole thing is that we seem to have been in a paid beta for eight years. Eight years, and they are still trying to figure out how basic combat should work.

Games should become more complex and engaging over time, to keep dedicated players logging in. But the modus operandi here of late seems to be the conglomeration and simplification of core functions. We’ve been told that it’s for performance reasons….. but no mention of that in this latest update. However, it seems logical that making LAs and HAs do standardized damage, and reducing the number of times skills are cast would have a definite effect on server calls.

I wonder why no mention was made of that?

Think of ESO less as a game that's still in beta, and more of an MMO that needs to periodically shake up the meta in major and minor ways in order to prevent players from getting too comfortable, growing bored, and leaving the game.

This is pretty standard Horizontal Progression stuff, which has been ZOS' modus operandi since they abandoned vertical progression with One Tamriel.

The Devs aren't figuring out how basic combat should work with the goal of creating a static finished product like, say, Skyrim. With Skyrim, you buy the game and they make back their costs, so you can make and ship a finished product (until its time to milk the Anniversary editions). With an MMO, they need constant player engagement to support their costs, so they are in the business of changing up how basic combat works in order to keep the game from becoming static.

this isn't changing the meta though, this is just moving the numbers.
Like, what will you do differently if light attacks do less damage?
buffing lightning staffs would change the meta.
nerfing stampede would change the meta.
nerfing light attacks will change nothing about your build or what you're doing, you'll just do less damage.

Jaimeh

Tannus15 wrote: »

Like, what will you do differently if light attacks do less damage?

Delete your WW oakensoul toon

RagedAvenger

In addressing the Update 35 preview press release, I think it’s important to note that the developers do understand what sets ESO apart from the rest of its genre, it’s something they recognize in their preamble. And that is its combat system In its current form, The Elder Scrolls: Online, has the most engaging, satisfying combat system I have ever interacted with. I place it above games such as Counter-Strike or Halo, and certainly above single player Elder Scrolls games such as Skyrim. Before I played ESO, Counter-Strike was my game of choice. I always liked how there was an endless opportunity to improve, and set myself apart from those who didn’t spend their time practicing and learning. I had the opportunity to play with and against people I could never hope to match, but I found it motivating more than off putting, it gave me something to look forward to. I was drawn to ESO because it had the same skill gap that the developers seem to simultaneously recognize the value of and hate. Proposed changes designed to weaken the skill gap will not only fail to do so, but will take away from the things that set ESO apart from the rest of the MMO genre, and frankly from the rest of gaming in general.

Based on the goals set in the press release, the proposed changes to light attacks do not make much sense. Weaving is described as “a staple of the game” that the developers have come to embrace, yet the changes to light attacks are designed with people who do not, or “cannot interact with the system as effectively.” Despite claims of a goal to improve the gameplay experience for everybody, a static cap on light attack damage seems like it would cheapen buildcrafting (as stats don’t matter as much) reduce the importance of weaving (an admitted core mechanic that sets your game apart from others) and fail to narrow the skill gap
This light attack change will not narrow the delta between low and high end, as it intends to do. Many people think endgame players are insulated from the rest of the community, but this is not entirely true. We interact with random players, most often in the dungeon queue. Within random normal dungeons, I have observed players casting significantly more light attacks than skills. These low-end players, unable to build into stats for the light attacks, and suddenly finding them capped, will do less damage as well.
I actually do think that damage needs to come down, and with that in mind, light attack damage being nerfed is probably healthy for the game. But if the reason for the nerf is some sort of opposition to weaving, I think that is misguided. Weaving is the reason so many of us enjoy your game, which, to be fair, you did admit. But I still feel like it was painted in a negative light in this press release, and I think that suggests a negative disposition towards the high skill gap. I feel like, while this may be a well intentioned attempt to bridge the gap between low and high, it may instead burn the high end of the bridge entirely.

I don’t think there’s much to say about the attitude towards content, other than that I think it is okay for there to be content that not everybody can do. Accessibility is great, but an overemphasis on accessibility will alienate the portion of this community that plays ESO because it is extremely challenging.

Honestly the light attack change is not that big of a deal, but the statements made in the combat effects section of the release read like a slap in the face to endgame. The press release mentions specifically the game’s high apm requirement as if it is some sort of problem. I could not disagree more, and instead believe that the APM requirement is the single biggest reason I play the game. Extensions to dot timers will cheapen gameplay by simplifying rotations. APM is not just about the physical button presses; it is also about the mental process required to make the best decisions about damage, buffing, tanking and healing. Longer timers might make the game easier, but they’ll also make it a lot less mentally engaging. I don’t think this is a good trade.


I’m going to lose most of endgame here, but in-combat addons cheapen gameplay more than anything else. Damage would naturally come down if PC players were forced to look at enemy animations and the world around them instead of only their action bars and the occasional popup.

Tannus15

RagedAvenger wrote: »

I’m going to lose most of endgame here, but in-combat addons cheapen gameplay more than anything else. Damage would naturally come down if PC players were forced to look at enemy animations and the world around them instead of only their action bars and the occasional popup.

I agree with this. Disable most of the addons and the endgame PvE community on PC will take a massive dps hit.

divnyi

Don't care about weaving, but DoT DPS reduction is awful idea for PvP.

DPS doesn't matter as it is, because HoT is stronger that DoT even in 1v1, two players spamming HoT crossheals completely shut down any DPS damage, even dots+spammable.

If you want to casual out the game, why not to look into transforming PvP exprience to be at least partially similar to PvE? DPS matters in PvE. It should matter in PvP.

Oneshots in 2 second frame should not be the only opportunity to kill a player.

Pearly

ZOS, why do you need to resort to huge meta shake-ups like this every patch or two? You're making it so exhausting and punishing to be a committed player to this game. Not to mention, you continue to isolate and drive away your end-game community, who are long-term and dedicated players. Why do you even design content for us if you don't care about anything that we do? That you continue to design and implement gear sets and balance changes, then get shocked when people use them efficiently to achieve high levels of DPS, and then blame that population for power creep, shows such a strong disconnection between the work you're doing and the work you think you're doing.

Who are these changes for? Who is asking for damage nerfs? Because on paper and without access to numbers, that's all this looks like. How will nerfing damage close the gap between good and unskilled players? Good players will adapt to these changes and continue to perform well, while unskilled players will still not know how to properly execute a rotation, make good skill choices, and have the mechanical ability to play well. Unless they put in the effort. You can't force players to want to improve their skill level. At most, changes like this will benefit players who struggle to complete vet dungeons. Instead, you punish players struggling to complete Hard Mode trials and players progging trial trifectas. Can you imagine spending the first three months since High Isle came out progging Swashbuckler Supreme and then you make it harder for groups to achieve this?

Instead of rehauling the entire balance of ESO combat just to implement this needless change, you could have put energy into providing players with resources, guides, and tools for improving their damage and combat competency. Strong players who can achieve high damage, buff uptimes, and healing awareness do so because they put the effort into this. Your changes won't encourage people to put in any effort. Clearly the majority of us on this thread think you need to re-evaluate the goals of this change, and just how you think the changes will meet those goals. Not a good look.

Jaraal

divnyi wrote: »

Don't care about weaving, but DoT DPS reduction is awful idea for PvP.

DPS doesn't matter as it is, because HoT is stronger that DoT even in 1v1, two players spamming HoT crossheals completely shut down any DPS damage, even dots+spammable.

If you want to casual out the game, why not to look into transforming PvP exprience to be at least partially similar to PvE? DPS matters in PvE. It should matter in PvP.

Oneshots in 2 second frame should not be the only opportunity to kill a player.

Yes, stacking DOTs and debuffs on rock and tower humpers is the best way to burn them down. You aren’t going to be landing many (soon to be nerfed) light and heavy attacks on LOSers and mobile ball groups anyway. So basically U35 will magnify the gap between average and top players, rather than closing it.

Yet more proof that these changes are being made with PvE in mind and ignoring basic PvP functionality.

Arcanasx

So rather than incentivizing players to play better, lets try tearing down those who took the time to play better instead. What could possibly ever go wrong with this mindset...

xaraan

I think it would be healthier for the game to create ways to teach players how to play the game better instead of just taking the 'gameplay' out of the game. I'm not saying no adjustment is needed, the game definitely needs balancing (unfortunately, this will just shake a lot of up and nothing will end up balanced between classes). They also need to start designing trials and dungeons better, lose the mechanics that ignore what you've taught players - don't teach them how to stun break and then put unbreakable stuns/knock downs in there. Don't teach them how to react with abilities like purge and then make every important dot un-purgeable in trials and dungeons. etc.

ZoS has created a large group of the player base that just feels like they deserve to walk through the content and have everything handed to them like overland. This might not apply to you just because you think the change is a good one, but you can't deny there are a ton of players like that right now in the game. Catering to them isn't healthy for the game. There is a reason many of us don't queue up for pug runs in dungeons - because finding players that are good is rare, and usually what makes them bad isn't just dps or LA weaving. These are often the same players that don't know the mechanics at world events (kill the ghosts at the lava vents!) or world bosses (the squiggly lines mean bash!) and I wouldn't trust them on a real run even if they sent me a 100K dummy parse.

Past that, I'm not saying any change is a bad one, but the ones in the post seem like over kill. It honestly just feels like round 2 of the LAnerf/HAbuff from a couple years ago that failed, they just put a new twist on the explanation and polished it up and rolled it back out. Combining it with the dot changes that they say will also lower the ceiling and now you have two things raising the floor and lowering the ceiling and muddying the waters as to which is effecting things more when people start testing. PLUS, you'll already have half the streamers or more out there promoting this like the last LA/HA change just b/c they are more casual and want an easier road to completing HMs and such and looking like top players, last time a few of them were outright lying about test results to try and tell people the changes weren't effecting that much. So there will already be probably only about a half dozen streamers/testers that will be trustworthy once they start checking out these changes on PTS.

The other problem is the game has some huge balance problems between classes and none of that can be fine tuned when you change core mechanics of the game. That will shake everything up, divert everyone's attention for a couple patches and leave us as unbalanced as before. And that doesn't even address some stuff like Vampire being exactly what it was before they changed it: a thing people take for one or two buffs and not b/c they want to be a vampire.

In the end, LA weaving is not hard (baring a handicap or maybe bad lag - though I have aussie friends that still do well with it). Even with that, I don't think the game should be made easy mode just for someone with a handicap to complete vet dungeons, if you can't run them, run normal, that's what they are there for. But I'm an old man with bad hands and I can light attack weave. I'm not 100% and probably not optimized with the whole APM thing, but you don't need to be to do anything in the game. I've done vet HM trifecta of dungeons and trials (not counting new one, still working on that). You don't have to have 100K+ dps like some of those build guys have in order to complete the hardest stuff in the game. Sure, it helps, but a lot of other skills those guys have help in addition to LA weaving. And the reasoning behind the buff/dot changes is weird, nobody has all ten slots just full of dots to rotate, so it comes off as disingenuous from the start. Most people will have a few dots but your bar space will also be taken up by static buffs like having mage light on the bar for example, and a player will often have a responsive skill like a heal or shield, and they also sometimes have an execute ability and a spammable. So right there we go from saying "player feels like they have to slot ten skills and keep them up to juggle dots and buffs" down to what's actually more like managing 3-4 dots and buffs in addition to whatever you are spamming (and some builds have even less to manage than that now).

MindOfTheSwarm

The Nerf to DoT’s is going to hurt casuals more than it’s going to help them. Yes, it will make rotations easier, but when they decide to have a crack at Vet Maelstrom or Vateshran, they are gonna have a tougher time than they are now. Ground DoT’s are good for taking down trash while allowing yourself to stay mobile and stay alive. But that strategy will no longer work as you will get overwhelmed. This isn’t making it easier for casuals, it’s making it harder for them. Vet players will adjust fine.

Dagobertfuk

@Gilliamtherogue

Casuals just wanna play the game. They dont care about skillcap [snip]. And its not hard to improve if people rly want to, they do. This weaving and ability duration *** just will kill the game for any veteran player in both pvp and pve.

With abilities lasting long the only thing that left is use spammables for a longer period of time. This is *** boring and an indane skill brake.

Imagine reapplying all your hots and dots again after 10-15 seconds and then you just can move around and use spammable for that duration. Its so dumb.

Like that you destroy any challenging dps rotation. You lower the skillcap and at the same time make it impossible to ever let any individual go above that. Its just a punch in the face of every veteran player or people wich wanna constantly sharpen their skills. Imagine a 1vs1 between 2 skilled players. Its just never gonna end and BORING AS ***!!!

ZOS failed with overland content already to prepare people for veteran content with your not existent difficulty from lvl 1 to 50. But let Vet content in piece.

DONT MAKE THE GAME EASIER! MAKE IT THAT WAY PEOPLE CAN LEARN EASIER AND PROVIDE MORE THINGS IN THAT ASPECT!!! We even have to do your job and find out by ourselfes wich sets work in no proc Cyrodiil. What an embarresment.

With those changes this game is dead to me and not even worth to be an Ashes of Creations Waitingroom anymore.

Like casttime ultimates werent enough. Now you just take almost the entire gameplay out of this game, we love so much. I never expected that i actually dont care about bad Performance anymore because if this goes live, i could rather life with bad Performance than this joke of combat changes.

[snip]
[edited for bashing & profanity bypass]

Adenoma

ZOS is very data driven - but do they have data or evidence that consistently dropping the skill ceiling actually increases new player involvement or retention?

I know I stopped playing because the game felt like it was losing skillful components and 1vX or small group was getting pushed into an unhappy corner. I keep checking these forums because this is a game I used to love, but each time I keep seeing changes I hate. All of these actions are just directed at reducing APM and skill ceiling. Depressing.

geonsocal

if the concern is for new players versus experienced players - tweak combat scaling, make the noobs more powerful...

buff pre level 50 combat scaling and extend combat scaling all the way to cp 500...

Dayth

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Currently, to be truly effective in ESO’s combat, you need to learn to manipulate something that is known as “weaving,” which refers to the act of squeezing multiple actions into the global cooldown window. Doing so drastically increases your agency and output, and it is a staple of the game that we’ve come to embrace, as it helps our combat feel different and exciting to participate in once you learn the ins and outs. However, the impact of weaving leads to a massive gap in performance where players who cannot interact with it as effectively are left miles behind those who can. While this is partially unavoidable and an important part of what makes the mastery of ESO or any activity utilizing a similar system particularly satisfying, we want to do what we can to shorten that delta. The closer the gap between the low and high end, the easier it is to create content that can accommodate a wider audience, while making more natural progression points for those looking to improve. To this end, we’ve started to look at the impact that one of the most common and important forms of weaving has in ESO: Light and Heavy Attack weaving.

Coming in Update 35, we’re reducing Light and Heavy Attacks’ impact in damage production by adjusting their damage to deal a flat amount, regardless of stats. We have spent a considerable amount of time investigating the baseline experience that a new player would have with these attacks, using that as our starting point for how much damage they do moving forward. The aim is to not harm the low-end experience, and target only the higher end. In doing so, we hope to reduce the difference of damage potential in a way that retains the satisfaction of learning to weave, where the impact is still felt, but to a much less degree than before.

For reference, in many of ESO’s high-end experiences and activities, the average build sees roughly 15–20% of their overall damage coming from Light Attacks alone, which is a huge contribution to the delta of power we see. While testing these adjustments internally, we’ve seen a reduction of 6–11% to overall damage, which allows for a much smaller and healthier gap while still retaining the sense of mastery and expression of that mastery with weaving.

With this adjustment, we’ll also be making a significant number of changes to item sets, passives, and buffs to ensure classes remain balanced in damage production, while also trying to do a better job allowing builds to amplify these actions (we’ve heard your cries, Heavy Attack build lovers, and we want better for you) without introducing unhealthy gameplay between PvE and PvP.

So you have a problem with people doing this "weaving" but you also don't want these people to stop weaving so you plan to make changes that will negatively impact even people that don't do weaving?

Shouldn't use just...stop letting people do the weaving rather than trying to balance your game around it?

How will these changes effects skills that require the use of Light Attacks like Bound Armaments or Crystal Weapon?

You mention wanting to do better of Heavy Attack builds meanwhile completely destroying Light Attack builds rather than stopping people abusing a flaw in your combat system.

These changes will negatively impact everyone, including the people that don't do weaving.
Just remove weaving: it's a bug not a feature.

Tannus15

geonsocal wrote: »

if the concern is for new players versus experienced players - tweak combat scaling, make the noobs more powerful...

buff pre level 50 combat scaling and extend combat scaling all the way to cp 500...

Or teach them how to play the game.
Teach them how builds and stats work.
ZoS have put ZERO effort into explaining how the stats and combat interact.

I cannot stress enough how important it is for pve dps to put all their attributes into 1 stat and how unintuitive this is.
Resource pools should not affect damage.

Someone who changes all their jewel enchants to gold damage has 522 more damage than the default regen setup.
That's as much as full stacks on Siroria.
Why is this not explained anywhere?

HatchetHaro

I'm not sure about the DoT changes. The Light and Heavy attack damage changes I am fine with, but while I'm mostly okay with the DoT changes as well myself, I think they're missing the point.

Firstly, I am concerned that with the longer duration on the DoTs, instead of people filling up on 10 DoTs, you'll just get people using 9 DoTs and 1 spammable, which isn't a big change in terms of barspace.

You'll also run into the Carve situation where people just cast their DoTs and then completely forget to refresh it because people, especially the "average" players you are trying to elevate, will just doze off with the long duration between DoTs. What was people casting 8 consecutive spammables at a time between DoTs turns into them casting 18 consecutive spammables at a time, and that's enough for people to lose count and focus.

Instead of (or in addition to) lengthening DoT durations, I believe standardizing those DoT durations is the way to go. Right now, DoT durations are all over the place and awkward; just on DKs alone on a few regular DPS setups, you're seeing:

- 3s - Deep Breath
- 4s - Burning Talons
- 10s - Deadly Cloak, Unstable Wall, Mystic Orb
- 14s - Venomous Claw, Engulfing Flames
- 15s - Flames of Oblivion, Anti-Cavalry Caltrops, Stampede
- 18s - Eruption, Barbed Trap
- 29s - Carve

What this means is that in order to optimize and deal good damage, you have to go dynamic, which means spending more of your focus watching your bars and timers and less on the actual fight itself, and that proves a problem for an ADD raider like me; that stuff is just not accessible. My only solution is to go static, and, well, I'll just share this with you guys.

Look, I can craft up a good unique static rotation for every single setup and every single fight for every single class (and I got damn close to it), but when those DoTs are so varied in duration, they just don't fit. Either I keep trying to make it work and lengthen the rotation and end up with just a regular dynamic rotation that I've written down and now have to memorize all 300 casts of, or I can just generalize them to the closest multiple of 5 and end up with lower damage from overcasting and undercasting DoTs.

And I'm an end-game raider; I have the ability to memorize long-arse static rotations and do damage just from muscle memory while still keeping track of trial mechanics; your average ESO player stands no chance of getting anywhere near this level of focus.

Make static rotations more accessible. Make it easier for people to make and run a static rotation. Make Barbed Trap and Eruption last either 15s or 20s; 14s is dumb so make Claw and Engulfing 15s instead; 4s is awkward for Burning Talons so make it 3s or 5s instead. Once you make optimal rotations easier the average player will do better.

People can still watch their DoT timers if they want; I don't care.

baselesschart

Rip ESO combat. Watering down core mechanics helps nobody.

Morvan

Honestly, I don't like this, nerfing weaving will hurt players who are trying to meet dps checks, and make everyone weaker as a whole, make a better tutorial and teach players how to weave, don't nerf people for being good, it's just not fair.

The more you can improve, the more satisfying it will be, let people learn and get better over time, that's why everyone plays RPGs, sense of accomplishment, progress.

Iselin

Is Wrobel back on the team making his usual drastic balance changes every couple of months?

VoidCommander

As someone who has spent dozens upon dozens of hours perfecting light attack weaving and ability uptime rotations on over 10 dps characters, this is going to be a fantastic change. There is no need to keep the pace at such a high level, especially as veteran players age out of the near super-human reflexes younger players have.

The DOT damage increase should more than compensate for the loss of light attack damage. I think this will put a lot of stress on classes having a strong spammable though.

That said, ZOS, if you touch my Templar Sweeps negatively, I will uninstall.

neferpitou73

Adenoma wrote: »

ZOS is very data driven - but do they have data or evidence that consistently dropping the skill ceiling actually increases new player involvement or retention?

I know I stopped playing because the game felt like it was losing skillful components and 1vX or small group was getting pushed into an unhappy corner. I keep checking these forums because this is a game I used to love, but each time I keep seeing changes I hate. All of these actions are just directed at reducing APM and skill ceiling. Depressing.

ZOS is very spreadsheet driven. The last several patches have shown that they are completely divorced from the reality of the way their game is played.

Tannus15

I feel bad for whoever made the changes to undaunted infiltrator 2 patches ago :

Undaunted Infiltrator and Unweaver: These sets now add 2014 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Light and Heavy Attacks, rather adding 1685 damage to these attacks.

That was a complete waste of time wasn't it.

"Coming in Update 35, we’re reducing Light and Heavy Attacks’ impact in damage production by adjusting their damage to deal a flat amount, regardless of stats"

lemonizzle

Wasn't "weaving" = light attack between skill activations in combat, and "animation canceling" with bash, bar swap etc. two separate things? Regardless, nothing new here just the usual 'take this hammer to fix a broken vase' story.

Contraptions

I don't mind damage nerfs across the board cos damage is kinda out of control right now, but content needs to be adjusted to compensate.

ZOS has mentioned before that they tend not to make content harder once it is released. The current nerfs to us are indirect buffs to NPCs and this needs adjustment.

The largest concern is with trials cos certain encounters are tuned based on current DPS and HPS levels, but I foresee the effects bleeding into vet dungeons as well.

Iselin

VoidCommander wrote: »

As someone who has spent dozens upon dozens of hours perfecting light attack weaving and ability uptime rotations on over 10 dps characters, this is going to be a fantastic change. There is no need to keep the pace at such a high level, especially as veteran players age out of the near super-human reflexes younger players have.

The DOT damage increase should more than compensate for the loss of light attack damage. I think this will put a lot of stress on classes having a strong spammable though.

That said, ZOS, if you touch my Templar Sweeps negatively, I will uninstall.

Oh really? Do tell us more about that DOT damage increase

Is this the part you're talking about?

"For example, previously, a damage over time effect would deal 1.5× the damage of a “spammable” attack (such as Surprise Attack) over its duration of 10 seconds, or 0.15 relative damage per second. Now, damage over time effects will deal 2× the damage of a spammable attack over its duration of 20 seconds, increasing its damage per cast while reducing its relative damage per second to 0.1."

"Damage per second" is usually referred to as DPS. You might want to make a note that it's actually DECREASING.

James-Wayne

Arcanasx wrote: »

So rather than incentivizing players to play better, lets try tearing down those who took the time to play better instead. What could possibly ever go wrong with this mindset...

Just because you weave attacks to increase damage doesn't make you a better player, understanding the mechanics and learning to play against those does make you a better player, always has.

People to get out of their minds that big DPS numbers doesn't make you better and it certainly doesn't make you a end game player.

Hexquisite

Waiting for the Mythic that plays the game for me.

BalticBlues

PvP is ALL about mobility.
Arenas are ALL about mobility.
PvE DLC dungeons are becoming more and more about mobility.
PvE Trials are becoming more and more about mobility.

But ZOS gives us LESS mobility with longer DOTS doing LESS damage/tick?
This will make it even harder for low end players to do all the hard content.
And this will make AoE/DOT playstyles much weaker, especially Magicka.

So STAMINA is getting ANOTHER BOOST YEAR.
Boost 1: Procs become dependend on raw damage: Stamina wins (best procs)
Boost 2: Heals become depended on raw damage: Stamina wins (best heals)
Boost 3: AoE/Dots nerfed: Stamina wins (raw damage & mobility wins)

ecru

Nerfing DOTs like this is very lame and further hurts build diversity. There's nothing wrong with long DOTs, but when DOTs do extremely weak DPS, stacking them becomes completely ineffective outside of niche PvE situations, as even in open world and dungeons they end up useless aside from on bosses due to their weak DPS. ESO already has by far the weakest DOTs that I've ever seen in any MMO (alongside the most powerful purges, which is truly baffling--please play other games once in awhile, an outside perspective wouldn't hurt at this point), this only makes them worse. Very weird decision honestly, just increase their duration while not touching their DPS or something. At this rate, everything will just be boring buffs/debuffs and direct damage.

neferpitou73 wrote: »

Adenoma wrote: »

ZOS is very data driven - but do they have data or evidence that consistently dropping the skill ceiling actually increases new player involvement or retention?

I know I stopped playing because the game felt like it was losing skillful components and 1vX or small group was getting pushed into an unhappy corner. I keep checking these forums because this is a game I used to love, but each time I keep seeing changes I hate. All of these actions are just directed at reducing APM and skill ceiling. Depressing.

ZOS is very spreadsheet driven. The last several patches have shown that they are completely divorced from the reality of the way their game is played.

Spreadsheet-driven balance changes destroyed Rift. It resulted in one of the most broken, overpowered classes essentially destroying the game for everyone being untouched for something stupid like a year and a half. Imagine a class that could press a button, put a set of dots on you that you couldn't purge off, and kill you with them (very poor self heals in Rift), without doing anything else. They see you, hit a button, and you're guaranteed death about 15 seconds later or whatever. That was deemed "okay" because in their spreadsheets, outcomes in raid and pvp content did not differ enough based on how many members of this class were present. The fact that it was making the game miserable for everyone else was never even a consideration.