Update 35 Combat Preview

LashanW

We are at the 35th update after 8 years and you guys still change the game rapidly like it's still in beta.

Slow down a bit, let the players take a breather. Give them time to do actual content rather than playing catch up with your constant changes. How is someone supposed to get good at your game when you keep changing its fundamentals?

But if you are hell-bent on bringing drastic changes then I have a suggestion for you. Balance PvP and PvE separately. Maybe you could think about it by update 40.

Aldoss

I would just like to point out that ZOS dropped a good chunk of change not only to get Billy Boyd to voice Bragas, but committed dozens of employee wages towards the development of the character, specifically and solely for the purpose of teaching new players how to play their [I'll self snip this] game within a game.

How does ZOS teach new players about LA weaving? One random placard that shows up maybe 1% of the time on load screens.

How does ZOS teach new players about damage stacking? Not at all.

How does ZOS teach new players how to animation cancel (because let's face it, it isn't going away)? Not at all.

How does ZOS teach new players how to improve their dps? A trial dummy that currently spews out incorrect information in one line.

A trial dummy is arguably useless without Combat Metrics. It's amazing to me that they haven't implemented their own in-game version of it.

You want to raise the skill floor? TEACH THEM! Drop the same amount of investment as you did for Bragas and actually give these new players tools to learn. Abdicating this responsibility to guilds or randos will ultimately end in a lot of hurt feelings because not everyone wants to spend their time teaching new players. Time is short. Sometimes they just want to run a dungeon in the 30 minutes they have to play, but group finder gave them a dps who performs 40 APM or less, most of them light attacks, because why wouldn't they? They don't know any better. They're fresh off light attacking overland mobs and light attacking a dragon that was getting mauled by 30+ players.

One of the most entertaining, but ultimately terribly sad, moments in Rich's streams was when he'd do random Vet dungeons as a healer. It was probably the most informative moment as to the state of the average ESO player. It wasn't good. It was laughable, but made entertaining by Rich's exemplary patience as he'd sit there and take the abuse and try to make good of all their mistakes. There aren't many people that want to do what Rich did. They'd leave or vote kick the lowest performer, creating a toxic environment that makes these new players adversarial against "the sweaties".

It's mind boggling how many things go completely unsaid in this game. I mean, c'mon, Ravenwatch STILL has no confirmed set list for what works in there, let alone any in-game mention as to what "proc" sets are.

No amount of overhauls to the base combat system is going to fix this. ZOS needs to start investing in these new players with actual education, not by nerfing the players that spent thousands of hours learning and honing their education on their own the hard way.

Darzaka

@ZOS_Gilliam
This is the first time I've ever spoke out on an incoming update, but I feel I have to. Please don't remove LA weaving. Please don't.

My heart can't bear to see it. I've spent so much time learning how to play this game. I still remember the pride and joy that came from my first vVH trifecta. Please,
@ZOS_Gilliam hear me out, you are not lowering the ceiling, you are raising it; imagine how much harder that trifecta would have been without that LA damage. I'm one of those folks who gets 17% of their damage from LA weaving. Imagine the pain newer players will feel trying to do harder content with less overall damage.

terrasight

So you want to punish all of us spending hours to learn the game, rotation, weaving, improving our skills and setups and reward lazy ppl? Nice... ^^

Nobody asks for this. The gap is something making ppl try hard and learn to get in higher (endgame) groups. It's like in sports, it's a good thing.

And it's a reason to keep the endgame community alive.

Jaraal

Xinihp wrote: »

If you want to increase the duration of abilities for people who can't press buttons you damage the game for the vast majority. Increase the mana/stamina cost if you must do this. But lowering already mediocre AOE/DoT damage is going to absolutely wreck the experience of the game.

It's funny how easy it is to see that these changes are being done for PvE only. Extended, but weaker DOTs might be great for scripted AI mobs who don't know how to cleanse, break free, etc. But good PvPers will just run around rocks laughing while 30 players can't muster up enough damage to kill them.

I'm actually surprised that ZOS hasn't tried making jumping cost stamina in order to "lower the ceiling".

definitelygee

please do not implement this. this unique and fun combat system and trials are literally the only thing keeping me playing this game and consistently paying for crowns and my subscription. if you ruin the combat system, myself and I'm assuming many others would leave the game immediately. the current combat system is the one thing that makes eso so great for casual and competitive gamers alike. for people who want to do more damage in whatever content they are doing; whether its questing, world bosses, dungeons, trials and arenas the light attack weaving gave you a goal to work on, light attack weaving is almost like a milestone to march towards to get better for any player....

DeathStalker

Magio_ wrote: »

Casual =/= Bad Player ZOS. Some players are not good and that's ok. You don't need to bend over backward to accommodate them. Some content will and should only be cleared by the very best. People need to learn to accept that.

This game is not new or casual player-friendly. To limit some content with an artificial measuring stick leads a lot of people leaving in frustrated feeling that some content is forever out of reach. The mechanics needed are not taught by the game and the players who can run the content, for the most part, belittle and smugly run down anyone who doesn't measure up to the imaginary measuring stick. To learn the mechanics needed to be " High End " means trying to learn from the very people who insult and belittle everyone, not in their little high-end player's club. Most people would rather be casual or play something else. I myself have severe arthritis in my hands and wrists. It's just not possible for me to do a high APM. I would rather sleep on broken glass than ask for help from the very people who insult and belittle people like me so I could improve if it's even possible with my limitations. I 1000% support ZOS in their effort to make more content accessible to more people.

ZiggyTStardust

We shall see if the buffs to the dots make up for the damage loss from the LAs, cause this will hurt otherwise

MetallicMonk

Honestly impressive how each patch gets worse; when it comes to lowering the bar, you guys are on top.

This doesn't do anything for casual players it just makes the game less enjoyable.

Iselin

ZiggyTStardust wrote: »

We shall see if the buffs to the dots make up for the damage loss from the LAs, cause this will hurt otherwise

They're not getting buffed. Their damage per tick is actually getting nerfed

"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"

UntilValhalla13

Rip any future godslayer, planesbreaker, or swashbuckler runs for those of us on console. Are y'all going to adjust the speed run time limits to compensate for dumbing down the damage? I wish the devs actually played endgame instead of looking at spreadsheets or watching the best players in the world knock these things out with add-ons. Maybe we're all supposed to just be werewolves and rp in the rift.

TitanEidolon

The problem is that a large number of players don't know what they're doing wrong. You "embrace" weaving but never bother to mention it to players as something they should do. A 5 minute tutorial would work wonders for closing the gap.

Instead of bringing the under performing players up, you're going to neuter the people who have put time and energy into mastering their rotation. I don't struggle to keep buffs from falling off, I might have one or two missed light attacks on a dummy. This change is a flat out nerf across the board.

The worst part is, you're not balancing my class because it needs tweaking. That happens. You're not adjusting equipment that over performs. You are nerfing *me*, the player. You are reducing *my* performance across the board in all content with all gear on every class. You are diminishing all the effort I put into getting better.

If that doesn't feel like a slap in the face I don't know what does.

terrasight

DeathStalker wrote: »

Magio_ wrote: »

Casual =/= Bad Player ZOS. Some players are not good and that's ok. You don't need to bend over backward to accommodate them. Some content will and should only be cleared by the very best. People need to learn to accept that.

This game is not new or casual player-friendly. To limit some content with an artificial measuring stick leads a lot of people leaving in frustrated feeling that some content is forever out of reach. The mechanics needed are not taught by the game and the players who can run the content, for the most part, belittle and smugly run down anyone who doesn't measure up to the imaginary measuring stick. To learn the mechanics needed to be " High End " means trying to learn from the very people who insult and belittle everyone, not in their little high-end player's club. Most people would rather be casual or play something else. I myself have severe arthritis in my hands and wrists. It's just not possible for me to do a high APM. I would rather sleep on broken glass than ask for help from the very people who insult and belittle people like me so I could improve if it's even possible with my limitations. I 1000% support ZOS in their effort to make more content accessible to more people.

Without us evil "high end groups", who will play the trifectas? Who will teach the next generation? And not asking for help is your own personal problem, not something a part of the game (the endgame community) has to suffer for.

TitanEidolon

DeathStalker wrote: »

Most people would rather be casual or play something else. I myself have severe arthritis in my hands and wrists. It's just not possible for me to do a high APM.

There are better approaches that don't diminish skills people have worked hard to develop. Make certain dots and buffs into toggles that drain resource over time. Introduce a set or mythic into the game that gives you a stacking buff for each consecutive ability used without a light attack (up to 5 or something) then when you light attack it multiplies the damage by the number of stacks. Then as long as you hit a LA every 5 abilities or so you're doing almost the same damage as a perfect weaver.

I don't mind making the floor higher, just don't do it by nerfing the players who have put a *lot* of time in.

Tommy_The_Gun

Tbh. I don't know what to think about it. I guess it will be a nerf for builds that specialize in Heavy attacks and also Top PvE DPS in general. But If some one is for example a tank or healer or has a nice solo build with less than 3K weapon / spell damage - then I guess nothing will change for those players or they will see a tiny buff.

I am more concerned about Damage / Healing over time abilities, or sets, or things that provide buffs / debuffs, as many of those (especially the less used ones) may end up totally useless.

icAirborne

I dont see how spamming two buttons for 20 seconds at a time just because dots last so absurdly long could be at all interesting.

And then la weaving is next to worthless. I don’t see why the devs are so dead set on making learning anything about the mechanics of this game as worthless as possible. Especially because you do not need to know these mechanics well to complete 99% of the content in the first place.

SeaUnicorn

Meta flips are so tiring. Please consider to package meta flips to the chapter releases so we can raid in peace and get new trial achieves without having to loose half of the team members because of meta flip fatigue. Thank you.

Also gap between skilled players is not because DOTs are short timer, they are because all DOTs have completely different durations, so skilled player exceeds at playing whack-a-mole and min maxing cast-to-dot uptime.

You can have perfectly simple and easy to use rotation with 10s or 12s duration DOTs on some classes, like templar. But guess what, Templar Jabs have totally broken animation vs sound vs actual cast time, so it adds a gap, because new player has no idea that ZOS decided to change skill cast time w/o actually adjusting sound and animation.

And lets talk about healer skill gap: no its not the HOT duration, it's absolutely broken targeting priority on main buff that healer is responsible for: Combat Prayer, so you are forced into high APM gameplay not because you need that to heal well, no. You need to spam the living hell out of this very expensive skill to make it may be, possibly, not guaranteed to land on all team members just because it likes to target same 6 people over and over. Do not get me even started on forcing healers to use heavy attacks for uptimes (RO, Stone Talker), while channeled heavies are broken, so they either do not connect, or disconnect early, or get you stuck in heavy attack animation.

How about all the bugs that introduce unintended skill gaps be fixed first.

davapoole

Anony_Mouse wrote: »

If we take a step back and look at the objective here, it seems you are trying to address some of the challenges currently seen in the combat system, for newer players or lower dps players [ "improving accessibility to the game’s combat "]. How can this be addressed? Sure, you can look at "closing the gap" by making adjustments to weaving and DoT times. As you can see already from the thread, this isnt proving to be a popular approach.

Alternatively, you could look at it from a different perspective;
How can you improve on new player's introduction to the complexity of the ESO combat system?

Personally, I think if you want to improve the damage of lower end players, you could make a big impact by making a better combat introduction.

Take it all the way back to the combat intro. It currently teaches how to heavy attack and set off balance, but that's about it.
Let people start off with 3 class abilities already unlocked so when it comes to the combat tutorial, you can teach about light attack weaving as well.

Then once the player is past the intro/tutorial (or whatever the first part of making a new character is called), have training camps in the base game, like in Craglorn for example, with an NPC teaching more and more advanced combinations and reward people for going there. Achievements, leads, skill points, prizes or whatever. Something to encourage people to go.

Have it like a place where you can keep coming back to, to practice. If you’re brand new and/or have no guild, you currently have next to no access to being taught how to be come better and how to progress your combat skills. Or to any form of practice dummies.

Unless you run into a helpful person in a Normal Random Dungeon, you are at a strong disadvantage.
I was recently in a Normal DLC pug where CP1500+ players did not know how to interrupt a boss so we carried on wiping till I explained what the red lines meant... if those basic skills or knowledge is missing, there is something more fundamentally wrong with the introduction to combat in the game which has nothing to do with Light Attack weaving or DoT times.

Maybe help the new players instead of changing what already works for the experienced players?

very true you need some tutorials about combat not trying to drop top end damage so it looks like it is not so bad there low damage numbers compared to end game players. but you should not be punished for spending days and days of total hours on training dummies for the sake of appearance of closing a gap. your tutorials are incredibly poor with no explanation of most combat systems and with the weaving there is no information in game about it at all. therefore new players have to get guides online or as said be lucky and find a guild or decent players willing to explain it all. altering the light attack weaving is never going to address the lack of training or basic information about weaving in game .

Gaebriel0410

Fantastic change, applying and reapplying super short buffs all the time was by far the least interesting part of ESO combat for me, so I am very glad to see this.

Nord_Raseri

I am someone with nerve, tendon, and bone damage in my hands. I barely sit at 80k on my build I've worked a couple years trying to master(I have to push myself, that 80k is hard fought). Every patch adds changes that drop me well below that threshold and takes a lot of time and effort to bring it back up. I my not have perfect apm but my build relies heavily on steady light attack weaving. I hope this change doesn't drop me so low I can't come back. I know I can start utilizing different builds, but as I've said, it's taken me a long time to build something specifically for me. Don't kill it.

Jaraal

ZiggyTStardust wrote: »

We shall see if the buffs to the dots make up for the damage loss from the LAs, cause this will hurt otherwise

DOTs aren’t being buffed. They are being reduced in damage by 33%.

a_Beautiful_Mind2

Is the real goal at the end of the day to allow a new player who started 3 months ago get Planesbreaker in a week so that everyone can accomplish all of your "achievements" without ever really learning how to play the game?

Every time combat change comes around those that have played this game loyally for 7 years just become less interested in the game because the uniqueness and difficulty get taken away and we are given "Well, based on our data analysis of x amount of players the skill gap seems to be x and we want to close that so everyone can play with each other and sing happy songs around the fire."

Honestly, is it more rewarding to force veteran players to lower their standards and expectations so that "Participation Trophies" can be handed out to everyone?

I seriously hope that, once again, these changes are not implemented and maybe someone gets hired for the combat team that understands balance of PVE, PVP, experience and skill gaps cause as it stands a good majority of the affected community based on these changes will probably stop wasting time and money on a game that forces them to play a certain way because "everyone should play the same way".

Disappointing, lack luster and just ignorant of the whole community and not just what will make a quick buck and never see that player again in a month.

Thecompton73

ZiggyTStardust wrote: »

We shall see if the buffs to the dots make up for the damage loss from the LAs, cause this will hurt otherwise

Dot damage is getting nerfed per tick in exchange for longer duration. So anyone that could come anywhere even close to reapplying them on cool down will see DPS drop as a result.

Tra_Lalan

So you want less skilled players to perform better and your solution is to nerf more skilled ones?
And you expect players that are beeing nerfed, to be just fine with this? Yeah because everyone likes when he looses something or is beeing robbed

I have a better solution for you, here it is:

Just do one skill that does lets say 60k dps and locks all the skill slots on both bars, you will achieve what you are aiming for.
You will have the bottom player performance locked at some level. Less skilled player will always be able to perform 60k dps (or whatever you design there) and you wount have to nerf others and make your community angry and dissapointed.

you're welcome

vgabor

Well, this whole 'how many precent the LA contributes to the DPS' is just a classical case of not seeing the forest for the trees... The difference between floor and ceiling is not just because of the LA damage itself but the ability to execute perfect weaving for the meta high dps sets like relequen kinras yokeda and similar sets. Keeping these properly up is what really differentiate high dps and low dps players, and changing LA damage not going to do much and will have way smaller effect then you think, as the people unable to do proper weaving still not going to be able to use these sets to their potential comparing to the people doing perfect weaving.

OolongSnakeTea

Dear Gil and the Gang,

I know it's not going to be easy- as the community just loves changes and all that. But I'm glad you folks in ZOS have been given the dev time to work on things and look forward to the changes. While it may change how I play, or what I play, I just like this game way too much to cry about things that haven't even come yet. No point in aggressive reactionary statements or posturing.

Looking forward to downloading the PTS and playing with my builds.

Avoranti

Idk why there is this push to close the gap between new, inexperienced players and top tier players. Top tier players are there because they played hard, crunched the numbers and actually took the time learn their character and to perfect their builds. This just seems like one more punishment to the ones who actually have the ability to reach this level. I’m not even a top tier player and I think this is ridiculous. It’s like when people get participation awards for being last place. LA and HA are a part of reaching those high end dps numbers and are varied by each build. That’s how it should be. Making this aspect a flat stat not only takes away from the players who are good but gives to players who either don’t care enough to try or just don’t have the skill to do so. LA and HA should be different based on player stats and gear.

DeathStalker

TitanEidolon wrote: »

There are better approaches that don't diminish skills people have worked hard to develop. Make certain dots and buffs into toggles that drain resource over time. Introduce a set or mythic into the game that gives you a stacking buff for each consecutive ability used without a light attack (up to 5 or something) then when you light attack it multiplies the damage by the number of stacks. Then as long as you hit a LA every 5 abilities or so you're doing almost the same damage as a perfect weaver.

I don't mind making the floor higher, just don't do it by nerfing the players who have put a *lot* of time in.

I would happily support anything like this that would " raise the floor ". Just tired of people like me always being blamed for nerfs from a very loud and insulting group of individuals that always seem to be in a single crowd...High end players

TitanEidolon

OolongSnakeTea wrote: »

Looking forward to downloading the PTS and playing with my builds.

That's the thing, this isn't a change that forces you rethink your build, it's a change that either affects you as a *player* or doesn't, depending on how much time you've spent mastering the game.

No amount of build crafting will change that

davapoole

one thing we are all missing is this disscussion is almost irrelavent as the update is written and will be on the pts on monday. so the devs will be bug fixing what's in there not re writting this system. so nothing said here will change anything as there is not enough time to revamp it all before the updates released in 6 weeks as a lot is still being written. i agree we should make it very clear that most of the player base in my guild think that this is a stupid change that no one is asking for.But you will just have to make the best of it till maybe next feb release by which time they might have got all the imbalances sorted so its not as bad as it will be when this is released. If a reaction to the change was going to be implemented this would have been released in january so we all could have made it clear it was not wanted and not goiing to help any new players and then maybe some things could have been re worked but i think its way too late for any changes now to this