Does Anyone Actually Like the Majority of the PTS Changes?

Pevey

No

Amottica wrote: »

And that is a good reason why everyone with the means should test. The spread between the top and bottom of player ability in this game is the worst I have ever seen. It is a big source of the toxicity we see mentioned in the forums often.

There is a test going on right now if you are really interested:

Also, I think the ESO community was the least toxic gaming community I have seen in terms of really good players helping other players. I guess everyone's experience varies. There will always be some toxic people at the high skill end and some toxic people at the low end and some infighting between. But that is everywhere, and I perceived that it was less in ESO than in other games.

I also find that most of the really toxic behavior comes from (1) players hating people better than they are and (2) players who are not nearly as good as they think they are giving players slightly less skilled/knowledgeable a hard time. These people are just bullies and would be in any context.

With many apologies to RagedAvenger:

DLM

No

Left SWTOR for good when they destroyed their game with the last "expansion". That's how I came back to ESO.

It looks like I am about to dish ESO permanently as well. And I guess that I am done with MMOs.

TekNut71

No

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

Just Curious

NOPE!!

So, I’ve played ESO for about 5-6yrs now. Mostly PVE with a little of PVP here and there. In the past year I’ve started doing trials and arenas. I think I have a good grasp of most of the mechanics of the game. However, I will never claim to be great at weaving… ever. I am at a level now that I can solo overland bosses and handle group dungeons (unless the mechanics are ***).

That being said, I am not a casual player.

So I asked the question… Who is “UPDATE 35” for, the DEV’s are the Players?

If ZOS is trying to fix power creep then adjust all armor sets and leave class abilities & skills alone!

I’ve been on the PTS for the past few days and its not good. I am pretty sure no one asked for any of these changes.

• Any hopes of being able to get over 60K damage again is gone if this goes live.
• The fights last longer now and you end up spamming attacks over and over again… aka: slow and boring
• Why would anyone think reducing APS / DPS be great for the game?
• Templar, Sorc’s & DK’s have been nerfed into Oblivion (pun intended).
• The new Flurry animation is absolutely horrible. How did this get past QA?

Mr_Stach

No

TekNut71 wrote: »

• Templar, Sorc’s & DK’s have been nerfed into Oblivion (pun intended).

Odd you omitted Wardens from the Nerfed in Oblivion...... or were they already there, waiting for the rest to join them?

I think among all the classes Either Warden (with the reworking of Advanced Species among other things) or Sorc (with the Wombo Combo of Crystal Weapon and Armaments just being trash now) probably got some of the worst changes in my opinion.

But I guess that depends on your point of view I guess

TekNut71

No

Mr_Stach wrote: »

TekNut71 wrote: »

• Templar, Sorc’s & DK’s have been nerfed into Oblivion (pun intended).

Odd you omitted Wardens from the Nerfed in Oblivion...... or were they already there, waiting for the rest to join them?

I honestly haven't played Warden's enough to comfirm that change, but it does appear to be accurate. I'm annoyed by most of the changes in Update 35, but for some reason Flurry and Jab's really bug the hell out of me, LOL.
I can only hope that these changes never make it to the live server.

Mr_Stach

No

TekNut71 wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

TekNut71 wrote: »

• Templar, Sorc’s & DK’s have been nerfed into Oblivion (pun intended).

Odd you omitted Wardens from the Nerfed in Oblivion...... or were they already there, waiting for the rest to join them?

I honestly haven't played Warden's enough to comfirm that change, but it does appear to be accurate. I'm annoyed by most of the changes in Update 35, but for some reason Flurry and Jab's really bug the hell out of me, LOL.
I can only hope that these changes never make it to the live server.

Well that's what we're all working. Hopefully Zos changes course because this is a really bad direction.

AinSoph

No

Pevey wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

And that is a good reason why everyone with the means should test. The spread between the top and bottom of player ability in this game is the worst I have ever seen. It is a big source of the toxicity we see mentioned in the forums often.

There is a test going on right now if you are really interested:

Also, I think the ESO community was the least toxic gaming community I have seen in terms of really good players helping other players. I guess everyone's experience varies. There will always be some toxic people at the high skill end and some toxic people at the low end and some infighting between. But that is everywhere, and I perceived that it was less in ESO than in other games.

I also find that most of the really toxic behavior comes from (1) players hating people better than they are and (2) players who are not nearly as good as they think they are giving players slightly less skilled/knowledgeable a hard time. These people are just bullies and would be in any context.

With many apologies to RagedAvenger:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of a task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in their definition the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills.

merpins

No

AinSoph wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

And that is a good reason why everyone with the means should test. The spread between the top and bottom of player ability in this game is the worst I have ever seen. It is a big source of the toxicity we see mentioned in the forums often.

There is a test going on right now if you are really interested:

Also, I think the ESO community was the least toxic gaming community I have seen in terms of really good players helping other players. I guess everyone's experience varies. There will always be some toxic people at the high skill end and some toxic people at the low end and some infighting between. But that is everywhere, and I perceived that it was less in ESO than in other games.

I also find that most of the really toxic behavior comes from (1) players hating people better than they are and (2) players who are not nearly as good as they think they are giving players slightly less skilled/knowledgeable a hard time. These people are just bullies and would be in any context.

With many apologies to RagedAvenger:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of a task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in their definition the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills.

I'm personally at end game, but tend to prefer playing at midgame levels. 50-90k dps is more than enough to play the game casually, and at this point, I'm happy with that. I only break out my 120-140k dps beasts when I'm gonna run something seriously. I've seen the wide spectrum of toxic people in this game, including the classic bad DPS telling the healer that they are garbage because the bad DPS stood in stupid at the pinion boss in WGT (this was back when WGT was relatively new, and thus hard).
The person that was the healer was my wife, and she was a fantastic healer. But she took it so personally, she didn't even touch another random group dungeon until 2019, several years later. Toxic players kill the game, and the updates that are coming are going to create more toxicity that isn't necessary.

Also as a note, no I'm not happy with the changes despite liking playing at mid-game levels casually. It turns my midgame builds, the ones that do between 50 and 90k damage, into builds that are even worse and my end game builds into basically midgame builds damage wise. Rather not have to work harder to do midgame casually, it's meant to be casual (at least for me) y'know?

Stamicka

No

Amottica wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

I would be more interested in seeing how many hours of PTS testing has been done with the current load by those who do not like the PTS patch notes?

i've done multiple parses with my sorc with changes to my builds to see what i can do to make it bearable. Stam sorc, as in the stamina morphs for sorc, are utter garbage. Anyone using them in this update is making a mistake.

i've done less with my frost warden, but still enough to get a feeling for the changes (it's really really bad if you were wondering)

I've also some some stamdk to try out the new whip which is crazy strong. it honestly feels stronger than live crystal weapon.

I'd say in the one day since the changes went live, i've spent 5 hours on the PTS testing stuff and I feel confident to say that this is the worst update i've ever seen on PTS.
And yes, I test every PTS.
Just go back through the previous update comments and you'll find me posting parses and checking sets and skill changes.

Interesting but there is a big question remaining after reading your post.

What makes it unbearable? Is it merely that there are changes in timing for your rotations, skills not working as they should (based on PTS notes), or what?

Changes in the rotation and timing are something players will have to get used to and something Zenimax expects considering OT skills have longer durations. A reduction in our parses, for those who do weave very well, is another thing that is expected and intended in this PTS considering. This part is somewhat a good thing since we have seen power creep over the years making a lot of older content rather trivial.

So it’s good to reduce power creep because it has made older content too easy… but the intention as stated by ZOS was to make all Vet content more accessible to more players. How does reducing power creep aid in this goal? Cause it’s not just people who weave well that saw DPS reductions.

Since players who were challenged performing the light weave, that does require a high degree of repetitive precision, and the player who was either refreshing DoTs to often or not often enough they should see a buff to their damage while the higher end players will see a slight reduciotn.

I am surprised no one is commenting on the core of my post you quoted. The person said their experience testing this on the PTS was unbearable yet there is nothing that should cause pain outside of getting used to the different timing in a rotation.

So again, what is so unbearable?

What a ridiculous reply with some misinformation sprinkled in. How about you offer something constructive to this topic instead of… whatever you’re doing here.

You ask people if they actually hopped onto the PTS and tested these things before sharing their opinions on the matter. Yet you parrot the patch notes’ “lower the ceiling for high end players” logic. Guess what? In practice these changes didn’t help. The people who reapply a 10 second DOT too early? Good luck with a 20 second DOT. The people actually doing the testing are the ones that know that ZOS failed at their goal. As for calling an experience “unbearable”… yea it turns out that’s a highly subjective word, so I’m not sure why you’re trying to argue against someone calling the patch “unbearable”.

shadyjane62

No

Amottica wrote: »

I would be more interested in seeing how many hours of PTS testing has been done with the current load by those who do not like the PTS patch notes?

I didn't download the PTS because it is 120gbs of useless.

All I had to see was the totally terrible change to the animation of the Templar jab to know it was going to be bad.

I'm am the casual they "said" they wanted to help. This gutting of my char will not help.

8 years I put into this game always subbing and spending what I could afford for fluff.

But no longer. I will play out my sub because it took all my game money for the year to sub. I am a senior citizen and on a fixt income.

I hope they just listen and DON'T do it. But that hope is destined to be crushed.

Firstmep

Mixed

I voted mixed, because some of the overperforming sets are getting reigned in, but the actual combat changes are terrible.
The healing changes in particular I'm not a fan of, it's like they want us to go back to 2016 magplar type gameplay for everyone, spamming your burst heal on the backbar ad nauseum.

HeavyESO

Mixed

As much as I hate the changes, my inner schadenfreude almost enjoys seeing so many angry threads about the game

xaraan

No

Just have to add: I just saw the new animations for rapid strikes: has to be the dumbest change I've ever seen. Nobody asked for it and even if they did, this looks horrible. Nothing rapid about it, just looks like two light attacks. Considering it's the least important problem with this horrible patch, it's still glaringly bad. If this is their idea of an improvement, then it explains a lot.

Troodon80

Mixed

Amottica wrote: »

So if you are only able to get 40-45k damage why are some stating they hit 100k+?

Serious question.

As @Pevey said above. I've stated in my tests, for example, that the numbers are deliberately not from the trial dummy. Those getting 100k+ (and it is doable, I can also do it) are doing that on the trial dummy with all the associated buffs and debuffs that come with it. With the basic 3m or 6m (or other non-trial dummies) they do not have any buffs or debuffs applied.

Before someone says "wow low DPS noob" -- the purpose of the test is to:

• Deliberately not use the trial dummy, so that the tests would;
• Not be skewed by differences in trial dummy buffs/debuffs from Live to PTS
• To see, with purely self-buffs/debuffs, what the difference is like between Live and PTS as people doing overland and even group runs of trials won't be optimising for 4 person dungeons or 12 person raid compositions
  • To note: both Live and PTS tests had considerably lower than 20% uptime on Minor Breach from Sundered, but aside from that debuff it didn't have Major Breach or any other resistance modifying debuff
  • I was using Tzogvin, which grants 1487 Offensive Penetration, along with 6 pieces of light armour, granding a total of 7527 including CP, leaving the target with 10,675 before I got to cap; using Noxious Breath would have gained more DPS than Engulfing Flames
• Not be skewed by sets like Bahsei/Coral Riptide given the differences in sustain from Live to PTS for DK (haven't tested other classes yet and putting together a full breakdown and analysis takes time; more time than I'm willing to dedicate since I'm not a DD main)

I initially stated "before someone says 'wow low DPS noob'" because the numbers will be much, much lower than the trial dummy. The problem with the non-trial dummies is that there's no good way to effectively compare one player to another, one player might have more DPS simply because they slot a one-piece pen set, or use different CP, or any other of a list of reasons. Not that the trial dummy cannot be skewed, it can.

Under any other circumstance I would say that you should use the trial dummy to test between Live and PTS to see the differences, but ZOS saw fit to skew any data that people gleaned from testing that could have been done in the first week. The change either shouldn't have happened in the first week or they should have changed the trial dummy a week or two ago on Live so that tests could be compared effectively. Now we have people saying "Whatever you see on PTS, take off XYZ% because of all the new debuffs/buffs."

With a 3m in the current context, I'm not comparing to another player. Level playing field doesn't matter within this context. I'm comparing myself using the exact same build. So the purposes of the dummy works just fine while the entire purpose of the trial dummy from Live has been usurped in the current PTS. You cannot effectively test to see differences between DPS from Live to PTS on the trial dummy.

MindOfTheSwarm

No

I have nothing left to say...

GetAgrippa

No

I only pvp. I had JUST started playing my magden again because of oakensoul (however, it's silly it took a broken OP mythic to make magden viable again) and I was thrilled to finally dust that toon off and play it again. But then these patch notes came out and Warden is gutted. It was like a swift kick in the you-know-what. Warden as it is on pts is a dead class in pvp. The changes to Scorch and Advanced Species are crippling to the class.

My other favorite pvp class is magdk. And these patch notes absolutely destroy any semblance of identity that magdks had. Your options for whip are to either have your spammable cost some stam (why tho!? why not just have molten cost your highest resource?) or to apply dots that barely tickle and then spam flame lash for 18 seconds? No, no thank you. I think I'll pass.

Halcyon_Kismet

No

Everything I've said has been said by somebody else at this point, but figure I would add my take just for extra visibility.

As per the usual, they've balanced with a sledgehammer when they should be using a chisel. This patch is probably the most egregious example of this I've seen to date. By doing so many drastic changes at once, it'll be difficult to tell what thing worked towards their goal and what failed to do so. (See sorc in patch notes: they just nerfed everything across the board rather than one thing at a time to see if it brought the damage in line...)

Ultimately, I feel that the changes they've made hasn't accomplish their stated goal of lowering the gap, but basically just kicks a level out from under everybody and move us all down some. The main problem with this (especially in the newer content HMs) is that everything is scaled to our current upper end DPS. Without nerfs to those, content that some people were once able to barely do will be inaccessible to them once again... which just feels bad.

Its week one and they're getting a lot of negative feedback, so maybe... just this once, they will actually listen and go back on most of this patch. However, having watched the devs thru several PTS cycles from start to finish, they rarely take any feedback and mostly just do whatever they want regardless of the consequences. So here's hoping, but my faith in the devs actually doing anything meaningful with overwhelming amount of feedback is low to nothing. (Sorry if this sounds like bashing... but I feel they've earned their reputation.)

This is all my 2 cents on the current state of things.

merpins

No

xaraan wrote: »

Just have to add: I just saw the new animations for rapid strikes: has to be the dumbest change I've ever seen. Nobody asked for it and even if they did, this looks horrible. Nothing rapid about it, just looks like two light attacks. Considering it's the least important problem with this horrible patch, it's still glaringly bad. If this is their idea of an improvement, then it explains a lot.

It feels better to use than the old one.

but.

You don't reuse assets when making skills for players. They're things players use everyday. I know ZoS is kinda known for reusing assets, especially monsters and mounts with reskins, but for player skills? If you're changing the animation in a videogame, it needs to strictly be a new animation that is also visual upgrade. Rapid Strikes is just two light attack animations, and Jabs is both a visual downgrade and reuses the Nighthollow Staff motif for its spear. I don't think it's acceptable for either.

Horny_Poney

No

From a PVE healer POV, the 2s tick for HOTs is a total disaster.
First they gutted the number of players healed by a ground HOT to 6, and now they gut the frequency of the HOT. I don’t care if the ticks are twice powerful (hello people who say that heals are over performing), what I care is that the players don’t get healed during 2 looooong seconds. In some scenarios that’s way enough time to get killed (VKA HM for example with its absurd damage. Oh, this one will be fun with the final DPS check (No)).

Amphithoe

No

I'm really sick of this wiggling, it seems the dev's cant make up their minds about anything. Every time I get a build that's working they bring on some changes and nerfs that sends me back to the drawing board. And the classes are in so much flux you cant rely on your main to remain your main because one month the class you picked is working great and the next month, boom nerfed.

merpins

No

Did they just nerf Crystal Weapon again? I'm uncertain of the implications of the change. If anyone has tested it, please do let me know, I don't use that skill on my sorc anyway.

Rex-Umbra

Yes

Oh yeah they are great Super Easy Barely an Inconvenience.

ApoAlaia

No

Rex-Umbra wrote: »

Oh yeah they are great Super Easy Barely an Inconvenience.

Oh, really!?

Sweeping changes out of the blue that seem to have no rhyme or reason throwing a spanner in one's progress is tight!

Melzo

Yes

The best update. Dk will become weaker, sors will become weaker. When all classes are in the same pile of garbage, you no longer want to whine for class disbalance)

starkerealm

No

@ApoAlaia, look at their signature; they haven't tested the changes. They're basing their statement, either, off their perception of what the changes will be based on the goals Gil presented, or, they're being disingenuous.

Opalblade

No

RIP NB tank

CleymenZero

No

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

If every DoT and every light attack is standardised, then only the overpowered will hate the changes.

everyone is becoming equal, it is "Our" damage now comrade, no longer will the powerful gatekeep trials with demands of "Link achievement" of this corporate meritocracy........

Or you can change up your bar set up and have "fun" in the "game".

You must've had a lot of responses up to now hut your point of view is hilariously misinformed.

It is not "OUR" damage. MY damage was lessened by a sizable amount but your already low damage will be lower.

There will no longer be gatekeeping, you'll either get a free carry because people have a hard time filling their rosters or you will just have no gatekeepers because they will be gone.

Sallymen

No

Im losing hope that the combat team will listen to us. If they want to make a change, please touch up on sets and revamp them instead of messing with core combat. The two new dungeons are great but the rest of the "re-balancing" is an insult to newer and endgame players.