I am so frustrated with the state of this game

Massive_Stain

Vylaera wrote: »

I'm so frustrated with this game as a long time Elder Scrolls fan. I started playing ES back in 2011 when Skyrim came out. I got it for Christmas, and fell in love with the game. I sunk easily 8000 or more hours into it over the next few years, and I fell in love with its lore, story, worldbuilding, books, quests, enemies, combat, races, etc.

Then I went back to play Oblivion, and I loved it just as much. Sunk several thousand more hours into it, and loved its world, lore, characters, I fell in love with the Empire and really started learning earnestly the lore of the series and started digging much much deeper and became an absolute superfan of the series.

Then I played Morrowind. What a stunningly mastercrafted game. Though that admittedly wasn't my first impression, as I didn't know its mechanics and genuinely thought my flea market xbox edition copy of the game was messed up, and that I should try to get it refunded, because I couldn't land a hit on the kwama forager, which killed me, on my way to Balmora from Seyda Neen. But I learned more about it, came back, and fell in love with it too, and it's still my absolute favorite single player RPG game of all time, no question.

And then, in 2015, ESO came out for the Xbox One, and I purchased my copy and played it with a friend from high school. I initially didn't understand anything about the game, as I had never played an MMO and didn't understand some of the really weird design decisions like how magic was totally relegated to staff types and class specific abilities. I never liked that, I still don't, but ESO was the only ES game in town, as Skyrim had basically exhausted its fun-ness to me, having replayed it countless times, so I learned to deal with ESO's arbitrary MMO-y design.

But now 7 years later, and thousands of dollars spent on new DLC, Chapters, ESO Plus, Crown purchases, etc. Update 35 comes to me as a total slap in the face, as not just a more casually focused player of the game, but as a member of the game's community. I don't play ESO to meta chase, I don't play ESO to scorepush in competitive PvE, - admittedly I do PvP, however - but I'm not the type that finds the endgame really fun, and I was comfortable with my 50k dps that I could pull on a trial dummy which sufficed for most vet DLC dungeons, and more than enough for random normals to get transmute crystals.

But for some reason, ZOS is so hyperfixated on the 5% of the playerbase that can reach obscene levels of damage, that everyone else has to get punished to try to reel the top tier in. This sledgehammer balancing is so totally unneccesary. If, like, a thousand people who play endgame content can hit 100k+ DPS, good for them. They have fun doing that, and they should be allowed to. I, on the other hand, the other 95% of the playerbase, cannot do that. So now my off meta build that I was able to have decent fun with in some midgame challenging content, am now locked out of that due to sledgehammer balance philosophies from the combat team, and the insistence that the top tier has to be brought down - and as a result of either negligence, outright intentionality, or simply not understanding how their own game works and how their own players play - us along with them, but to a much more punitive degree, because we do not have such already huge numbers to compensate with, and if our damage goes down, it hits the floor.

Something has to give.

I don't do trials with my off-meta cryomancer warden, nor do I expect to. Trial content exists for people who meta chase and power game. And they should have their end of the game left unmolested. That is what they find fun. That's not what casual players find fun. Not being able to do trials with our roleplay builds is not the contention casual fans have with the game. We do not want the endgame community to be kneecapped and treated like class enemies so that we can then be told that this is being done in our name to lower the ceiling so that we aren't so disparate in power from the endgame. We don't endgame because we don't want to endgame. We are totally satisfied staying in our corner of the game.

Moving on from there, even as a mostly casual player, the constant changes every three months is so frustrating to me when all I want to do is log in, roleplay, furnish a house, make some new outfits for my character, do some quests, take some screenshots. Maybe I log in to my Altmer Magicka Templar who spanks in PvP for some competitive fun (who I also roleplay as a thalmor agent when I'm in the mood for that flavor of RP). As a result, I have to spend a month of my time preparing for each new update because all of my builds on all 10 of my characters are garbage every time the dev team decides to change things for the sake of changing things. And I have to re-itemize, I have to improve my new gear, farm dungeons incessantly for transmute crystals, I have to take time out of my day to plan out a build that fits with my characters' aesthetics and in-universe RP skillsets. It's so frustrating as a loyal player who's been subbed nonstop for the past 2 years, and a consistent player for the past 7 years.

When does it end? When can each corner of the community be left unmolested to play how they want to? Why do the devs insist on constant micromanagement to make sure that no one is having actual carefree fun from patch to patch. This game feels like a responsibility now and I'm so tired of it. I want to play an Elder Scrolls game. That's why I'm here.


On top of this, I'm someone who only uses a quarter of her available toolkit - because I'm roleplaying a character with an in-universe skillset and have been shoehorned, as an example, into playing warden in order to do frost damage, and not even very good frost damage at that. I do not use the animal skills, because I'm not a druid, and using mushrooms and vines to heal is not what a standard mage does. Furthermore, in ESO, if I want to deal frost damage most effectively, I'm gimping myself on several layers. I have druid skills I do not use because that's not what my character uses in-universe, and ice magic is inherently less powerful than fire in ESO due to MMO balance decisions. This is extremely frustrating for me as well.

If I wanted to play a frost mage in Skyrim or Oblivion or Morrowind, I would spec into Destruction, and use frost spells. They did the same amount of damage as fire and lightning, with some notable exceptions like Nords' frost resistance combined with their prevalence in Skyrim, making Ice maybe a less than ideal choice in TES V, but that was a world issue that you could compensate for, not an innate quality of frost magic. In Oblivion, Cyrodiil, Ice magic was just as viable of an option. And I was not forced to pick a predefined class with druid skills tacked on along with it. I could spec into restoration and Alteration, conjuration too, and make a standard pure mage who would fit right in with the mages guild. Each damage component did the exact same damage, with some added tertiary bonus, such as fire costing less magicka, Lightning draining magicka from the target, and frost draining stamina from the target. They were actually balanced. They are not in ESO.

I'm not necessarily saying that classes should be done away with, though I personally would like that, but players shouldn't be shoehorned into playing specific classes in order to be good in certain niches like frost damage with warden and lightning with Sorcerer. It's arbitrary. Physical weapons no not have these problems and class limitations.

However, I do think if classes were to be opened up to be customized, where you pick three class skill lines at character creation rather than picking a predefined class, the classes could be balanced much healthier and easily. If the dev team needs something to spend their time on, perhaps looking at an overhaul of the class system would be a good idea. It would of course get a ton of blowback, but it could absolutely be done in a way in which players retain their current playstyles and choices and aesthetics, and the game, nor its playerbase, would be harmed. But getting into those kinds of what-ifs is not really the point of this post. That's something for another day.


Just to wrap up my thoughts, this game is extremely frustrating and I, and many others, are tired of it. Between sledghehammer changes, damage reductions without adjusting content, constant developer micromanagement of things that don't need to be micromanaged, arbitrary changes, and arbitrary design philosophies. It's a perfect storm all at once with U35 and I, and a lot of other people, are just exhausted with it.

Thank you for posting this. Very well thought out and articulated, and I can relate with your sentiments here although from an end game perspective.

EdmondDontes

Pelanora wrote: »

"If, like, a thousand people who play endgame content can hit 100k+ DPS, good for them."

I think this is a very profound point.

Clawing down damage done just because it's 'high' makes no sense. 'High' is arbitrary.

I think we havent been given the real reason. Something else is driving it. I wonder about costs- increasing server cost or analytics cost? Falling mid tier player numbers and a mis diagnosis why?

I also think the real reason most of these changes are being made are coming from the accounting department at ZOS, not from the combat team.

Ragnarok0130

EdmondDontes wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

"If, like, a thousand people who play endgame content can hit 100k+ DPS, good for them."

I think this is a very profound point.

Clawing down damage done just because it's 'high' makes no sense. 'High' is arbitrary.

I think we havent been given the real reason. Something else is driving it. I wonder about costs- increasing server cost or analytics cost? Falling mid tier player numbers and a mis diagnosis why?

I also think the real reason most of these changes are being made are coming from the accounting department at ZOS, not from the combat team.

I think the most likely culprit is the technology and server infrastructure department and not the finance and accounting department. Extending dot durations, making LA weaving less meaningful and so on all seem to point to reducing the number of calculations the server needs to make every second in my opinion. I think they cited “accessibility” as a perceived easy PR win to make us say “yay ZoS!” and didn’t count on the near universal rejection of patch 35 from the general playerbase.

Arunei

@ZOS_Kevin
I'm not sure how much this can be stressed, but I do know a large portion of the playerbase (myself included) get very tired of the constant shifts and changes every three months. Yes, this is an MMO. It doesn't mean things need to change so often. By the time people get certain sets for builds they've made, a lot of the time the next quarter's changes somehow nerf that build before it gets much, if any, use. This is especially true for Mythics, which can take days or weeks of grinding for Leads with atrocious drop rates.

I understand why ZOS wants to lessen the skill gap. I know a lot of people gatekeep content with ridiculous DPS requirements, even for things that don't need it. I know that for some reason the combat team feels they need to balance everything towards the top tier players, and that makes a lot of content inaccessible for anyone not in that category. But these constant attempts to lessen said skill gap almost always wind up hurting the people the devs claim they're trying to help. Beyond that, it really is very tiring needing to adjust to new balancing things every three months. I stopped chasing new sets years ago, my MagDK I made several years ago still has Silks of the Sun, BSW, and Skoria. I should probably get him at least one new set, but I can't be bothered to keep theorycrafting new builds when things change as much and as often as they do.

So basically, yes, please let the devs know that not only are we tired of the sweeping quarterly changes, we've BEEN tired of them.

guarstompemoji

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

I think the most likely culprit is the technology and server infrastructure department and not the finance and accounting department. Extending dot durations, making LA weaving less meaningful and so on all seem to point to reducing the number of calculations the server needs to make every second in my opinion. I think they cited “accessibility” as a perceived easy PR win to make us say “yay ZoS!” and didn’t count on the near universal rejection of patch 35 from the general playerbase.

After hearing how old the previous servers were, this feels like it hits a little too close to home.

ThirdEye_PULSE

tomfant wrote: »

doesurmindglow wrote: »

Even the rosiest outlook for the proposed changes means at least two or three more patch cycles before we have the slightest hope at something we might call "stability."

I think it's this, combined with a feeling of neglect to performance and bug fixes and the sense that player feedback in general is ignored, that are contributing to the outrage; factors that perhaps might be more significant than the proposed changes themselves.

Totally agree.

What ESO needs IMHO is a clear vision of how the game shall look like in 3 years from now. This needs to be developed and it needs to be communicated well to have the majority of the playerbase on board.

ZoS needs to step back from the quarterly update scheme. The result is semi-finished content that feels lackluster and is full of bugs, and no time to iron things out because the next quarter is already around the corner.

Stop that quarterly nonsense for a while and give the devs time to rectify everything that is broken. Use that time to fix bugs, to fix performance and to gain the trust back that was lost since U35 dropped to PTS.

100% this. The people who quit or complain about combat are totally outnumbered compared to the players like myself who take long breaks, when we only intended to take a short break, or quit completely because of the massive changes every 3 months. You leave for 6 months? Well its like learning a completely new game. It keeps you from wanting to come back and essentially start over.

The Devs have been doing this for so long most of us have lost hope it will ever stop or change. Therefore, the only way to deal with the constant fatigue and literal work... not fun, not play, but literal work it takes to get back to a point of fun every patch cycle is taking long, periodic breaks from the game.

The combat isnt what is keeping casuals from enjoying the game. Its patch cycles like the one we are in, have been in before, and seemingly will never end. Especially not with U35. Easily looking at another year of patches just to fix this one. Most likely it will never be completely fixed.

ZOS_Kevin

@Arunei Just wanted to follow up on your post. We have shared this feedback with the team and they are also reading feedback from other sources regarding players voicing their thoughts and concerns around combat. While we don't have anything to report here right now, we wanted to highlight that feedback is being shared, seen and noted in conversations internally.

FlopsyPrince

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Thank you for your thoughts here, @Vylaera. Appreciate the time taken to highlight your history with Elder Scrolls/ESO and your frustrations around how U35 impact you as a roleplayer. We'll continue to reference experiences like yours as we continue studio conversations about combat and reviewing additional player feedback.

Kevin,

A big problem I see (and I doubt I am alone) is that most of us do not feel we have input back into the process.

You don't have to do everything customers want, nor should you, but you really should make them feel heard and do many reasonable things they want.

Right now it is the combat changes, but other areas, especially Quality of Life ones need to get a hearing, even if they are rejected. Let us know that we are heard even if ZOS chooses to not go that way. (Good reasoning why not would be helpful too, or a response of "good idea, we will put that on a list for possible future enhancements". The latter would require such things did eventually happen, but all of this together would make most of us much happier and thus more likely to keep up ESO+, buying Crowns, etc.

Vylaera

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Arunei Just wanted to follow up on your post. We have shared this feedback with the team and they are also reading feedback from other sources regarding players voicing their thoughts and concerns around combat. While we don't have anything to report here right now, we wanted to highlight that feedback is being shared, seen and noted in conversations internally.

Dev communication is fantastic to see and reassuring that our voices are being heard and actively considered. Thanks again for letting us know that the teams are discussing all the feedback, we appreciate it!

ESO is a very difficult game to balance because of the three totally disparate communities that exist within the game, and each of those three main communities use the combat system in such vastly different ways. PvP is a lot different from Casual play, and both are equally different from Endgame PvE. Striking a balance between all three is not an easy task, and I can at least speak for myself in that I understand that fixes aren't instant and mistakes and oversights can be made along the way.

My personal input to alleviate this is to use Battle Spirit to create a divided pool of sets between PvP and PvE, where a set could be categorized as a PvP, PvE, or UNIVERSAL set, so that the effects and bonuses sets grant that are good for PvE aren't abused in PvP, and vice versa. So as an example, we could Say that Sergeant's Mail, Vestment of Olorime, Oakensoul, and other examples, are PvE sets, and so their 5pc bonuses (1pc in Oakensoul's case) are disabled when in a PvP environment (determined internally by if Battle Spirit is or is not active on your character). Inversely, we could say something like Pariah, Caluurion's Legacy, and Gaze of Sithis are PvP sets, and so their 5pc bonuses are disabled when not in a PvP environment (internally determined by if battle spirit is or is not active on your character).

Crafted Sets, Arena Weapons, and Monster Sets would not fall into these categories and would remain universal. Mythic items would however be categorized, as I alluded to earlier, with recently contentious things like Oakensoul, which is still not great in PvE but overperforming in PvP, being disabled in the latter and enabled in the former.

This set categorical rework would allow much better and fine-tuned balancing of the game and create solid and separate modes with separate sets that perform well in their respective sides of the game. Sergeant's Mail, other heavy attack sets or niche gameplay sets designed for PvE that cause issues in PvP, can then be buffed so that a wider array of more niche roleplay-esque or accessibility-focused playstyles are more viable in the content that people actually play them in.

How this would look might be something along the lines of

Where a PvP set would have that top section swapped to say
PVP SET
This set works only in PvP environments.

And for monster sets, arena wepons, and crafted sets,
UNIVERSAL SET
This set works in both PvE and PvP environments.

Most sets would remain universal, but this new category system would allow currently or formerly problematic sets to be balanced the way they were intended to, rather than nerfed into the ground because they're being used too effectively in PvP.

Faulgor

I've been concerned from day one about the class system. Historically, while present, classes have never been important in TES, only a starting position.
If you decide to go a different route, classes have to feel distinct, with unique playstyles. Otherwise you combine the worst of both worlds - the rigid skill limitations of classes, with the homogeneity of a classless system where everyone becomes a "stealth archer".
ESO's problem in this regard was that in the beginning, it didn't have a solid combat system which it could fill with class-based variety. A lot of the combat development was subsequently driven by how players engaged with the system was it was, e.g. light attack weaving and bar-swap rotations.

A big problem of ESO's classes is already that they don't really fit popular RPG archetypes. Especially the 4 base classes were mostly build around the 4 archetypes of Tank, Healer, melee DPS and range DPS instead.
During the current PTS cycle, I read a comment that summarized the issue quite nicely - basically, virtually nobody plays an RPG to make a dragon-themed martial fire whip character, they want a fire mage. Or sets out for a frost, mushroom and animal summoning character, but only with animals from a particular province - they want a frost mage, or a druid.

ESO's classes are just not good molds for the kinds of power fantasies players have.

Although it would have been my prefered choice to have no classes at all, this late into the game's life, it's probably too late for that. I've seen more ambitious MMOs try to pull something like that off, but given that ESO's players are already upset about too many changes, this might not be the best path anymore.

Instead, I'd say the best course is a two-pronged approach.

1. Add more non-class skills to fill power fantasies (Spellcrafting). We should have more frost skills, and animal summoning that feature more kinds of animals, and more daedra summons, and even more weapon abilities. The system to supplement our class skills with the abilities we imagine our characters to have is already there, it just needs to be filled with life. The skill standardization a couple of patches ago, as well as hybridization already paved the way.
2. Strengthen class identity by differentiating how classes interact with these non-class skills. There are some inklings of that here and there, e.g. Wardens dealing more frost damage, and benefiting more than other classes from the chilled status effect. Things like that need to become the core of a class's playstyle.

Those are the mechanism, but the mindset while creating new skills and class-based synergies should be "How can I make this archetype happen, and how can it be fun?".
Devs should ask themselves, how can I make a proper frost mage, or druid, or berserker, or crusader, or conjuror, or witchhunter, or illusionist?
Because those are the questions their players ask themselves, and often they come up short.

katanagirl1

Thanks for the feedback @ZOS_Kevin. I don’t post about combat much here because I’m not as smart or as good as the people who have posted here. I do the best I can and most of all, just want to have fun and enjoy playing.

I don’t know what the solution to this problem would be, but harder content is already in the game for those who can do it. Constant calls for harder overland is not good for all players, same as nerfing dps for everyone. If some people think vet hardmode is too easy, then maybe we need a new difficulty mode like vet godmode or something for these guys who really want to push the envelope. You could take hardmode and add more adds or player debuffs or something, I don’t know, just throwing out ideas.

I mentioned before in other threads that after 6 years playing I am just now starting trials. This is about the most depressing place to be right now. We can hardly get enough players to form a group each week with all the uncertainty and swirl going on. It was a long shot for me personally before these new changes, if they actually do happen then it will just be a matter of time before I fail the dps check and no longer am able to stay with the team.

Eiregirl

Vylaera, I could not agree with you more.

Like you and many others I have spent more hours playing TES games than I care to think about but it has been a lot of fun. But when character and class identity keeps being destroyed and everyone is being forced into a certain way of playing (LA weaving) making one of the major advertising points a total lie (play your way) then the game becomes less and less fun.

I enjoy playing a sorcerer and while I play using mostly storm skills because I am a lightning mage but would like to play around with a frost or fire mage but aside from the staff skills a sorcerer really does not have any frost or fire in their tool kit.

ZOS just seems to not understand that not everyone wants to chase leaderboards and they do not understand that a lot of players do not want to be forced into playing in a certain way just to do meaningful damage. In their screwy attempts to bring the floor and the ceiling closer together, they seem to have lost sight of where and how to truly balance the game. If the skill lines were fairly balanced for the different classes and if players had more than one way to attain meaningful damage that would go a long way in bringing back some class identity and it would go a long way in making the game more fun to play for everyone. To have fun is the main reason to play a game and if I can’t have fun why would I want to play?

When the game launched I thought it was one of the best games out there and on par if not better than world of warcraft when was when it launched and the main thing that brought me to ESO was that I could play my character the way I wanted to and still be viable in most any content in the game and for many years that was the case. Learn the mechanics, learn the skills, build my character to fit the theme I set for her and conquer the world. Sadly over the years, many players have been forced into cookie-cutter builds that lack any imagination or individuality. I have been lucky over the years in that I have been able to more or less retain the identity of most of my characters and still retain good enough damage to do everything I am interested in doing but this update is going to cut into that pretty hard for some of my characters. In past updates I have been able to find ways to compensate for any changes made and I think I can for some things this time but not everything because ZOS seems to be attacking from all sides and not really helping anyone.

If the devs really want to help those who are on the floor or in between the floor and the ceiling then they should give them more than one way to get onto the same playing field and let people actually play the game and have fun while playing the game.

Jazraena

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Arunei Just wanted to follow up on your post. We have shared this feedback with the team and they are also reading feedback from other sources regarding players voicing their thoughts and concerns around combat. While we don't have anything to report here right now, we wanted to highlight that feedback is being shared, seen and noted in conversations internally.

@ZOS_Kevin I'd just like to mention that I really appreciate responding to threads such as these. As much as I oppose the U35 changes, responses in here and the information that such feedback is being discussed internally are reassuring to see.

Jazraena

Faulgor wrote: »

I've been concerned from day one about the class system. Historically, while present, classes have never been important in TES, only a starting position.
If you decide to go a different route, classes have to feel distinct, with unique playstyles. Otherwise you combine the worst of both worlds - the rigid skill limitations of classes, with the homogeneity of a classless system where everyone becomes a "stealth archer".
ESO's problem in this regard was that in the beginning, it didn't have a solid combat system which it could fill with class-based variety. A lot of the combat development was subsequently driven by how players engaged with the system was it was, e.g. light attack weaving and bar-swap rotations.

A big problem of ESO's classes is already that they don't really fit popular RPG archetypes. Especially the 4 base classes were mostly build around the 4 archetypes of Tank, Healer, melee DPS and range DPS instead.
During the current PTS cycle, I read a comment that summarized the issue quite nicely - basically, virtually nobody plays an RPG to make a dragon-themed martial fire whip character, they want a fire mage. Or sets out for a frost, mushroom and animal summoning character, but only with animals from a particular province - they want a frost mage, or a druid.

ESO's classes are just not good molds for the kinds of power fantasies players have.

Although it would have been my prefered choice to have no classes at all, this late into the game's life, it's probably too late for that. I've seen more ambitious MMOs try to pull something like that off, but given that ESO's players are already upset about too many changes, this might not be the best path anymore.

Instead, I'd say the best course is a two-pronged approach.

1. Add more non-class skills to fill power fantasies (Spellcrafting). We should have more frost skills, and animal summoning that feature more kinds of animals, and more daedra summons, and even more weapon abilities. The system to supplement our class skills with the abilities we imagine our characters to have is already there, it just needs to be filled with life. The skill standardization a couple of patches ago, as well as hybridization already paved the way.
2. Strengthen class identity by differentiating how classes interact with these non-class skills. There are some inklings of that here and there, e.g. Wardens dealing more frost damage, and benefiting more than other classes from the chilled status effect. Things like that need to become the core of a class's playstyle.

Those are the mechanism, but the mindset while creating new skills and class-based synergies should be "How can I make this archetype happen, and how can it be fun?".
Devs should ask themselves, how can I make a proper frost mage, or druid, or berserker, or crusader, or conjuror, or witchhunter, or illusionist?
Because those are the questions their players ask themselves, and often they come up short.

This so much.

Slimebrow

I agree with OP,

The classes need to be done away with and redone from scratch. They have no rhyme or reason and aren't even grounded or backed up by ESO lore. Seriously I could come up with way better looking abilities than your current combat design team.

In all seriousness you guys need to have a word with the combat team and consider moving some people around I feel like who ever designed the combat and abilities has no passion and does not care about the game or lore, they just slapped bunch of random abilities together that do not even fit the classes we choose in this game, thematically or lorewise.

I would recomend maybe having the lore master or someone to who understands TES lore with the combat team when making abilities as well, they currently feel lackluster and weak to look at. Most of the abilities don't even make sense lore wise and don't feel impactful.

I Implore you guys to have a hard look at the combat in this game, like seriously stop brushing this as its nothing. It will legitimatly destroy your game. I feel like you guys just aren't serious about growing as a business and every year I keep checking, but having read the forums there has been and continues to be 0 progress to my eyes.

Galarthor

You should have played magSorc in PvP. It stayed mostly unchanged for years - gotta max that Magicka

Joking aside. I totally agree with you. There is no real harm done if people who spent countless hours optimizing their builds and gameplay significantly outperform casual players. Professional athletes outperform people who go on a stroll in the evenings too and nobody is complaining about that. This whole raising the floor and lowering the ceiling BS took so much fun out of the game for all parties involved (except ZOS apparently, b/c they can't stop with it ... even after so many years).

Leave Vet Trials and Vet HM dungeons to the "committed" players.
Make normal mode trials and dungeons accessible to all players.
And successively nerf the Vet content as new vet content is released so it becomes accessible to more and more players.

And allow 1vX in PvP if you are good and the others are not - and 1v1 if you are of equal skill!
Nobody enjoys hitting a moving target dummy, just so someone who logs into PvP once a quarter can feel like a pvp king b/c he is face tanking everything. And nobody enjoys dying to somebody whose greatest contribution was to press one button so that procs go off either. PvP is about the contest between 2 players (or more). And where is that contest / challenge when your sets make you either almost immortal or kill anything with little of your own input.

Outside of Housing and Role Playing there is no real sense of achievement in this game anymore. Except maybe for the hardcore players who finish the latest vet hm.

FlopsyPrince

Jazraena wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Arunei Just wanted to follow up on your post. We have shared this feedback with the team and they are also reading feedback from other sources regarding players voicing their thoughts and concerns around combat. While we don't have anything to report here right now, we wanted to highlight that feedback is being shared, seen and noted in conversations internally.

@ZOS_Kevin I'd just like to mention that I really appreciate responding to threads such as these. As much as I oppose the U35 changes, responses in here and the information that such feedback is being discussed internally are reassuring to see.

I would agree with that. I know I would personally be happier if we had more communication on things. But even something like the Quality of Life thread I opened for that kind of feedback (from the devs/ZOS) got no official response.

The response here is a good step, but more steps need to be taken.

FlopsyPrince

Faulgor wrote: »

1. Add more non-class skills to fill power fantasies (Spellcrafting). We should have more frost skills, and animal summoning that feature more kinds of animals, and more daedra summons, and even more weapon abilities. The system to supplement our class skills with the abilities we imagine our characters to have is already there, it just needs to be filled with life. The skill standardization a couple of patches ago, as well as hybridization already paved the way.

I would LOVE a true pet owner class. My hunter in WoW was my favorite character. I play a pet sorc here (which is not really all that powerful with all the nerfs and sucks in PvP), but it is not the same thing. The warden is very underwhelming as well and the beat does not seem as useful as I would like, though it is a fair bit of automatic damage. I would do a lot more with either magicka or stamina wardens if they could tame wild animals!

TaSheen

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I would LOVE a true pet owner class. My hunter in WoW was my favorite character.

Me too! I love my wardens though.

baltic1284

Lumsdenml wrote: »

PDarkBHood wrote: »

source: https://mmo-population.com/r/elderscrollsonline

We are having an impact on Zos. Look at the data, they are down from 400k to 200k, and look at the dates. The game is still healthy, but it has taken a hit. It seems a large number of people are taking a step back from the game, including myself. Looking at the last 5 years, this is a large decrease (5 year data not shown). If these trends continue, it will affect their pocketbook. Normally, I would say it is holiday time but the 5 year data indicates it is not. This data is also post Covid bubble, Feb 2020 to Dec 2021. I hope this gets their attention.

I'd be a bit skeptical of that source. ZOS have always been very guarded as far as their population numbers, and I'm not sure how accurate a 3rd party would be at keeping population numbers without the help of ZOS. I would trust Steam Charts much more as far as accuracy. It is 1st party information, and this shows a steady build from 2017 with a drop off from "the covid bubble". Steam also shows population flat in the last 30 days, so I don't think that this is nearly as big a deal to the overall population as some would like you to think.

Even the steam charts show a slight decree in the number of players From Monday August 30 2021 from 21507 on average players down to just recently August 1st 2022 with a total average of 19417 that is a loss of players on the average don't get me wrong it isn't a lot, but it still happened and that is just this year a difference of 2090 less players.
If you look at the whole history, they have gained players since they went to steam July 2014 they had 2290 and again currently they have 19417 in total on the average, so they have gained players but if you compared to who is left to their highest point which was March of 2020 with 49061in total on average to currently, it looks worse, about 29 644 players either uninstalled the game or have stopped playing the game or don't have the time to play the game.
So yes the players are leaving now don't get me wrong it isn't game ending event but with the way things are currently it is having a impact on what choices the dev team have made currently that have an impact at the moment and other various inputs.

Steam charts overall. https://steamcharts.com/app/306130#All

FlopsyPrince

Galarthor wrote: »

Outside of Housing and Role Playing there is no real sense of achievement in this game anymore. Except maybe for the hardcore players who finish the latest vet hm.

Or PvP players that gank PvE players in the current Mayhem event....

Arunei

@ZOS_Kevin
Thanks for the response, it is good to see that this matter is starting to gain some traction. Somewhat frustrating it's had to take this long for the feedback to actively get looked at and considered, seeing how often people have commented on it over the years, but I suppose late is better than never. All we can do is keep hounding the devs about it until they finally listen to us, which unfortunately means people like you and Gina are the ones often getting buried under pings from frustrated and annoyed players.

As someone who used to work as a technical/customer support agent for Verizon, I know how hard this sort of job can be, where you're basically the middleman for the company you work for and thus often get yelled at unfairly. I know it probably doesn't account for much, but people who are <female dog>ing aren't mad at you guys, even when it seems like we are. We just get really irritated when it seems like the devs are entirely ignoring our concerns or problems, though that isn't any reason to get grumpy with people who can't really do anything about it. This isn't really relative to the topic but I know things have been super heated with the announcement and subsequent testing of u35, so I just wanted to toss this out there. You and Gina do an awesome job.

Korinth

I have to agree with the OP. I used to belong to a Trials guild. My DPS WAS sufficient to be in the top 3 or 4 in the group. But due to the CONSTANT changing of BiS sets and the endless grind, having to respec and practice and relearn rotations, coupled with me working 40-60 hrs a week in a REAL job (vs. gaming)...my DPS fell and I no longer can pull the DPS to be beneficial to my group.

The grind has gotten so bad that I just gave up. I used to put 20 hrs or so a week into the game....now Im lucky to put enough time in to get tickets during events.

Been with this game since closed Beta.... been a Day 1 subscriber. But at this point Im seriously considering moving on, as this game now feels like a job if you even hope to do endgame content. Its not FUN anymore.

Darkstorne

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Arunei Just wanted to follow up on your post. We have shared this feedback with the team and they are also reading feedback from other sources regarding players voicing their thoughts and concerns around combat. While we don't have anything to report here right now, we wanted to highlight that feedback is being shared, seen and noted in conversations internally.

@ZOS_Kevin Just wanted to say thanks for relaying info like this. Even without any specifics to report to us, it's reassuring to know that the feedback is noticed and being actively considered, whether for this patch or a future one.

As a player who enjoys ESO for the solo content, loves the narrative focus, and is playing this game because I'm a TES fan rather than a hardcore MMO player, it's the solo experience that matters to me, and I think ZOS knocks it out of the park there consistently I have my main character, and my favourite alt, both spec'd as Light Attack builds. My main is a StamSorc LA build - she's losing damage through the overall LA damage nerf, the crystal weapon nerf, the bound armaments nerf (I only slot it for the passive LA damage boost), and the current redesign for empower meaning it no longer affects light attacks. It's killed my interest to play the game post-patch, so I've already re-installed GW2 to check out the new expansion there. ESO's new design direction is such a drastic change in direction that it has completely killed my primary playstyle.

I don't want to engage in high end trials. I don't even remotely care if high-end trial players are pumping out 100k+ DPS (good for them I guess). I just want to play through the stories and explore the zones like an Elder Scrolls game, and I really enjoyed being able to spec my character around big light attacks. It's not optimal, not even remotely, but it's fun. That's about to be killed off. I get the desire and need to tweak and balance a game, but ESO is building a VERY strong reputation for drastic design changes that completely kill playstyles, seemingly all because some internal numbers-based algorithm the team uses says so, and very little thought seems to be paid to how the majority of the playerbase engages with the game and how they will be impacted by the changes. That's at least how it appears from the outside looking in.

Arunei

@Darkstorne
Unfortunately, ESO isn't building a reputation for drastic changes that break peoples' style of playing. It's been notorious for this for years. It's been brought up numerous times over the years that the constant shifts and nerfs in combat make the game frustrating to keep up with, that we get tired of having to relearn rotations and farming new sets only for those sets to wind up nerfed to some degree 3-9 months later. And while curated drops have helped to some degree, you can still spend weeks farming for specific pieces if you have especially cruddy RNG.

As an example, I made a build a while back for my Redguard Stamsorc WW using Pillar of Nirn and Rush of Agony. I decided to get Pillar in Jewerls and Weapons, and I kid you not when I say...

I. Got. Every. Other. Jewelry. And. Weapon. Piece. From. Every. Other. Set. Before. Getting. Pillar. Swords.

I think the only thing I didn't get before was one other Weapon piece, idr which at this point. And this was also running FH over and over with friends who would trade me the stuff they'd gotten that I needed. Even THEY were getting every other piece from Domihaus. It took several weeks to get because it was just tiring to run the dungeon four or five times a day only to get stuff I didn't need, so I'd clear it some, then wait like 1-2 weeks before trying again a few times.

The fact that it can still take so long to get specific pieces for sets which then might wind up nerfed shortly after getting them is just frustrating, and like I said before, it's especially bad for Mythics. There are people on the forums who, even after a year or longer, still haven't gotten the all the Leads for X or Y Mythic, because the drop rates for the Leads are so horrid. And yet Mythics tend to get nerfed even sooner than normal sets; gotta have the new shiny OP thing to get people to buy the next expansion, and then nerf it into the ground by the time the next one comes around so people but that expansion too. And while that might not be the aim, it certainly does feel like it.

So hopefully, with the outrage and backlash over u35 and the feedback in general about sweeping changes coming every three months, the devs will FINALLY listen and pull back with such massive changes every quarter.

shadyjane62

Arunei wrote: »

@Darkstorne
Unfortunately, ESO isn't building a reputation for drastic changes that break peoples' style of playing. It's been notorious for this for years. It's been brought up numerous times over the years that the constant shifts and nerfs in combat make the game frustrating to keep up with, that we get tired of having to relearn rotations and farming new sets only for those sets to wind up nerfed to some degree 3-9 months later. And while curated drops have helped to some degree, you can still spend weeks farming for specific pieces if you have especially cruddy RNG.

As an example, I made a build a while back for my Redguard Stamsorc WW using Pillar of Nirn and Rush of Agony. I decided to get Pillar in Jewerls and Weapons, and I kid you not when I say...

I. Got. Every. Other. Jewelry. And. Weapon. Piece. From. Every. Other. Set. Before. Getting. Pillar. Swords.

I think the only thing I didn't get before was one other Weapon piece, idr which at this point. And this was also running FH over and over with friends who would trade me the stuff they'd gotten that I needed. Even THEY were getting every other piece from Domihaus. It took several weeks to get because it was just tiring to run the dungeon four or five times a day only to get stuff I didn't need, so I'd clear it some, then wait like 1-2 weeks before trying again a few times.

The fact that it can still take so long to get specific pieces for sets which then might wind up nerfed shortly after getting them is just frustrating, and like I said before, it's especially bad for Mythics. There are people on the forums who, even after a year or longer, still haven't gotten the all the Leads for X or Y Mythic, because the drop rates for the Leads are so horrid. And yet Mythics tend to get nerfed even sooner than normal sets; gotta have the new shiny OP thing to get people to buy the next expansion, and then nerf it into the ground by the time the next one comes around so people but that expansion too. And while that might not be the aim, it certainly does feel like it.

So hopefully, with the outrage and backlash over u35 and the feedback in general about sweeping changes coming every three months, the devs will FINALLY listen and pull back with such massive changes every quarter.

I stopped chasing amor after no proc.

psychotrip

psychotrip wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

Vylaera wrote: »

But for some reason, ZOS is so hyperfixated on the 5% of the playerbase that can reach obscene levels of damage, that everyone else has to get punished to try to reel the top tier in.

As a lifelong WoW player, I have some bad news for you:

This is how WoW began to die, mechanically speaking anyway (dont get me started on the narrative!):

Focusing all their attention on the high end mythic raiders, balancing the entire game around content almost no one is going to see, at the expense of literally every other type of player (casuals, overworld explorers, roleplayers).

It happens slowly at first, until the "world" takes a backseat to a series of instances that suck out all the flavor of the game and replace it with cold, hard number crunching.

This is how MMOs die, but thankfully its not too late yet. This is just the beginning. Buckle up.

. We don't endgame because we don't want to endgame. We are totally satisfied staying in our corner of the game.

But then how else are they gonna keep you on that sweet, sweet ENGAGEMENT treadmill if you're not constantly being pushed into endgame? How else are they gonna cut costs by focusing only on the most ENGAGING content possible? [snip]

No. I raided in WoW until I just couldn't stand any more of it. I quit that game in 2015, and I've never been back. I'm not going to raid in ESO, period. It's.... a horrible thing - and I'm never going there again. Those who do this in ESO are likely much younger than I am, and much more invested in competing.

I don't have a competitive bone in my body - and really, the only reason I raided in WoW was because I ran my friends and family guild, and THEY wanted to. The day my nephew got through with college and said "Hey, I'm tanking now" - I shed tears of joy. Literally.

This is all well and good [snip] I care, and I'm positive individual developers care, [snip] They assume the profit they'll make outpaces the few who quit, and as long as that remains true, [snip]

[edited for baiting]

All these snips are hilarious. It's like reading a classified document. At least we know people are seeing our feedback, even if they don't like it. It's better than silence, at least.

Bluestin

Vylaera wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Arunei Just wanted to follow up on your post. We have shared this feedback with the team and they are also reading feedback from other sources regarding players voicing their thoughts and concerns around combat. While we don't have anything to report here right now, we wanted to highlight that feedback is being shared, seen and noted in conversations internally.

Dev communication is fantastic to see and reassuring that our voices are being heard and actively considered. Thanks again for letting us know that the teams are discussing all the feedback, we appreciate it!

ESO is a very difficult game to balance because of the three totally disparate communities that exist within the game, and each of those three main communities use the combat system in such vastly different ways. PvP is a lot different from Casual play, and both are equally different from Endgame PvE. Striking a balance between all three is not an easy task, and I can at least speak for myself in that I understand that fixes aren't instant and mistakes and oversights can be made along the way.

My personal input to alleviate this is to use Battle Spirit to create a divided pool of sets between PvP and PvE, where a set could be categorized as a PvP, PvE, or UNIVERSAL set, so that the effects and bonuses sets grant that are good for PvE aren't abused in PvP, and vice versa. So as an example, we could Say that Sergeant's Mail, Vestment of Olorime, Oakensoul, and other examples, are PvE sets, and so their 5pc bonuses (1pc in Oakensoul's case) are disabled when in a PvP environment (determined internally by if Battle Spirit is or is not active on your character). Inversely, we could say something like Pariah, Caluurion's Legacy, and Gaze of Sithis are PvP sets, and so their 5pc bonuses are disabled when not in a PvP environment (internally determined by if battle spirit is or is not active on your character).

Crafted Sets, Arena Weapons, and Monster Sets would not fall into these categories and would remain universal. Mythic items would however be categorized, as I alluded to earlier, with recently contentious things like Oakensoul, which is still not great in PvE but overperforming in PvP, being disabled in the latter and enabled in the former.

This set categorical rework would allow much better and fine-tuned balancing of the game and create solid and separate modes with separate sets that perform well in their respective sides of the game. Sergeant's Mail, other heavy attack sets or niche gameplay sets designed for PvE that cause issues in PvP, can then be buffed so that a wider array of more niche roleplay-esque or accessibility-focused playstyles are more viable in the content that people actually play them in.

How this would look might be something along the lines of

Where a PvP set would have that top section swapped to say
PVP SET
This set works only in PvP environments.

And for monster sets, arena wepons, and crafted sets,
UNIVERSAL SET
This set works in both PvE and PvP environments.

Most sets would remain universal, but this new category system would allow currently or formerly problematic sets to be balanced the way they were intended to, rather than nerfed into the ground because they're being used too effectively in PvP.

I mostly agree (I don't see why Caluurion or Pariah would be PvP only) I feel as if Mythic items and Trial sets at this point should just be PvE only. Oakensoul is over-performing in PvP, but it seems like it'd be a fine set left as is for PvE; with each new set/mythic item it's becoming clear that there needs to be some delineation between PvP and PvE Set balance.

If that is too granular for Battle Spirit to adjust, and the system too loose to actually distinctly balance both separately; it might be better to just disable/enable certain set functions depending on modes by identifying them as PvP, PvE, or Universal sets.

psychotrip

EdmondDontes wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

"If, like, a thousand people who play endgame content can hit 100k+ DPS, good for them."

I think this is a very profound point.

Clawing down damage done just because it's 'high' makes no sense. 'High' is arbitrary.

I think we havent been given the real reason. Something else is driving it. I wonder about costs- increasing server cost or analytics cost? Falling mid tier player numbers and a mis diagnosis why?

I also think the real reason most of these changes are being made are coming from the accounting department at ZOS, not from the combat team.

DINGNDINGDING.

I think I said the same earlier but it got snipped. It's not JUST marketing, obviously, but you're getting at the real issue here: resources and priorities not being where the players, or even the devs, need them to be.

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

EdmondDontes wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

"If, like, a thousand people who play endgame content can hit 100k+ DPS, good for them."

I think this is a very profound point.

Clawing down damage done just because it's 'high' makes no sense. 'High' is arbitrary.

I think we havent been given the real reason. Something else is driving it. I wonder about costs- increasing server cost or analytics cost? Falling mid tier player numbers and a mis diagnosis why?

I also think the real reason most of these changes are being made are coming from the accounting department at ZOS, not from the combat team.

I think the most likely culprit is the technology and server infrastructure department and not the finance and accounting department. Extending dot durations, making LA weaving less meaningful and so on all seem to point to reducing the number of calculations the server needs to make every second in my opinion. I think they cited “accessibility” as a perceived easy PR win to make us say “yay ZoS!” and didn’t count on the near universal rejection of patch 35 from the general playerbase.

It's both. It all comes down to misallocation of resources which makes solving actual problems even harder than they need to be

Arunei

shadyjane62 wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

@Darkstorne
Unfortunately, ESO isn't building a reputation for drastic changes that break peoples' style of playing. It's been notorious for this for years. It's been brought up numerous times over the years that the constant shifts and nerfs in combat make the game frustrating to keep up with, that we get tired of having to relearn rotations and farming new sets only for those sets to wind up nerfed to some degree 3-9 months later. And while curated drops have helped to some degree, you can still spend weeks farming for specific pieces if you have especially cruddy RNG.

As an example, I made a build a while back for my Redguard Stamsorc WW using Pillar of Nirn and Rush of Agony. I decided to get Pillar in Jewerls and Weapons, and I kid you not when I say...

I. Got. Every. Other. Jewelry. And. Weapon. Piece. From. Every. Other. Set. Before. Getting. Pillar. Swords.

I think the only thing I didn't get before was one other Weapon piece, idr which at this point. And this was also running FH over and over with friends who would trade me the stuff they'd gotten that I needed. Even THEY were getting every other piece from Domihaus. It took several weeks to get because it was just tiring to run the dungeon four or five times a day only to get stuff I didn't need, so I'd clear it some, then wait like 1-2 weeks before trying again a few times.

The fact that it can still take so long to get specific pieces for sets which then might wind up nerfed shortly after getting them is just frustrating, and like I said before, it's especially bad for Mythics. There are people on the forums who, even after a year or longer, still haven't gotten the all the Leads for X or Y Mythic, because the drop rates for the Leads are so horrid. And yet Mythics tend to get nerfed even sooner than normal sets; gotta have the new shiny OP thing to get people to buy the next expansion, and then nerf it into the ground by the time the next one comes around so people but that expansion too. And while that might not be the aim, it certainly does feel like it.

So hopefully, with the outrage and backlash over u35 and the feedback in general about sweeping changes coming every three months, the devs will FINALLY listen and pull back with such massive changes every quarter.

I stopped chasing amor after no proc.

That build was the first one I've made in years. Like I had said in my other post, my MagDK who I've had for years is still running the same gear I got for him like three years ago, because I just can't be bothered to grind gear that might become useless a handful of months after I get it. I just really liked the idea of Pillar and Rush though, and it's a fun build. I've since put it on my Khajiit Stamblade WW though, since she has a teleport outside of WW Pounce to proc Rush (where my Stamsorc only has the WW Pounce and can only really make use of Rush while transformed).