psychotrip wrote: »EdmondDontes 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: »"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
This happens in a great many companies. They fail to consider their customers and only focus on the performance of their systems.
The customer is not always right of course, but completely ignoring them is not smart. (Or significantly ignoring them.)
I am not saying if ZOS is doing this completely, but noting it is common across fields.
psychotrip wrote: »
This happens in a great many companies. They fail to consider their customers and only focus on the performance of their systems.
The customer is not always right of course, but completely ignoring them is not smart. (Or significantly ignoring them.)
I am not saying if ZOS is doing this completely, but noting it is common across fields.
Exactly. Like I said before: welcome to capitalism AAA gaming.
This is just what happens when executives and shareholders try to squeeze as much blood from a stone as they can. In the long-run, it never ends up being good for anyone but the executives themselves, who run a product into the ground and move on to the next.
Only way we can push back is by understanding what's going on, and acting accordingly.
FlopsyPrince wrote: »psychotrip wrote: »
This happens in a great many companies. They fail to consider their customers and only focus on the performance of their systems.
The customer is not always right of course, but completely ignoring them is not smart. (Or significantly ignoring them.)
I am not saying if ZOS is doing this completely, but noting it is common across fields.
Exactly. Like I said before: welcome to capitalism AAA gaming.
This is just what happens when executives and shareholders try to squeeze as much blood from a stone as they can. In the long-run, it never ends up being good for anyone but the executives themselves, who run a product into the ground and move on to the next.
Only way we can push back is by understanding what's going on, and acting accordingly.
Capitalism would be more focused on meeting needs and providing solutions to maximize the money gain. Frew MMO companies do that, in reality, however. Many will even argue that the companies should not listen to their customers, a very bad idea.
Thankfully ZOS is making at least some efforts toward listening more recently.
FlopsyPrince wrote: »psychotrip wrote: »
This happens in a great many companies. They fail to consider their customers and only focus on the performance of their systems.
The customer is not always right of course, but completely ignoring them is not smart. (Or significantly ignoring them.)
I am not saying if ZOS is doing this completely, but noting it is common across fields.
Exactly. Like I said before: welcome to capitalism AAA gaming.
This is just what happens when executives and shareholders try to squeeze as much blood from a stone as they can. In the long-run, it never ends up being good for anyone but the executives themselves, who run a product into the ground and move on to the next.
Only way we can push back is by understanding what's going on, and acting accordingly.
Capitalism would be more focused on meeting needs and providing solutions to maximize the money gain.
Few MMO companies do that, in reality, however
psychotrip wrote: »FlopsyPrince wrote: »psychotrip wrote: »
This happens in a great many companies. They fail to consider their customers and only focus on the performance of their systems.
The customer is not always right of course, but completely ignoring them is not smart. (Or significantly ignoring them.)
I am not saying if ZOS is doing this completely, but noting it is common across fields.
Exactly. Like I said before: welcome to capitalism AAA gaming.
This is just what happens when executives and shareholders try to squeeze as much blood from a stone as they can. In the long-run, it never ends up being good for anyone but the executives themselves, who run a product into the ground and move on to the next.
Only way we can push back is by understanding what's going on, and acting accordingly.
Capitalism would be more focused on meeting needs and providing solutions to maximize the money gain.
I remember when I used to believe this, lol.
In many cases, maximizing profit means providing the absolute minimum they can get away with, while milking the customer as much as they possibly can. Providing an enjoyable product is entirely ancillary.
I posted the link earlier, but emerging research is suggesting that AAA live service games dont need to be "fun" at all; They just need to manipulate people into playing / spending more. It's like the carrot on the stick metaphor. Thats how these companies operate.
So I stand by my initial statement 100%.Few MMO companies do that, in reality, however
Why do you think that is?
FlopsyPrince wrote: »psychotrip wrote: »FlopsyPrince wrote: »psychotrip wrote: »
This happens in a great many companies. They fail to consider their customers and only focus on the performance of their systems.
The customer is not always right of course, but completely ignoring them is not smart. (Or significantly ignoring them.)
I am not saying if ZOS is doing this completely, but noting it is common across fields.
Exactly. Like I said before: welcome to capitalism AAA gaming.
This is just what happens when executives and shareholders try to squeeze as much blood from a stone as they can. In the long-run, it never ends up being good for anyone but the executives themselves, who run a product into the ground and move on to the next.
Only way we can push back is by understanding what's going on, and acting accordingly.
Capitalism would be more focused on meeting needs and providing solutions to maximize the money gain.
I remember when I used to believe this, lol.
In many cases, maximizing profit means providing the absolute minimum they can get away with, while milking the customer as much as they possibly can. Providing an enjoyable product is entirely ancillary.
I posted the link earlier, but emerging research is suggesting that AAA live service games dont need to be "fun" at all; They just need to manipulate people into playing / spending more. It's like the carrot on the stick metaphor. Thats how these companies operate.
So I stand by my initial statement 100%.Few MMO companies do that, in reality, however
Why do you think that is?
Because we don't live in a truly capitalistic society and what most have been taught is "capitalism" is far from it. Too much government control for that.
Though anyone who thinks any outside force could make everything right is not really thinking things through. Would we really want the government defining most parts of all MMOs, including ESO? It might stop some practices, but would lead to many other limitations.
Though this gets outside the scope of the game, so I will leave it there.
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.
[snip]
joerginger wrote: »[snip]
I doubt this very much, this sounds like a very convoluted way to go about things. I thought ZOS had realized that hardly annybody apart from the top x % was gettinng high nmumbers and that the majority of players never vennture into any trials or veterann content. At least that's what I remember from their originnal "mission statement".
The only complainers ZOS always listen to are those complaining about items and gear sets and other classes' skills. Since they're very happy to nerf things, such complaints are usually acted upon right away. After all they need to introduce new sets every three months.
ThirdEye_PULSE wrote: »FlopsyPrince wrote: »psychotrip wrote: »
This happens in a great many companies. They fail to consider their customers and only focus on the performance of their systems.
The customer is not always right of course, but completely ignoring them is not smart. (Or significantly ignoring them.)
I am not saying if ZOS is doing this completely, but noting it is common across fields.
Exactly. Like I said before: welcome to capitalism AAA gaming.
This is just what happens when executives and shareholders try to squeeze as much blood from a stone as they can. In the long-run, it never ends up being good for anyone but the executives themselves, who run a product into the ground and move on to the next.
Only way we can push back is by understanding what's going on, and acting accordingly.
Capitalism would be more focused on meeting needs and providing solutions to maximize the money gain. Frew MMO companies do that, in reality, however. Many will even argue that the companies should not listen to their customers, a very bad idea.
Thankfully ZOS is making at least some efforts toward listening more recently.
Idk man. I thought they were listening. I thought people saying they were just placating us were being negative in the face of a positive development. Then i saw today's PTS. Same old sameness. They havent changed. They once scrapped an idea because the community hated it so much (LA nerfs). Their not even willing to go that far this time.
@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.
@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.
It's funny how people here misunderstand this post and all the other posts like this, and give thumbs up
Nobody said "the team" (whoever that is) would take any part of this forum serious. Nobody said they would work with the information we are giving them. Nobody said they would try to understand what we are whining about. Nobody said they appreciate our contributions. Nobody ever said sorry for not being able to tell us what is wrong with the performance (especially in in PvP). Nobody is giving us real information about anything. We beg for being heard, while we keep paying, and nothing comes back. Except bans and [snips] and [edits]...
Just try to read it again, and try to focus on the words that are so carefully selected. This means nothing. Except that nobody is willing to talk to us.
Could ZOS clarify what's on the table and what will never be on the table? @Vylaera mentioned that they would rather there were no classes. Is the dissolution of the class system something that ZOS are working towards?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.
MorganaBlue wrote: »just stop it, dude - it is not hard to learn to light attack weave and end game players don't use macros. LOL
You're offensive to everyone who put in the time to learn.
P.S. have fun learning to medium attack weave tho[/qMorganaBlue wrote: »just stop it, dude - it is not hard to learn to light attack weave and end game players don't use macros. LOL
You're offensive to everyone who put in the time to learn.
P.S. have fun learning to medium attack weave tho
They won't admit they use autohotey until you're in the clique for a while, but they eventually come clean when they get tired of failing on boss mechanics just want to burn it. Show me in the F1 in game help section on how to weave. It doesn't exist.
@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.
It's funny how people here misunderstand this post and all the other posts like this, and give thumbs up
Nobody said "the team" (whoever that is) would take any part of this forum serious. Nobody said they would work with the information we are giving them. Nobody said they would try to understand what we are whining about. Nobody said they appreciate our contributions. Nobody ever said sorry for not being able to tell us what is wrong with the performance (especially in in PvP). Nobody is giving us real information about anything. We beg for being heard, while we keep paying, and nothing comes back. Except bans and [snips] and [edits]...
Just try to read it again, and try to focus on the words that are so carefully selected. This means nothing. Except that nobody is willing to talk to us.
amgame308_ESO wrote: »MorganaBlue wrote: »just stop it, dude - it is not hard to learn to light attack weave and end game players don't use macros. LOL
You're offensive to everyone who put in the time to learn.
P.S. have fun learning to medium attack weave tho[/qMorganaBlue wrote: »just stop it, dude - it is not hard to learn to light attack weave and end game players don't use macros. LOL
You're offensive to everyone who put in the time to learn.
P.S. have fun learning to medium attack weave tho
They won't admit they use autohotey until you're in the clique for a while, but they eventually come clean when they get tired of failing on boss mechanics just want to burn it. Show me in the F1 in game help section on how to weave. It doesn't exist.
No one uses a macro because light attack weaving is not hard to do. it is the same muscle memory you use when playing a piano. You don't see someone coming along and pressing keys for you when doing that, right?
No one uses a macro because light attack weaving is not hard to do. it is the same muscle memory you use when playing a piano. You don't see someone coming along and pressing keys for you when doing that, right?
FlopsyPrince wrote: »
The customer is not always right of course, but completely ignoring them is not smart. (Or significantly ignoring them.)
amgame308_ESO wrote: »MorganaBlue wrote: »just stop it, dude - it is not hard to learn to light attack weave and end game players don't use macros. LOL
You're offensive to everyone who put in the time to learn.
P.S. have fun learning to medium attack weave tho[/qMorganaBlue wrote: »just stop it, dude - it is not hard to learn to light attack weave and end game players don't use macros. LOL
You're offensive to everyone who put in the time to learn.
P.S. have fun learning to medium attack weave tho
They won't admit they use autohotey until you're in the clique for a while, but they eventually come clean when they get tired of failing on boss mechanics just want to burn it. Show me in the F1 in game help section on how to weave. It doesn't exist.
No one uses a macro because light attack weaving is not hard to do. it is the same muscle memory you use when playing a piano. You don't see someone coming along and pressing keys for you when doing that, right?https://youtu.be/aseMAEctM1s
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13k hours over 7 years and I will cancel my esoplus after all these years, not only because they are constantly adding these terrible major changes but also they have been really disrespectful and unprofessional towards playerbase.
baltic1284 wrote: »13k hours over 7 years and I will cancel my esoplus after all these years, not only because they are constantly adding these terrible major changes but also they have been really disrespectful and unprofessional towards playerbase.
Same why I stopped my ESO plus got tired of how i was being treated by Zenimax and the community overall. When Zenimax actually starts caring about the community overall and those that give this community over all a very bad reputation for bulling and such on the various subjects then I might start giving Zenimax money again till then my wallet is closed.