ESO Developer Deep Dive - Core Combat Values

ZOS_BrianWheeler

Today, we’d like to share with you our goals and core values for ESO’s combat system. First, we’d like to address the combat Q&A we mentioned a few months ago. As we were reading over your combat questions, it became apparent that we could better communicate to all of you our vision and core values for combat. Most answers to the combat-related questions of “Why” we have gotten over the past few months are grounded in these core values; we wanted to take a step back and overview these to help shed light on our long-term vision for combat in ESO, which we recognize we should have shared with everyone much sooner.

So, what is our vision for combat in ESO? In a nutshell, we want combat to feel fun and rewarding to all players. We have a wide variety of players with unique interests and motivations for playing, so we recognize that what feels “fun and rewarding” is a little different for everyone. Our goal is to strike a good balance, and just like our community has evolved over time, so has the need to address things that didn’t align with our combat core values. It’s also worth noting that these core values are aspirational, not hard rules or a definition of the current reality; they are the values to which we aspire with combat design and what we strive to meet when considering adjustments to combat in ESO.

With all that said, we’d like to present the core values and vision for ESO’s combat which also includes examples of where these values manifest themselves in combat:

Play The Way You Want
We strive to provide freedom and flexibility that allow you to transform your character fantasy into a gameplay reality. We value diversity of choice and playstyle with abilities, weapons, and armor. Some combinations of these tools are more effective than others, but every character should have the capacity to protect their group, mend allies, or devastate foes.

• Wear any combination of light, medium, and heavy armor
• Slot abilities from any skill line you've discovered
• "Deck building" through a selection of abilities, items, Champion Points, etc.

Active Combat
We believe combat is more engaging when you are on the move and continuously taking action. Battles should be exhilarating, with threats and opportunities coming fast and you feeling empowered to respond in kind. In any given moment you should have options for reacting to your opponents and shouldn't be held back by long waits between actions. This requires controls to be responsive and consistent so you feel connected to your character and in control of the outcomes of your battles.

• Block, Roll Dodge, and Bash/Interrupt are not constrained by the global cooldown
• No ability cooldowns and a short global cooldown
• Most abilities are instant, with cast times being the exception
• Weapon swapping

Mastery
Whether you've played for 10 minutes or 1000 hours, there should always be something to learn or improve upon. That loop of learning should be consistently fun and rewarding. Our combat is designed to challenge you along two primary paths: character builds and skillful execution. Outside of combat, your character build should test your ability to refine a large number of choices into a proficient engine for battle. Tests of skillful execution occur during battle, challenging you to realize the potential of your build and outperform opponents in fast-paced, active combat.

• Builds consist of the combination of abilities, items and Champion Points
• Real-time resource management (Health, Magicka, Stamina, Ultimate)
• Optimizing ability rotations and timing
• Light attack weaving
• Group “builds” and synergies

Elder Scrolls Inspired
The Elder Scrolls has captured the hearts and minds of millions of players over decades, and we strive to honor series traditions. An online multiplayer world presents some unique challenges, constraints and opportunities, but fans of the series should feel a sense of familiarity within our character and combat experience. The lore and mechanics from previous games should serve as an inspiration and, when possible, a foundation for ESO combat.

• Health, Magicka, and Stamina as attributes
• Class selection does not define or constrain role
• Skill lines are discovered, and leveled up by using them
• Many skill lines are staples from previous TES games (ex: Werewolf, Heavy Armor, Mages Guild, etc.)

Over the course of ESO’s development, we've used these values as our guiding principles, along with feedback from the community and hard data metrics. Outside of some outstanding combat bugs, we believe taking all these into account has now gotten combat in a better place, where ESO is more enjoyable for a variety of playstyles. Much of the work we’ve done over the past few years – such as updating the Champion Point system and the hybridization work – has vastly improved build options, gameplay variety and build equality, which supports several of our values. We know it hasn't always been easy and we sincerely appreciate everyone giving their feedback and spending their time in Tamriel over the years.

Keep an eye out next month for an overview of what to expect in Update 37 as it relates to combat. Again, thank you all for your continued passion and enjoyment of ESO. We'll see you on the field!

ESO_Nightingale

alrighty boss, see you in jan. hopefully you've got some spicy meatballs for us.

NettleCarrier

I have high hopes for U37 then, as recent changes have worried me a bit. I'm seeing a lot less diversity in builds than ever before. I admit part of that though is that rule that if given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of the game.

React

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Active Combat
This requires controls to be responsive and consistent so you feel connected to your character and in control of the outcomes of your battles.

Great, so zenimax is aware of the importance of good performance. It's a shame that on PC NA with the new hardware, cyrodiil has once again degraded to the point that it is unplayable during prime time every single night. I certainly hope that you're able to fix things in Q2 with the start of your code rewrite, but it's a shame that we've been on this road for more than 6 years now, especially if good performance represents one of the "core ideals" to zenimax.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Mastery
Whether you've played for 10 minutes or 1000 hours, there should always be something to learn or improve upon. That loop of learning should be consistently fun and rewarding. Our combat is designed to challenge you along two primary paths: character builds and skillful execution. Outside of combat, your character build should test your ability to refine a large number of choices into a proficient engine for battle. Tests of skillful execution occur during battle, challenging you to realize the potential of your build and outperform opponents in fast-paced, active combat.

So why exactly was light attack weaving targeted in u35? It is one of the few skill-based "mastery mechanics" that exist. The targeting of that mechanic is directly in contrast with this statement.

Furthermore, why was animation cancelling changed in the way that it was? You severely diminished the combat effectiveness of this mechanic with the block changes several years ago, despite saying at the time that the changes would not impact animation cancelling whatsoever. This mechanic was THE thing that added skill gap to high level PVP - and it was done away with "by mistake" without the community ever receiving an explanation about it.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Much of the work we’ve done over the past few years – such as updating the Champion Point system and the hybridization work – has vastly improved build options, gameplay variety and build equality, which supports several of our values.

The endgame community almost unanimously agrees that Hybridization damaged build diversity and variety. More people are using the exact same abilities on their bars, and the exact same weapon types. Where there used to be "12" different classes in eso, one mag and stam variant of each class that played distinctly differently, now there is really only 7 (hybrid of every class, and magicka sorcerer which is dying for updates). For me personally, this has killed replayability in pvp - all of my classes have very clear "best in slot" hybrid playstyles that vastly outperform the non-hybrid variants, while being very homogenized in terms of abilities & sets.

It's also important to note that you never fully finished Hybridization. Weapon/spell pots & glyphs still need to be addressed, and balancing needs to happen across many abilities in the game to add usefulness to things that have been overshadowed during Hybridization.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Keep an eye out next month for an overview of what to expect in Update 37 as it relates to combat. Again, thank you all for your continued passion and enjoyment of ESO. We'll see you on the field!

All this is appreciated, even though it doesn't feel like there was much substance here. With all of the things that need to happen to ESO in 2023 in order for the endgame side of the game to be in a good spot again, I certainly hope the January announcement is top notch and addresses a good portion of these concerns.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

CoolBlast3

Sounds good! Though I hope U37 doesn't force us to "relearn the game" once again, as the constant changes this year have exhausted us plenty.
Am hopeful for the future though!

Elsonso

Thanks @ZOS_BrianWheeler !

Now to sift through that and compare it to the U35 patch notes and combat preview.

ApoAlaia

After U35 any mention of combat changes fills me with dread and foreboding.

code65536

There is a bit of inherent conflict between "Play The Way You Want" and "Mastery", especially the "Group builds and synergies" point.

Part of this is Finn's problem for overtuning HM content in such a way that there's limited wiggle room, but a large part of that is yours too, where every patch you add new ways to optimize that allow the ceiling to climb ever higher while everyone else largely remains in place.

HeroOfNone

Thank you for the insight but I think we're still a long way from the "play how you want" mantra I've been hearing for years now. In most games where damage is king, there will always be a meta unless there are significant PVE mechanics to encourage them. As such, almost every patch has one damage build that everyone grinds to, 2 tank and healer builds that look similar, and maybe the one support dps.

As we balance things out the more apparent these standard roles become, with only a fraction of the sets and abilities seem to be used. Some might say these are PVP only abilities, but when the meta is still burst damage. Builds still seem to have a narrow list if armor sets and only a handful of additional skills seem to be used. This means abilities that have utility get nerfed on damage or cost, even though a PVE boss will be immune to it and its rarely used in PVP.

I would love to see less immunity and more variety in the combat system. Give better synergistic abilities when we use abilities that aren't straight damage and something that doesn't punish you for using off-meta skills.

Thank you for the other looks into the core combat goals, I agree with the sentiment but I feel we keep moving away from the "play as you want" mantra more with each patch.

qcell

A lot of cool ideas, but still can't block.

1) How will you allow players to "play the way they want" and still being able clear trifecta content? Or is it meant to rather mean "quest the way you want"?

2) Could you share more insight on the vision for testing such combat changes going forward?

I spent hundreds of hours testing and providing feedback for the Chapter in PTS and forums and not once it was even acknowledged. I no longer participate in PTS.

Arthtur

Its wierd to read about "Active Combat" after what was done to DoTs in U35.
Because of long DoTs we have situations where we use spammable 10, 15+ times in a row which results in... boring combat. Well maybe some players like it but for me it was the biggest problem with U35. And lets not forget about fights where sticky DoTs become usless because Boss will remove them before they do any damage...

Oh and also "Insert joke about bugged block for x weeks"

TechMaybeHic

Im not sure what to take away from any of this other than a highly generalized overview because people asked for it. I just am to the point where I will just see it when it hits PTS, watch people point out issues, then see it all go live anyway. I suppose some people get the warm and fuzzies from just hearing "Hey, here is our mission statement."

Thanks, I guess.

ZOS_GinaBruno

ApoAlaia wrote: »

After U35 any mention of combat changes fills me with dread and foreboding.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, these values have been our guiding principles for years and are the things we will continue to be our goals moving forward. Nothing here is technically new, outside of simply sharing it with everyone.

AJTC5000

Could you please define who "play the way you want" is meant for? Is it really meant for everyone, including the end-game raiding community?

Part of the reason raid teams are so critically optimised, with people forced to play certain roles and/or abilities is because of how overtuned the content is, especially recently.

Take Reef Guardian HM, a fight where a DK tank is king simply because of Magma Shell allowing you to ignore most of the damage. How would a Necro tank compare here, or a NB? I'm not even going to talk about how bottom-of-the-ladder Templar tank is, a class that is supposed to embody the paladin identity and one I would have thought should be second behind DK. Is this the "play the way you want" mantra in practice?

I get that each class should bring something to the table, to have some measure of class identity, a reason to go "Oh, I want to play that class because". But it seems recently you cannot balance that with "play the way you want" in the settings that test the player the most. If that's the way it's intended to be then so be it, but I'd prefer you to outright say that, instead of just repeating the same buzzwords.

Elsonso

HeroOfNone wrote: »

Thank you for the other looks into the core combat goals, I agree with the sentiment but I feel we keep moving away from the "play as you want" mantra more with each patch.

I see this as a goal of ongoing homogenization. This helps enable "play as you want" with a wider variety of options, since it can serve to blur the details when optimal and wanted do not exactly align.

KlauthWarthog

Quite shallow for something entitled "Deep Dive".

ApoAlaia

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

After U35 any mention of combat changes fills me with dread and foreboding.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, these values have been our guiding principles for years and are the things we will continue to be our goals moving forward. Nothing here is technically new, outside of simply sharing it with everyone.

It was mainly this closing line I was referring to:

Keep an eye out next month for an overview of what to expect in Update 37 as it relates to combat.

Rather than 'keeping an eye out' it makes me want to build a fort out of pillows and blankets and stay there.

The rest of the post is safely vague and generally innocuous.

LonePirate

I take issue with the “Play The Way You Want” section. Specifically, Light Armor continues to be non-viable in Cyrodiil. You have overtuned the resistance factor for Heavy Armor and undertuned the (magic) damage bonus for Light Armor so much that the Light Armor Magicka player is at a noticeable disadvantage. You have Battle Spirit at your beck and call to resolve issues this like. Try using it. Then there is the massive power difference between Magicka Damage and Physical Damage skills which is a whole other can of worms in PVP.

ZOS_GinaBruno

AJTC5000 wrote: »

Could you please define who "play the way you want" is meant for? Is it really meant for everyone, including the end-game raiding community?

Part of the reason raid teams are so critically optimised, with people forced to play certain roles and/or abilities is because of how overtuned the content is, especially recently.

Take Reef Guardian HM, a fight where a DK tank is king simply because of Magma Shell allowing you to ignore most of the damage. How would a Necro tank compare here, or a NB? I'm not even going to talk about how bottom-of-the-ladder Templar tank is, a class that is supposed to embody the paladin identity and one I would have thought should be second behind DK. Is this the "play the way you want" mantra in practice?

I get that each class should bring something to the table, to have some measure of class identity, a reason to go "Oh, I want to play that class because". But it seems recently you cannot balance that with "play the way you want" in the settings that test the player the most. If that's the way it's intended to be then so be it, but I'd prefer you to outright say that, instead of just repeating the same buzzwords.

As is mentioned above, we recognize that some combinations are going to be more effective than others, but our goal is to ensure every character can protect their group, mend allies, or devastate foes in some capacity. Completing Hard Mode content is going to require more skill and an optimized character, and that's where Mastery comes in.

BloodMagicLord

Meh, there's nothing really new here at all.

The combat & balance situation in ESO is really weird, because on the one hand you have the developers regularly making sweeping changes (much to the annoyance of many players) to try to force build diversity into the game, but these efforts are completely wasted because you release OP sets as part of DLCs, to drive sales.

Off meta builds were always viable in ESO for everything apart from the hardest trial content, this is still the case.
In the hardest trial content, the meta is basically required, this has always been the case (except maybe the very early days, some way pre-morrowind) and it is still the case now.

So these attempts to force more playstyles into the game have really accomplished nothing other than turn off some of your most loyal players. From this statement it seems that no lessons at all have been learned from this year.

Oakenaxe

First, I'm glad we got this statement and I respect that you recognized this sort of communication should have started sooner.

Most of the things said sound familiar, I think we heard those visions before. Honestly, I was expecting more insights on how do you think those things are going, if the changes made are actually achieving those goals.

In U35 we were told most of the changes were being made in order to "lower the ceiling", what is good in theory, but in practice it seems the opposite has happened. How do you feel about that?

Hybridization is still left unfinished; what are the next steps? A lot of people feel like hybridization ended up lowering diversity instead of ampliflying it, narrowing the meta; what are your thoughts on this?

How do you respond to the massive negative feedback regarding the animation change for Templar's jabs? How do you explain the use of a vampiric weapon style in a Templar class? It would be consoling to have some response regarding these much asked questions.

I feel like a Q&A wouldn't have missed those questions.

imno007b14_ESO

I don't want to be "that" guy, but I'm not sure what the purpose of this was. I don't think that I actually learned anything from it, and some of it sounds worrying like confirmation that they will be moving more toward making all classes this homogeneous bland whole, with few reasons to choose one class over another. Looking forward, though, to whatever news update 37 might bring.

warich

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Play The Way You Want
We strive to provide freedom and flexibility that allow you to transform your character fantasy into a gameplay reality. We value diversity of choice and playstyle with abilities, weapons, and armor. Some combinations of these tools are more effective than others, but every character should have the capacity to protect their group, mend allies, or devastate foes.

• Wear any combination of light, medium, and heavy armor
• Slot abilities from any skill line you've discovered
• "Deck building" through a selection of abilities, items, Champion Points, etc.

How does this fit in to when warden skills and passives were linked to the destruction/ice staff?
Genuinely curious as my build does not include a destruction staff and greatly suffers for it. The class is pigeon holed into using the weapon. (edit: removing linked picture)

FluffyBird

We already knew all that and now it's all so carefully laid out that I suspect that this post will be referred to when team once again makes totally-not-drastic changes. I have no hope for U37 if this post was needed.

acastanza_ESO

Sorry but this is not what we were promised and does nothing to address the actual issues.

I'm glad that this statement does seem to indicate that ZOS understands what we do actually like about the game's combat but, again, it is not what we were promised and what needs to happen to address the.... things.... that happened in the last combat updates.

I personally, do not consider this a substitute for the promised Q&A and that does still need to happen.

ForumBully

I wasn't expecting any sort of specific communication or explanation for the last year...and I wasn't disappointed. It's a lovely few paragraphs of nothing though.

code65536

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Completing Hard Mode content is going to require more skill and an optimized character, and that's where Mastery comes in.

@ZOS_GinaBruno So "Mastery" means "we're okay with overtuned HM content that forces people into specific classes". I thought "Mastery" was supposed to be a skill thing, rather than something like class choice, which seems like a rather stark conflict to your other purported values.

What proportion of the tanks who have cleared DSR HM or RG HM was not a DK+Necro pair? And how does that compare to HM content before Finn's team decided that "tehehe, we turned the dial up to 11" was a good approach to balancing content?

Again, as I wrote earlier, part of this is Finn's problem, but a part of this is also the combat team's problem.

HeroOfNone

Elsonso wrote: »

HeroOfNone wrote: »

Thank you for the other looks into the core combat goals, I agree with the sentiment but I feel we keep moving away from the "play as you want" mantra more with each patch.

I see this as a goal of ongoing homogenization. This helps enable "play as you want" with a wider variety of options, since it can serve to blur the details when optimal and wanted do not exactly align.

Which is good and bad when the homogenization inflates useless skills and stars that aren't used in the current meta. If we have two skills and one snares, roots or CCs; that one is likely going to be more expensive or damage less; if all things are equal. Sets that give stamina or magicka regen might also be considered a dead stat if we're looking at a heavy attack meta like we have now.

I feel the piece of the puzzle is lost on the PVE side of things, where we shouldn't make bosses simple immune to effects we're taxed for. Maybe, instead, balancing things by refunding resources like extended chain do or creating different effects when players use those abilities. This could open the play style more to alternative ways to play.

Ratzkifal

Active Combat:

• Most abilities are instant, with cast times being the exception

Cast times being the exception? Why then were dualwield and templar spammables changed? Nobody was having an issue with these abilities being the way they were. Maybe there is a point to be made about the dualwield spammable, but not the templar spammable as the class was designed and balanced and loved with this already in mind. I am not having fun playing templar that way. The shorter duration makes the skill feel less rewarding to use. The new animations looking strange doesn't even factor into this yet.

Mastery:

• Light Attack weaving

This is a missed opportunity to explain what light attack weaving actually is, because I am seeing a lot of people who have no idea what it is and are confusing it with animation cancelling, calling light attack weaving a bug, exploit and unintended behavior.
Also, why is this part of the core values? I thought the whole point to update 35 was to make LA less mandatory - as in, not needed to complete content. Is this to add mastery to the 1000th hour of play time? Because I can tell you, practising weaving is not fun. There should be an official take on how much LA/s are expected from players in order to reach "high damage" according to the developers (not the players).

Elder Scrolls Inspired
[...]and we strive to honor series traditions.[...]

Like the tradition of Bosmer having a bonus to stealth for 25 years? You threw that in the trash and gave us zero explanation on it. The only comments the topic received in the patch notes were insulting as they directly contradict the facts. Or what about the tradition of vampire feeding lowering your vampirism stage rather than increasing it? Mechanically it's still the same as you become more monsterous the more power you get but it breaks with tradition too. You called that "backwards" in the patch notes but I don't see it having been "backwards" in the games where stages to vampirism existed. Sorry if this is off topic but any time I see "series traditions" mentioned I can't help but bring up the ones you broke with.

Our goal is to strike a good balance, and just like our community has evolved over time, so has the need to address things that didn’t align with our combat core values.

Lastly I want to address this. Our community has evolved over time but please do not stop thinking critically of what you are doing. If PvPers left the game that shouldn't mean that PvP can be abandoned as the "community evolved away from PvP". No, this means that change shapes the community the same way the community affects change. This is not a one-way street. Never forget that and give the neglected players some love.

MageCatF4F

My combat Q was expressed several months ago and remains unanswered.

As someone still very near the floor, how did nerfing my damage across the board in update 35 "raise the floor" for me and improve my accessibility to content?

You lowered me into the basement. Or more correctly, you made me buy High Isle for the oakensoul ring. That is the one reason I bought it. Yes, it allowed me to crawl out of the basement. I had to spend money to get back here.

As many others have noted, this communication seems too general to answer some of our questions.

Ezorus

This is a whole lot of nothing post again.
The game is at its lowest point, people aren't playing, streamers aren't streaming. I log in for the daily reward and log out.
Combat has been downhill since the introduction of mythics, mix matching armour weights, hybridisation, scaling healing with damage instead of max stats (or having it's own stat), nerfing play styles (ganking, bows, bombing, shields, procs), adding over powered sets (only to nerf them a month later).... All of it takes away the "play how you want", class identity and the fun of theory crafting