ESO Developer Deep Dive - Core Combat Values

Jaraal

Elsonso wrote: »

NextTuesday wrote: »

Stop nerfing the game because people playing at a level above other people after the work put in is somehow unfair. We want a challenge and we want to be rewarded. You don't get to autopilot that. It's like casuals asking for Elden Ring etc to get nerfed. If these games are too hard for you then move on to something that isn't, or stick to overland and normal difficulty group content, and leave us who enjoy hard stuff to enjoy hard stuff.

ZOS should not balance this game around the capabilities and preferences of the people who have mastered the game. At best, they can provide hard content for them, but the majority of the game has to be attainable by people who have not (yet) mastered the game. Even the hard content can't be too hard or it becomes a barrier.

But they do that because of the "obscene damage numbers" that apparently bother them enough to balance from the top down. And yes, all the little guys are paying the price, while the top end continues putting out 130k+ parses after Update 35.

NextTuesday

Faun Falls word boss is an example of overtuned madness in overland getting nerfed to heck because it should never have been pushed to live being that broken. But sure blame the top end for being too strong and the game being built around them because it's their fault ZOS don't balance properly and won't listen to PTS feedback and want to force people to "have fun" with one-shot mechanics even in overland. It would be so good if we could just forget this year ever happened and try something actually helpful without breaking the game.

Elsonso

Jaraal wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

NextTuesday wrote: »

Stop nerfing the game because people playing at a level above other people after the work put in is somehow unfair. We want a challenge and we want to be rewarded. You don't get to autopilot that. It's like casuals asking for Elden Ring etc to get nerfed. If these games are too hard for you then move on to something that isn't, or stick to overland and normal difficulty group content, and leave us who enjoy hard stuff to enjoy hard stuff.

ZOS should not balance this game around the capabilities and preferences of the people who have mastered the game. At best, they can provide hard content for them, but the majority of the game has to be attainable by people who have not (yet) mastered the game. Even the hard content can't be too hard or it becomes a barrier.

But they do that because of the "obscene damage numbers" that apparently bother them enough to balance from the top down. And yes, all the little guys are paying the price, while the top end continues putting out 130k+ parses after Update 35.

What I think ZOS should do, and what ZOS does, sometimes varies greatly. When they hire me as Combat Lead, that will all change. Not that this is going to happen any time soon.

Billium813

NextTuesday wrote: »

Faun Falls word boss is an example of overtuned madness in overland getting nerfed to heck because it should never have been pushed to live being that broken. But sure blame the top end for being too strong and the game being built around them because it's their fault ZOS don't balance properly and won't listen to PTS feedback and want to force people to "have fun" with one-shot mechanics even in overland. It would be so good if we could just forget this year ever happened and try something actually helpful without breaking the game.

What's broken about Faun Falls word boss? Seems like nice world boss with good mechanics to me. Are you upset because you can't figure out the ghost wall mechanic? 🙄

I'll take dynamic mechanics that involve agility and strategy over brain dead mechanics where you just stand there and parse on the WB. I want more complexity in this game and LESS content designed for literal children.

blktauna

Rude much?

There's a bug in the collection of objects to clear the boss, at least there was when I did it. Also, if I recall, the 'hole' doesnt always work and even if you are in the 'safe' spot you are instadead.

NextTuesday

I said Faun Falls was overtuned on release and had to be nerfed. It's there in your quote. There is less wrong with it now than there was at release, when it would melee one shot people. I was clearing it with one other person on release before it got nerfed so no, I don't have trouble with the mechanics. The wall mechanic is fine except the hit box for the gap needs to be more clearly defined.

WBs do need to be accessible, they need to be clearable by the lowest common denominator as an overland item. By its nature it won't be stimulating to the top end, nor should it be, and that is why the top end has veteran arenas for hard solo content. We need more of those, not more complex overland stuff that non-overlanders don't care about anyway. I don't do WB dailies for the engagement and I don't want to. It's a grind and it should be easy to get over and done with.

Overlanders can have their relatively simple overland so we can have our relatively complex group and arena content. Separate overland from other stuff and let people play how they want. Some people want complex combat but others don't and there IS a middle ground that doesn't force either side to tolerate the other in sweeping combat changes every few months. Let each preference succeed in its own area and the game will flourish.

React

If performance is a core ideal and is important to zenimax...

Why haven't you acknowledged the recent performance issues that have RETURNED to PC NA?

The cyrodiil server performance was totally fixed after the server upgrade for about 5 months. There was zero lag whatsoever. I often was playing during prime time in gray host, inside of keeps with multiple ball groups, max siege, and over 100 people on the player tracker with no lag at all. Zero ability delay, everything worked flawlessly.

Since U36 dropped, there has been a drastic decrease in performance. Every single night as we approach prime time, grayhost is unplayable. Multiple second ability delays, mass disconnects near large fights, and lag across the entire map.

What happened? Why has the performance decreased so drastically again? Did you reduce the server resource allocation to cyrodiil or something?

blktauna

U36? Brother U33 was the start. My barswap ceased to function reliably at that point and I'd grind to a halt when the ball group showed up. Now my bar simply greys out and no skills at all work. Range is inconsistent at best and lag will rubberband me all over. I've started getting the loadscreens again. I thought we were finally rid of those...

TechMaybeHic

Its been getting bad for a for a few updates. I think it just got back to pre-server refresh level now. A ton of multiple break frees in a row. Being CCed back to back to back after break free with not cooldown. Health desync where you are full health then just dead to see a bunch of DOTs had been ticking on you and you had no idea because you were not taking damage. All returned with update 36

TechMaybeHic

Yeah, I got hit by a comet next to the couple stairs up to a transit shrine in a keep while I hit block but did not appear to do anything as I went flying and took damage, and another hit a second later while I was sill in the air and sent my higher. I could see the first landing on the stairs that lead to the D-ring.

Much fun. Such wow.

blktauna

Left greyhost tonight because of lag. back to literally sliding across the floor. Skills happening after you;ve died. but mostly not at all. No damage numbers, no siege aoe showing.

Not the product I pay for

yadibroz

Please rework necromancer make the skull be as a pet and warden rework the ice skills to winds and make a new ice mage like sorceress please.

martinhpb16_ESO

Not exactly a deep dive, more like a paddle in that old pool we moved on from years ago.

xSkullfox

Only what i see is copy pasta the same text lines: Play The Way You Want, Active Combat etc...

Crow_IX

This whole post feels like a "what the people want to hear" speech. None of these core values are even apart of the game in it's current state, with the exception of Elder Scrolls inspired, if we can even consider that a "core value"?

Play the way you want?

You've forced us into this weird hybrid meta where stamina and magika don't differentiate which takes a lot away from class identity. There is a massive lack of diversity, with nearly all builds running the same few proc and defense sets, that is apparently a core value to ESO's combat system. Play the way you want, but solo play in PvP is damn near dead and PvE has less build "diversity" than PvP. Note, I don't PvE often, but to hit the same numbers as others you run the same things. Granted there will always be a meta but here is the thing, I cannot effectively run a dw/2h brawler solo nb in PvP anymore because there aren't resources for that playstyle that will keep up with the current tank and proc meta. It's one thing to say "here are our values" but it's another thing when players aren't seeing much of the combat being valued at all. To be completely honest, the whole forced hybrid change felt more like a backwards experiment than anything and it was very frustrating as a long time ESO player.

Active combat

Active combat is one of the reasons I enjoy ESO over other MMOs. But the additions of cast times made the game feel so clunky and with that have seen a wide array of bigger issues like skill duds, delays and desyncs. Blocking and bashing is always being nerfed in attempts to keep nerfing animation cancelling while also getting rid of some real issues like perma block builds or the bash builds from back then. Active combat is still continuous action, which is good, however the combat it's self feels more like item sets doing damage for you, stunning for you or keeping you alive, meanwhile you just run around left clicking.
(Look all I'm saying is if a player can only do 8k with dawnbreaker why should i get hit by a 12k tic from their proc set?)

Mastery

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

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.

. . . what?
This is the most frustrating and backwards statement in this whole dev post. You guys immensely lowered the skill cieling when you attempted to remove animation canceling and added in cast times, which if you didn't know, takes away from the mastery in the game, y'know one of your "core values". Who needs to learn how to play when you can look up a high damage build that has you slot on two proc sets and a sustain or tanky set? I mean build anything with Rallying Cry, slot damage procs and thats 20k (exaggerated numbers... or is it?) free damage for "dealing damage to a player"? oh you mean playing the game? If you're going to have high damage proc sets the conditions should be more intense. There is no more "skillful execution" it's really just run down with more players or run away til more players come.

Elder Scrolls inspired

Well I sure freaking hope so?

NextTuesday

Lol Crow you're going to get procs turned off in all PvP again now. So sayeth the combat dev overlords who don't actually play this game or understand how it's played.

Jaraal

NextTuesday wrote: »

Lol Crow you're going to get procs turned off in all PvP again now. So sayeth the combat dev overlords who don't actually play this game or understand how it's played.

You're kidding, right? Part of ZOS' combat (and marketing) strategy is to release three to six overtuned sets (usually of the proc variety) every three months.

It will be interesting to see how the upcoming lack of new DLC affects the timing of the set production machine.

NextTuesday

Jaraal wrote: »

NextTuesday wrote: »

Lol Crow you're going to get procs turned off in all PvP again now. So sayeth the combat dev overlords who don't actually play this game or understand how it's played.

You're kidding, right? Part of ZOS' combat (and marketing) strategy is to release three to six overtuned sets (usually of the proc variety) every three months.

It will be interesting to see how the upcoming lack of new DLC affects the timing of the set production machine.

My money is on new Rewards for the Worthy. Dark Convergence was a great moment in PvP /s

Crow_IX

NextTuesday wrote: »

Lol Crow you're going to get procs turned off in all PvP again now. So sayeth the combat dev overlords who don't actually play this game or understand how it's played.

zos will never get rid of procs fully don't worry. they do need a huge nerf though but I really feel like they are relying on procs while performance issues are still around simple because when your skills delay, lag or misfire (take your resources but don't do damage or healing) its overlooked because procs do 60% of the damage for you.

NextTuesday

Lol exactly. Don't have to fix PvP or combat in general if you just keep force-feeding the game overtuned procs XD

Next PvP release will be titled Cyrodiil: Proc Wars.

Except nothing has actually changed or been updated, let alone fixed, because power disparity or something idk buy crowns.

Crow_IX

NextTuesday wrote: »

Lol exactly. Don't have to fix PvP or combat in general if you just keep force-feeding the game overtuned procs XD

Next PvP release will be titled Cyrodiil: Proc Wars.

Except nothing has actually changed or been updated, let alone fixed, because power disparity or something idk buy crowns.

I remember back in like 2017 I think it was, the dev team put out in a patch note (maybe just community update?) addressing that players were complaining that other players were "abusing" the "exploit" of animation canceling, and they were saying that they were not going to get rid of it. They admitted to it not being an intended feature of combat but they like the skill and mastery it brought to PvP. This is the kind of dev team we need back in ESO HQ because right now it feels like we've been ignored since 2019 or even a bit earlier than that. FF14 revamped their entire game. We need an ESO reborn at this point.

blktauna

I agree, but can't imagine it will happen. I don't forsee any improvement in cyrodil at all. If anything I see it getting sunset in a year or two.

I will not be happy but it just seems like this is the direction they are headed.

Dreepa

Great post.
I love the way you put it all into words.

However, reality check is: You have made a game that is schizophrenic.
And by concept, by the very foundation of it, you have mutually exclusive goals.

You cannot fix that. It is a juxtaposition BY DEFINITION.


Skyrim:
Do what you want, learn what you want, switch to anything you want anytime, go to the options, move difficulty slider how you want, save & load the game at any time and just light attack to victory or do complicated inventory management things while using exotic spells.

MMOs:
Players fighting each other where combat performance is key, gazillion of different player types and player skill levels that meet each other, regulated and structured by a rule-set that is defining and confinig, that is setting boundaries and constraints, that works withing a framework of established rock-scissor-papers like philosophies, serving a multiplayer need for player synergy gameplay, where design funnels player-abilities into use-cases made for specific situations anticipated within the encounters between players.

Freedom vs Structure
Leisure vs Competition
Express_yourself vs Mastery
Achiever vs Killer
Immersion vs. Performance



These two cannot, and will not go together, ever.

Your best bet is to embrace that divide instead of further and further watering down each side. You need to draw a line.

Remember Dawn Of War 2?

Units were different in multiplayer compared to singleplayer. Because relic new that they have 2 entirely different requirements. Abilities worked differently. Completely.

ESO can only win if you have 2 data sets, and give the UI the necesarry features to clearly communicate this divide.


"You are now in PvP mode, here are the rules"

"You are now questing, here are the rules."

With a proper management tool to manage the divide (not reyling on addons) and teaching the concepts clearly to new players.


Marrying Skyrim with DAOC is what brought you into this hell in the first place. You made 2 games merged into one, and there is no easy way out. The worst way out is to "balance it all for everyone".
Any senior designer would agree with that.
You need to pick your battles and set your priorities for the relevant use-cases. It's just impossible to create a "one-size-fits-em-all" solution.
Otherwise, all it does is dragging you deeper into design hell.

LordDragonMara

Elsonso wrote: »

ZOS should not balance this game around the capabilities and preferences of the people who have mastered the game. At best, they can provide hard content for them, but the majority of the game has to be attainable by people who have not (yet) mastered the game. Even the hard content can't be too hard or it becomes a barrier.

Exactly the opposite. Every single game is balanced towards the high end in terms of player skill/knowledge, as it should be.
Every single top Strategy game is like that, every single top FPS games like that, every single MOBA is like that, every single BR is like that, and every single RPG and MMORPG should be like that. When we talking about Multiplayer/Online gaming.

Also all of this genres are at their top, aka Moba, FPS, BR, and the main reason is because of player skill involved the mechanics that you need to learn and get better as a gamer overall.
And guess what the top end are like in every single game, like 1 to 5% of the player base, and the rest are casual, but they don't cry out loudly or they do, but nothing is listen to them, and this genres are still the top in terms of player base.
The so call casuals watch the so call Pros and try to become as good as them. And they are showing the way, and how is done.

MMO for comparison to FPS require like zero efforts to be good at it. You need some practice, but nothing really demanding or hard. It's more of a knowledge you need to learn. In FPS games, that are so played, probably the most played genre out there, you will need years to just get good mechanics, and you will need to specifically target this mechanics in order to improve in them, like AIM, Movements, your positioning and so on.
And the Skill Ceiling and improvements you can make is literally unlimited.

In ESO for a plain example you need to click the mouse 1 per second, which even 1 year old can do, if you can't for whatever reason, then gaming, and especially Online one is not for you. LA Weaving is always been in the game, and it's always been about the timing of it, it's not how fast you can click your mouse or so.

Also game that you become a "master" in a week is a terribly designed game.

ESO Combat is already slow enough, and the only thing that makes it a bit of action-based is the LA Weaving.

And hell no Content/achievements should be hard. World Bosses should be hard. They should present a challenge and people that want to kill/beat them should put the work necessary to beat them.

In this game there is already enough of easy content. If you want to do the hard content in the game, then you should work towards it. Hard content meant to be hard and are not for everyone. IF you want to do them, you need to be good enough to do them.

Just like in Single Player Action games, in easy difficulty you can do the game with 1 game, normal is challenging, and Hard is exactly that Hard. Not to mention there should be Very Hard and so on difficulty content that should be achievable for a very few people, so you can actually feel rewarded when you do them.

Nihilr

There seems to be a lot of complaining in this thread, but not really any constructive criticism going on.

2022 UPDATES
I actually for one have enjoyed the updates, less damage for light and heavy attacks makes them less important actually in rotation, which is nice because when server ping spikes happen in busy areas, it's almost impossible to maintain LA weaving (not counting "medium" attacks). But even though this hurt dps, it was across the board and I can tell that damage was rebalanced elsewhere.

I also liked the 10 to 20 second increase for DoTs as laying as many DoTs in combat as possible was more tedious than fun.

I do agree however, that spammable abilities now feel more boring--BUT, they feel more important now too! Finding a spammable for your playstyle is important (I think). I would like to see more synergy combos so that spammable don't spoil, such as an ability-combo system that allows us to mix and match damage types (jrpg style). Doing rending slashes and then flurries afterward, allows us to do a "heavy" style ability. This would also help us pull further away from this light and heavy attack necessity. I feel like Crystal Blast is a somewhat good example of this.

HYBRID VARIETY
I disagree with hybridization making less variety. If you as a player haven't been experimenting with new set combos this year, you're sorely missing out. I have been loving the use of Vateshran Resto backbar on my stamina characters, because my playstyle is to set up passive healing at the start of a fight, and go glass cannon after to not worry about healing mid/late fight. You can wear medium on a mage, but you'll need to find penetration elsewhere in your build!


MASTERY
Now here's the biggest problem as others mentioned above: Making HM "the mastery", means that we have to build an exact way that you Devs expect us to! It's not all skill, because if it wasn't, then you'd scale the difficulty to hard-coded mechanics that don't let meta-builds cheese the bosses by burning them with boring robo-rotations.

I'd honestly prefer more mechanics, and 0 dps gates on all bosses. This would also open the game up to solo dungeon modes. Controversial and will get a lot of pushback: If we can complete a hardmode boss by ourselves with patience as a tank or healer, but still have a risk of getting 1-shot if we fail the puzzle/order-of-operations, then would that not be a fair alternative? Smashing the boss into oblivion shouldn't be the only way the game is played.

CONCLUSION
You're all doing a great job. Still expecting splitting skills, new skills, new weapons, or less dependency on animation cancelling with the future changes. I have played for a few years, my husband has played since 2016--and even I wouldn't mind relearning a new combat setup because the only people who are complaining are just angry that the game will be less "exclusive" for them in their 'perfected repeat attack pattern'. How loathesome.

boi_anachronism_

A few things I believe many folks were looking for in a post of this nature:

• Timeline for completion of hybridization.

• Addressing the vast gap in difficulty from veteran difficulty to Hard Mode.

• Addressing a legitimate way for new players to learn mechanics so the skill gap can actually be closed a bit without constant heavy handed nerfs across the board.

• Addressing the distinct lack of a real reward system in the game. Having such a poor one really hurts replayability because what is the point? Especially with AWA. It might be time to take a page from some other MMOs and ask yourselves what is making them successful.

• Combat changes in an MMO are to be expected for skills and sets periodically but are we going to see an end to major core combat changes?

• A general timeline for addressing the major performance issues in pvp or at least an acknowledgement that it is being actively worked on meaningfully in the new year.

• QOL changes that aren't only acquirable through the crown store.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list but I think I can speak for most players when I say we really want to see something a bit more concrete.

boi_anachronism_

2022 UPDATES
I actually for one have enjoyed the updates, less damage for light and heavy attacks makes them less important actually in rotation, which is nice because when server ping spikes happen in busy areas, it's almost impossible to maintain LA weaving (not counting "medium" attacks). But even though this hurt dps, it was across the board and I can tell that damage was rebalanced elsewhere.

Unfortunately this is not true for all content and certainly not for all classes. NB for example still very much requires mastery of LA for it's bow proc which is it's most vital skill as a class and knocks your damage down massively if not used properly, we are talking in the range of 30%. That said even prior to 35 you could still break 80k without LA in your rotation for some classes (YouTube has a few examples). It's more a question of folks not understanding basics like buffs, sets, not being able to manage resources and how to pick skills. Dots being nerfed really hurt Dot based classes and made them effectively useless for most pvp content. Yeah I can see it being an issue in say vents and harrowstorms during events but that is a server issue and players shouldn't have to alter their play style as it was designed because of performance issues. Those issues do not go away because there is less LA weaving. LA is a skill and you certainly do not need it to be perfect to hit high numbers. There has been zero uptick in performance because of this change. 4 man dungeons which are arguably the least populated content and should have very little ping still have issues with bar swap and player sliding on the floor and that is post combat. Even with great internet and a hardwired connection it is exactly the same In high volume areas. Heck even when I go into a town that's heavily populated I still get the "void" players for a solid 10-15 seconds. For hard mode content you still need to have a mastery of LA weaving so what is being floated here is basically it's better in overland but nowhere else. It certainly hasn't helped pvp performance at all. People still rubber band constantly or find themselves dead inside keeps because of latency.

Crow_IX

Nihilr wrote: »

There seems to be a lot of complaining in this thread, but not really any constructive criticism going on.
HYBRID VARIETY
I disagree with hybridization making less variety. If you as a player haven't been experimenting with new set combos this year, you're sorely missing out. I have been loving the use of Vateshran Resto backbar on my stamina characters, because my playstyle is to set up passive healing at the start of a fight, and go glass cannon after to not worry about healing mid/late fight. You can wear medium on a mage, but you'll need to find penetration elsewhere in your build!


MASTERY
Now here's the biggest problem as others mentioned above: Making HM "the mastery", means that we have to build an exact way that you Devs expect us to! It's not all skill, because if it wasn't, then you'd scale the difficulty to hard-coded mechanics that don't let meta-builds cheese the bosses by burning them with boring robo-rotations.

I'd honestly prefer more mechanics, and 0 dps gates on all bosses. This would also open the game up to solo dungeon modes. Controversial and will get a lot of pushback: If we can complete a hardmode boss by ourselves with patience as a tank or healer, but still have a risk of getting 1-shot if we fail the puzzle/order-of-operations, then would that not be a fair alternative? Smashing the boss into oblivion shouldn't be the only way the game is played.

CONCLUSION
You're all doing a great job. Still expecting splitting skills, new skills, new weapons, or less dependency on animation cancelling with the future changes. I have played for a few years, my husband has played since 2016--and even I wouldn't mind relearning a new combat setup because the only people who are complaining are just angry that the game will be less "exclusive" for them in their 'perfected repeat attack pattern'. How loathesome.

You've gravely overlooked how important all the mechanics you claim to like or dislike effect end game PvP, all negatively might I add.

For example the hybrid meta really funneled play styles into a really weird spot. Let me tell you right now I see more players running resto back bar than SnB these days. Everyone is running the same 3 or 4 builds because literally all the other sets cannot keep up with the 3-4 builds we have now. As an avid theory crafter, specifically for PvP I can tell you sustain builds and raw damage builds aren't hardly viable. All the hybrid force did was allow all players to run the same high proc damage high damage mitigating builds. When you say you disagree I think you're only taking into the account that you can now slot any set and make it "work" but what you overlooked was the viability of the builds.

Your entire mastery take is focused strictly on PvE which just like the devs, shows much you neglect PvP as part of the game. I don't believe your points would effect PvP i.e. 0 dps gates on bosses, or solo dungeon runs but I just wanted to point out that mastery isn't just understanding dungeon and boss mechanics, but also player/combat mechanics in general. Which have been effected enough by PvE to impact PvE usually for the worse to be frank.

When it comes to mastery let me ask you. In terms of mastery combat, do you think picking and choosing times the times you should light, medium or heavy attack not pertain to skill? Is animation canceling not a mechanical skill that when used by two good players the player who tech flubs the least will often win, which insights skill level and mastery? I cannot stress how much you over look these skills as a mastery mechanic especially in PvP. Personally I don't see it making too much a difference in PvE, sure higher skilled players can dish out high numbers in shorter time maybe but you can get vet trials done regardless of players using advanced tech skill. I've Played this game since release and I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see the skill gap closing more and more because players don't want to learn mechanical tech skill but would rather slot the most powerful sets that do all the damage (not literally but quiet close) for them and just run with more players than the opposing players. PvP is never "perfect repeat attack pattern" the combos change consistently (with as much option as we currently have at least) depending on the situation and how you read it.

Please note, I'm not trying to take jabs at you or anything. I just think you completely overlooked a huge part of what these mechanics and changes have on ESO as a whole and you only focused on a PvE aspect. I just wish you inform you of the struggles the overlooked PvP community has to go through when these changes happen. You're definitely entitled to you own opinions of the game, but maybe I can at least open your mind a but and nudge you into, at the very least, not supporting the dev team in dismantling PvP.

Kallykat

LordDragonMara wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

ZOS should not balance this game around the capabilities and preferences of the people who have mastered the game. At best, they can provide hard content for them, but the majority of the game has to be attainable by people who have not (yet) mastered the game. Even the hard content can't be too hard or it becomes a barrier.

Exactly the opposite. Every single game is balanced towards the high end in terms of player skill/knowledge, as it should be.
Every single top Strategy game is like that, every single top FPS games like that, every single MOBA is like that, every single BR is like that, and every single RPG and MMORPG should be like that. When we talking about Multiplayer/Online gaming.

Also all of this genres are at their top, aka Moba, FPS, BR, and the main reason is because of player skill involved the mechanics that you need to learn and get better as a gamer overall.
And guess what the top end are like in every single game, like 1 to 5% of the player base, and the rest are casual, but they don't cry out loudly or they do, but nothing is listen to them, and this genres are still the top in terms of player base.
The so call casuals watch the so call Pros and try to become as good as them. And they are showing the way, and how is done.

MMO for comparison to FPS require like zero efforts to be good at it. You need some practice, but nothing really demanding or hard. It's more of a knowledge you need to learn. In FPS games, that are so played, probably the most played genre out there, you will need years to just get good mechanics, and you will need to specifically target this mechanics in order to improve in them, like AIM, Movements, your positioning and so on.
And the Skill Ceiling and improvements you can make is literally unlimited.

In ESO for a plain example you need to click the mouse 1 per second, which even 1 year old can do, if you can't for whatever reason, then gaming, and especially Online one is not for you. LA Weaving is always been in the game, and it's always been about the timing of it, it's not how fast you can click your mouse or so.

Also game that you become a "master" in a week is a terribly designed game.

ESO Combat is already slow enough, and the only thing that makes it a bit of action-based is the LA Weaving.

And hell no Content/achievements should be hard. World Bosses should be hard. They should present a challenge and people that want to kill/beat them should put the work necessary to beat them.

In this game there is already enough of easy content. If you want to do the hard content in the game, then you should work towards it. Hard content meant to be hard and are not for everyone. IF you want to do them, you need to be good enough to do them.

Just like in Single Player Action games, in easy difficulty you can do the game with 1 game, normal is challenging, and Hard is exactly that Hard. Not to mention there should be Very Hard and so on difficulty content that should be achievable for a very few people, so you can actually feel rewarded when you do them.

So, just tell a whole portion of the playerbase they shouldn't play the game? That doesn't seem smart, and it doesn't fall in line with ESO's values. That's like saying to you, "You think the game is too easy? Don't play ESO then. It's not for you."

This game is meant to be played by people at various skill levels. Portions of the game are geared toward those with higher and lower skill levels. ESO is not an FPS game, and if ZOS tried to balance everything the way you suggest, they would lose a large portion of their playerbase.

Turtle_Bot

Kallykat wrote: »

LordDragonMara wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

ZOS should not balance this game around the capabilities and preferences of the people who have mastered the game. At best, they can provide hard content for them, but the majority of the game has to be attainable by people who have not (yet) mastered the game. Even the hard content can't be too hard or it becomes a barrier.

Exactly the opposite. Every single game is balanced towards the high end in terms of player skill/knowledge, as it should be.
Every single top Strategy game is like that, every single top FPS games like that, every single MOBA is like that, every single BR is like that, and every single RPG and MMORPG should be like that. When we talking about Multiplayer/Online gaming.

Also all of this genres are at their top, aka Moba, FPS, BR, and the main reason is because of player skill involved the mechanics that you need to learn and get better as a gamer overall.
And guess what the top end are like in every single game, like 1 to 5% of the player base, and the rest are casual, but they don't cry out loudly or they do, but nothing is listen to them, and this genres are still the top in terms of player base.
The so call casuals watch the so call Pros and try to become as good as them. And they are showing the way, and how is done.

MMO for comparison to FPS require like zero efforts to be good at it. You need some practice, but nothing really demanding or hard. It's more of a knowledge you need to learn. In FPS games, that are so played, probably the most played genre out there, you will need years to just get good mechanics, and you will need to specifically target this mechanics in order to improve in them, like AIM, Movements, your positioning and so on.
And the Skill Ceiling and improvements you can make is literally unlimited.

In ESO for a plain example you need to click the mouse 1 per second, which even 1 year old can do, if you can't for whatever reason, then gaming, and especially Online one is not for you. LA Weaving is always been in the game, and it's always been about the timing of it, it's not how fast you can click your mouse or so.

Also game that you become a "master" in a week is a terribly designed game.

ESO Combat is already slow enough, and the only thing that makes it a bit of action-based is the LA Weaving.

And hell no Content/achievements should be hard. World Bosses should be hard. They should present a challenge and people that want to kill/beat them should put the work necessary to beat them.

In this game there is already enough of easy content. If you want to do the hard content in the game, then you should work towards it. Hard content meant to be hard and are not for everyone. IF you want to do them, you need to be good enough to do them.

Just like in Single Player Action games, in easy difficulty you can do the game with 1 game, normal is challenging, and Hard is exactly that Hard. Not to mention there should be Very Hard and so on difficulty content that should be achievable for a very few people, so you can actually feel rewarded when you do them.

So, just tell a whole portion of the playerbase they shouldn't play the game? That doesn't seem smart, and it doesn't fall in line with ESO's values. That's like saying to you, "You think the game is too easy? Don't play ESO then. It's not for you."

This game is meant to be played by people at various skill levels. Portions of the game are geared toward those with higher and lower skill levels. ESO is not an FPS game, and if ZOS tried to balance everything the way you suggest, they would lose a large portion of their playerbase.

The problem is when they try to balance everything too far in either direction. The game started out (2014) being too hard and didn't draw in the casual audience, but over the past few years, they have completely swung the direction of the balance way too far in the opposite direction catering almost solely for the casual players that don't want to do harder content and we are seeing a near complete loss of the other side of the player base that wants that challenging content in the game and who find that content fun and engaging.

They need to strike a balance when making changes, too casual and the game is no longer an MMO and more like a casual mobile game, too end game and the game loses the casual audience.

Getting that balance of both right is what they need to be aiming for, they made a good start and used to have normal dungeons for those that don't care at all about hard content but still provided some challenge to actually work through, they used to have vet dungeons that required at least some level of skill and knowledge to complete and HM content that was designed for the top 10% of players with score pushing being the very end game goal for the top 0.1%.

Unfortunately they have strayed from that design philosophy and currently they have normal mode that is story mode (basically watch a movie to complete this content), vet is now what normal used to be where it takes a bit of skill or knowledge to complete it but is otherwise easy content, but HM has been catered solely to the top 0.1% so that skill gap required to complete the hard content has naturally drastically increased to compensate for those design changes which have left nothing for those in between the top 0.1% and the average player.

It's like how they yoyo back and forth with class balance changes. instead of tweaking abilities by small percentage values, they either completely over buff them or they basically delete them from the game because they have become so unusable. There needs to be a middle ground.