Update 50 PTS – Week 3 Summary

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · May 1

Hi everyone! Welcome to our Update 50 PTS summary for week 3. In this post we’ve compiled a high-level summary of the Update 50 PTS – Week 3 top feedback points and issues. The purpose of these weekly PTS summaries is to give you visibility into the main pieces of feedback and most prominent bugs we are tracking. As a gentle reminder, these summaries are not intended to be as comprehensive as our PTS weekly patch notes, so they will not include everything that will appear in those. You may read our summaries here for Week 1 and Week 2.

As an additional note, this was a busier-than-usual week for us with the launch of the Night Market in addition to PTS Week 3, so this summary is lighter than the past couple weeks.

Thank you for your continued PTS bug reports and feedback, and as always, we welcome your thoughts on these PTS summaries.

Challenge Difficulty

Angof the Gravesinger [Bug]: While playing on Master or Vestige, standing in Gabrielle Benele's Light magic does not save you from Angof's Vengeance as it should. This will be fixed in time for Update 50 launch in June.
Changes to Master and Seasoned Damage Output [Feedback]: With PTS Week 5, we are making some changes to the damage output for Master and Seasoned Challenge Difficulty levels. We are making these changes to address the feedback that the damage output between Adventurer, Seasoned, and Master did not feel different enough. With the changes the Challenge Difficulty levels will look like this for PTS Week 5 as well as the Challenge Difficulty launch with Update 50 in June:
- Adventurer: No changes
- Seasoned: -50% (was -20%) Damage Done, +100% Damage Taken, +20% XP, +50% Gold
- Master: -65% (was -50%) Damage Done, +300% Damage Taken, +75% XP, +100% Gold
- Vestige: -80% Damage Done, +600% Damage Taken, +100% XP, +200% Gold
UI: UI elements for Challenge Difficulty do not update in real time on Keyboard UI and Console UI. This will be fixed in time for Update 50 launch in June.

Class Mastery

Necromancer – Malevolent Promise [Feedback]: We have been reading your feedback about the Malevolent Promise passive and PvP content and wanted to give a little more context into why it does not work on enemy player characters. When we tested this Class Mastery passive internally, it created an extreme imbalance in PvP situations (we referred to these as “war crimes” in our early dev reveal). Rather than tone down the power of this passive for all content, we opted to make it only usable on non-player enemies in the short term. These passives are not able to be optimal in all possible situations throughout the game as the end-all be-all solutions to Subclassing concerns. Many of these, especially in cases of classes who will benefit greatly from their class refresh pass, are temporary solutions to power imbalances. So, we do hear your feedback and will be making more adjustments to the Class Mastery passives as we work through each class refresh in the future.
Nightblade – General [Adjustments]: This time around we looked at juicing up many of the damage-oriented passives for the Nightblade class to try and help supplant them in a single-target spotlight, but ended up being a bit overzealous. We have some tweaks in PTS Week 4 for Above and Beyond (30% cap, down from 35%) and An Eye for Exploitation (2k max Weapon and Spell Damage, down from 2500).
Sorcerer – Font of Power [Bug]: This passive can occasionally go to a group member instead of the caster, which will be fixed before Update 50 goes live in June.
Sorcerer – Static Reverberation [Adjustments]: In PTS Week 3 we brought down the power of Static Reverberation to the realm of mortals but ultimately overshot some of the reductions. In PTS Week 4 we’ll be gently increasing the base proc chance and reducing the cooldown to 300ms.
Templar – Bastion of Light [Bug]: This passive's Ultimate generation can inconsistently fail to apply each tick based on race conditions related to back-end server calculation, resulting in proc generation every two seconds instead of one. This will be fixed in PTS Week 4.

Favors

Favor Quest Mails [Bug]: Upon completing some Favor quests, you may receive duplicate in-game mails. This will be fixed in PTS Week 4.
Rewards [Feedback]: This is a carry-over from previous PTS Weekly Summaries. We have seen your feedback that the rewards for Favors don’t feel substantial enough, and have updated Favors rewards across the board. You will continue to see tweaks to this through PTS Week 5, but these all should be much more rewarding now as well as each Favor having a unique reward pull for completing them.

Tamriel Tomes

“Deal Damage in Battlegrounds, Cyrodiil, or Imperial City” Weekly Challenge [Bug]: The Weekly Challenge "Deal Damage in Battlegrounds, Cyrodiil, or Imperial City" did not specify that damage needs to be dealt to player characters. This will be fixed in PTS Week 4.
Polish – General [Improvements]: Various polish on Challenges and their text, such as adding icons and improving wording.

Thieves Guild & Sheogorath Content

Daggerfall Thieves Den [Bug]: We are investigating reports of taking items from inside the Daggerfall Thieves Den and it flagging the player as stealing them.
NPC Appearances [Feedback]: This is a carry-over from previous Update 50 PTS summaries with an update. We’ve seen your feedback related to the appearance of NPCs you’ve encountered during the Thieves Guild content (and beyond.) With PTS Week 4, you will see Sage Voernet’s appearance updated. We have also seen the related request for broader NPC makeovers across the game. While our main focus right now remains on Season One content, we hear you and will keep this request and your suggestions in mind! (Related post.)
Quests – General [Bugs]: We are working on fixes for minor continuity and polish issues and some quest blockers across various quests in the Thieves Guild and Sheogorath content. Some of these fixes will be in PTS Week 5, and others will go in for Update 50 launch in June.
Racing to Nowhere Quest [Bug]: Going through the portal in Quen's room can teleport the you back to the start of her room or the nexus room. This will be fixed in PTS Week 5.

Veterancy

Accessing the Veterancy Menu [Bug]: Attempting to enter the Veterancy menu while mounted will dismount you but not open the menu. This will be fixed in PTS Week 4.

Werewolf Refresh

Grappling Hook & Werewolf Model [Bug]: This is a carry-over from last week’s PTS Summary. There is a bug where the Grappling Hook visual is missing when players interact with a grappling point while in Werewolf form. This will be fixed in PTS Week 4.
Jumping While in Werewolf Form [Feedback]: We have seen some feedback the jumping feels abrupt and doesn’t flow well out of running animations while in Werewolf form. We are making some overall adjustments to jumping in Werewolf form to address this feedback. These changes will be available in PTS Week 4.
Packleader – Dire Wolf Pets [Feedback]: We’ve seen some feedback regarding the Packleader morph’s dire wolf pets, and how they can stack and walk through each other. While this is not something we are able to change at this time, we wanted to give some context into why this happens. All pets/summons and collectible pets and mounts in ESO have no collision. This is an intentional design decision, so that player characters cannot be obstructed by pets/summons. Due to this, you will sometimes see the Packleader dire wolf pets walk through each other as they move around.
PvE vs PvP Balance [Adjustments]: In Week 3’s PTS we introduced many special vs monsters or vs players stipulations for things like ability values, durations, and so forth, aimed at helping ensure the Werewolf can keep up with the pack in PvE, without completely overpowering the meta in PvP. We have a few additional changes coming in PTS Week 4 to gently tone down the overall PvE power as well, as the fix to Feral Cruelty has shot the Werewolf a bit too far head in general, as well as some additional balance on the morphs of Gnash to ensure we have a healthier balance between damage and utility.
Slaughter Mechanic [Feedback]: We received feedback about how the Werewolf Slaughter mechanic does not work on various humanoid Daedra, and if this is intended. We investigated this and confirmed it is working as intended and aligned with how Blade of Woe works, where you can use it on Dremora and not Daedra.

Miscellaneous

Boreal Carriage Mammoth [Bug]: When on this mount, the player character’s eyes will roll back into their head. This was unsettling for the mammoth, so it will be fixed in PTS Week 4.

Dracane · May 1

Thank you again. We love to see this.
Though I feel like there is a disconnect between what the forums seem to discuss and what is being shown here. You certainly have many feedback channels. But when I look at the major topics discussed on the PTS section this week; none of them seem to be mentioned here.

Take for instance Templar's damage passive being reduced to 750 in pvp, but further reduced to ~300 damage per instance after battlespirit.
Sorcerer's Blood Magic heal scaling with max HP is broadly discussed as a potential problem.
Concerns that Nightblades in pvp can't possibly even reach the higher crit cap, and therefor the passive seems quite pointless.
And then of course the problem with Werewolf continuing to cause problems with certain class mastery talents. (Warden particularly, and of course DK and Sorc, due to the max HP scaling of Blood Magic)

Wuuffyy · May 1

Any chance that we could see minor resolve placed on the ~12% increase taken Hircine’s Rage for werewolf? This would be a way to integrate a very common buff sourced outside of werewolf’s current kit while making this morph more viable.

I would also like to know if maybe a restoration of duration for berserker could be on the table given that a one second dot has more semblance to direct damage than anything.

In addition, it seems that with the removal of the blood hunger damage increases (rip and tear), werewolf now essentially lacks less burst than current live. Any insight on this compared to subclassing or reworked DK that have access to 2-3 burst moves in their arsenal?

It could be helpful also to have werewolf heals scale off ‘wep and spell damage’ while ‘under Battle Spirit’ so we can consider providing love to other, underperforming parts of werewolf kit- even when compared to live. @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom |

Edit: added something and simply removed it

coop500 · May 1

WHY on earth is werewolf getting nerfed for PvE!? Just because it's finally strong in specific melee-friendly situations?! PvE BRUTALLY PUNISHES melee builds if you don't play extremely carefully, what the hell? It's finally good! It's finally going to be an acceptable choice alongside all the cracked meta builds that will be dishing out 180K-200K DPS.

You guys really don't want werewolf playable in high end content, do you? What's the friggen point of a rework then?

danko355 · May 1

Imagine being pure nightblade next patch, going against DKs, sub classes, solo builds that now have infinite stamina sustain (necro), infinite passive healing (sorc), while getting some mediocre laughable things like 5% crit (cause crit cap increase wouldn’t work due to enemy crit resistances) or passives with absurd conditions, like blocking PLUS casting NB ability PLUS it’s 1/3 seconds. Yeah, I already know the pure class that will never reach Cyrodiil next patch, literally any subclass/pure build is way ahead of that ludicrous abomination.

Erickson9610 · May 1

Yeah, I'm disappointed to see that Werewolf has continually been nerfed this whole PTS cycle.

KahunaKhan · May 1

Could we see some of the internal testing for a PvP usable Malevolent Promise?

The most obvious offensive power boost that Necromancer could gain from it is through tethering a player directly and the Corpseburster set but we, as players, have yet to actually see any practical application of it in PvP and have no reference point for how powerful that class mastery passive allegedly could be.

People are, currently on live, running around using elemental susceptibility as a spammable (and zero cost ability) utilizing the new shattered paths mythic. If the internal testing shows that Malevolent Promise can do even more than that, fine, but nobody in the player base has even had the chance to see it for comparison.

Thank you for addressing the matter directly though.

Wuuffyy · May 1

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

PvE vs PvP Balance [Adjustments]: In Week 3’s PTS we introduced many special vs monsters or vs players stipulations for things like ability values, durations, and so forth, aimed at helping ensure the Werewolf can keep up with the pack in PvE, without completely overpowering the meta in PvP. We have a few additional changes coming in PTS Week 4 to gently tone down the overall PvE power as well, as the fix to Feral Cruelty has shot the Werewolf a bit too far head in general, as well as some additional balance on the morphs of Gnash to ensure we have a healthier balance between damage and utility.

Hey, I know the advisement is that night market, etc. has used a lot of resources and combat notes are sparse, however-

-I thought the point of the werewolf was to bring it up to the same levels or similar as reworked classes and upcoming reworked classes (PvP) I take it?

This is reading like there is a potential, additional nerf to Rip and Tear (Gnash) to make Bloody Gnash more appealing; however, this is the ‘PvP morph’ as werewolf is currently without pen in-kit (and pen is needed to dent players with 25-30k resists). It also is a significant reduction in both damage as well as burst damage (it provides none now as it is only similar to surprise attack). Is there not any way we could have this restore to benefit from a damage increase on Blood Hunger so we could have 1 pseduo-burst move in PvP?

Unless I’m constantly attacking a target on a high-health build and/or abusing new mythics- in my testing I have found these changes are a net nerf in just about every way from live. This was meant to be a werewolf rework however I’m legitimately feeling worse about werewolf now than I do on live. If/when these fringe interaction are finally adjusted, the werewolf kit will once-again be worse than when it started and it seems like our feedback is not be considered for any changes to it at all outside of ‘nerf requests’.

huskandhunger · May 1

I think we should table the Werewolf Refresh until after all the Class Updates later this year and leave it as the Live werewolf. The nerfs are just too much at this point and you're hurting the player base and intended audience with these changes throughout the PTS cycle.

Let's go back to the drawing board, this is a massive flop from the developer team. 🙃

Wuuffyy · May 1

huskandhunger wrote: »

I think we should table the Werewolf Refresh until after all the Class Updates later this year and leave it as the Live werewolf. The nerfs are just too much at this point and you're hurting the player base and intended audience with these changes throughout the PTS cycle.

Let's go back to the drawing board, this is a massive flop from the developer team. 🙃

This would be best at this point actually. Sorry to waste y’all’s time but I don’t want this to be the finished product in PvP for the next 5 or more years when y’all have completely forgotten about this… and wolf hunter… and then try to buff/ “rework” it later but walk everything back again.

Maybe something will change in player mindset between now and the end of the rework cycle. Can we legitimately just bench the werewolf changes and push them to the end of the rework cycle? That way the ‘hard work’ stays the same but we don’t get something that is being egregiously exploited on one end and woefully underpowered compared to live on the other. Melee cleave is a joke for PvE and the more I think about it, the more I realize that werewolf is still vastly inferior to any other spec especially with claws (so PvE shouldn’t be a consideration at this point as we can make that a bit better later down the road too).

///

React has 3,000 subs only- half or more are probably inactive PvPers. Please don’t let content creators control you ZoS.

React · May 1

Glad to hear the team is continuing to monitor PVP balance on the PTS! It's been great seing all the changes based on feedback these past few PTS cycles. Hope we'll be seeing an adjustment to the conservation of energy passive's healing next week!

Looking forward to seeing next week's changes and continuing to provide feedback.

LunaFlora · May 1

it is sad to see Werewolf nerfed.

it is sadder to still not see any Housing feedback addressed in these PTS Summaries.
We really need more communication at all regarding Housing requests and feedback.

coop500 · May 1

Honestly man it's pretty friggen bad, especially once the classes get their reworks, we will be useless. Hell, we'll probably be useless quicker than that, but I'm trying not to give people room to argue and hair split.

I thought the point of the reworks was to bring new life and power to playstyles nobody plays. But I guess since werewolf offends the normal people too much across the board (PvP and PvE) then the devs deem it safe to leave werewolves as suck monsters because we werewolf community will still play it even if it does suck, and them sucking means people who don't play them won't get offended.

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Melee cleave is a joke for PvE and the more I think about it, the more I realize that werewolf is still vastly inferior to any other spec especially with claws (so PvE shouldn’t be a consideration at this point as we can make that a bit better later down the road too).

This is what I've been trying to say for awhile now but nobody really cares if werewolf is good in PvE. Melee in PvE is already punished to hell, melee cleave is even more of a joke, especially as weak as it is now, and about to be weaker apparently.

I'm sorry I finally pulled 140K DPS devs (with a mythic that will undoubtedly get nerfed), I understand having fun with Werewolf isn't allowed.

Zeeejay · May 1

Really hope something sneaks in on Monday to help keep heavy attack build power parity from u49 to u50.

I'm glad Static Reverberation is being buffed again, it was hit a tad too hard initially. Eager to see where my Solo and Dungeon pure Sorcerer lands next week.

Inari Telvanni · May 1

I'm a little sad to see that the feedback I've been pushing about werewolf emotes has gone seemingly ignored or unseen...

The potential of werewolves having emotes again after all these years had me very excited.

coop500 · May 1

Inari Telvanni wrote: »

I'm a little sad to see that the feedback I've been pushing about werewolf emotes has gone seemingly ignored or unseen...

The potential of werewolves having emotes again after all these years had me very excited.

Don't worry their only agenda is to nerf it into worthlessness and wash their hands of it.

Arunei · May 1

I need to test WW, but is it performing at the same level as Live DK right now? Because if not...how can you say it's overperforming in PvE after its rework but DK isn't? And this isn't a "NERF DK" comment at all, I'm just using one rework as a baseline for another. If it outperforms Live DK then sure, tweak it some. If it isn't...why are you nerfing something that's SUPPOSED to be getting made stronger?

Urvoth · May 1

The only clearly-apparent way Malevolent Promise would be busted in PvP is with the Corpseburster set. Otherwise, you’re just getting to use a dot skill or heal off an enemy. Why not just disable the passive with the use of Corpseburster then? I’m sure most players would prefer the passive at least be usable. If that’s not doable, why not add an additional effect, like a proc dot off your light attacks, so that part would still work in PvP?

Using the mastery passives as a temporary hold-over till full reworks makes sense with classes coming later this year like Warden and Sorcerer, but the Necro rework isn’t for 2 more years! It’s second to last and Necro has already been in a rough spot for half a decade. I really don’t think saying “wait for the rework” is an appropriate solution here considering it’s so far out.

Wuuffyy · May 1

Arunei wrote: »

I need to test WW, but is it performing at the same level as Live DK right now? Because if not...how can you say it's overperforming in PvE after its rework but DK isn't? And this isn't a "NERF DK" comment at all, I'm just using one rework as a baseline for another. If it outperforms Live DK then sure, tweak it some. If it isn't...why are you nerfing something that's SUPPOSED to be getting made stronger?

It’s not. I have tested duels not exploiting x, y, z (so I just subclassed, built health and damage, didn’t run armor pots because that’s hyper unrealistic in open world with losing even more damage building sustain elsewhere)… it feels around the same or worse than live but with less stam issues.

The burst heal is NOTABLY worse and if this releases you WILL FEEL IT when you aren’t attacking. I PROMISE.

I did a LIVE vs PTS tooltip comparison with EXACT SAME GEAR with proof (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/692088/live-vs-pts-werewolf-tooltip-comparison-majority-nerfs-for-pvp-proof-provided#latest) outside of healing while attacking… just about everything you can think of is a nerf from live with some things like Berserker bleed or Hircine’s Howl taking the absolute worst of it.

dark_hunterxmg · May 1

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom what does "...without completely overpowering the meta in PVP" mean to the team? Is the intention of the team to make sure that Werewolf cannot be competitive with the meta? Have we seen werewolf overpowering the meta across the board?

DrMedBorn · May 1

You still didn't adjust the companions at all. They can just tank everything for you on vestige and below which is super lame

CameraBeardThePirate · May 1

I fail to see how Malevolent Promise in PvP would be any more powerful than things we're currently seeing with DK, the Sorc Masteries, or Warden with the new mythic.

So we get to use Corpseburster on enemies? Okay, add an extra cooldown to Corpseburster while using that Mastery in PvP.

Without Corpseburster, Malevolent Promise wouldn't give Necro anything the other classes don't already have in spades. They'd get a decent DoT or HoT, and that's kind of it.

It really seems like the team is overestimating how good Malevolent Promise would be compared to other extremely powerful classes in PvP at the moment.

ItsNotLiving · May 1

Every patch Templar falls further and further behind in PvP. There is still no real delayed burst and its damage is bad. There is also too many skills that must be slotted so you are always missing something.

anadandy · May 1

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Yeah, I'm disappointed to see that Werewolf has continually been nerfed this whole PTS cycle.

Same. Like we didn't even get a full PTS week to be excited.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · May 1

Hey all, thank you for the feedback in this week's PTS Summary, and the follow-up questions about specific topics. We're checking back in with the respective dev teams who are working on the topics you've asked about above and will follow up on what we can next week.

coop500 · May 1

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, thank you for the feedback in this week's PTS Summary, and the follow-up questions about specific topics. We're checking back in with the respective dev teams who are working on the topics you've asked about above and will follow up on what we can next week.

Are any of these topics about werewolf at all, or just other things?

IncultaWolf · May 1

Inari Telvanni wrote: »

I'm a little sad to see that the feedback I've been pushing about werewolf emotes has gone seemingly ignored or unseen...

The potential of werewolves having emotes again after all these years had me very excited.

Yeah I would have appreciated a reason for why they can't enable them at least instead of silence

Wuuffyy · May 1

coop500 wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, thank you for the feedback in this week's PTS Summary, and the follow-up questions about specific topics. We're checking back in with the respective dev teams who are working on the topics you've asked about above and will follow up on what we can next week.

Are any of these topics about werewolf at all, or just other things?

Come on @coop500- I’m only seeing 1 answer to that unless I’m egregiously wrong and they’re doing a 180 on everything they’ve done feedback-wise up until this point (of the game for werewolf) and neither of us appreciates that.

This is easy to write off as ‘the players want too much’ or ‘you can’t please them all’… but if you really think about it- this is the result after a decade (animations are good… balance hmmmmmm)… Anyone that has been looking forward to these changes and has been following these notes and the clear and obfuscated data along with general sentiment would rightfully be disappointed in this result.

Zeeejay · May 1

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, thank you for the feedback in this week's PTS Summary, and the follow-up questions about specific topics. We're checking back in with the respective dev teams who are working on the topics you've asked about above and will follow up on what we can next week.

Thank you Jessica! The communication is much appreciated.

coop500 · May 1

Wuuffyy wrote: »

coop500 wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, thank you for the feedback in this week's PTS Summary, and the follow-up questions about specific topics. We're checking back in with the respective dev teams who are working on the topics you've asked about above and will follow up on what we can next week.

Are any of these topics about werewolf at all, or just other things?

Come on @coop500- I’m only seeing 1 answer to that unless I’m egregiously wrong and they’re doing a 180 on everything they’ve done feedback-wise up until this point (of the game for werewolf) and neither of us appreciates that.

This is easy to write off as ‘the players want too much’ or ‘you can’t please them all’… but if you really thinking about it- this is the result after a decade (animations are good… balance hmmmmmm)… Anyone that has been looking forward to these changes and has been following these notes and the clear and obfuscated data along with general sentiment would rightfully be disappointed in this result.

I have to ask, Jessica has responded to me before on simple questions like that. But don't get me wrong, I'm depressed as hell, I knew this would happen and people didn't believe me. Even now people are pushing for more nerfs, and the devs have no reason to care

Dracane · May 1

coop500 wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

coop500 wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all, thank you for the feedback in this week's PTS Summary, and the follow-up questions about specific topics. We're checking back in with the respective dev teams who are working on the topics you've asked about above and will follow up on what we can next week.

Are any of these topics about werewolf at all, or just other things?

Come on @coop500- I’m only seeing 1 answer to that unless I’m egregiously wrong and they’re doing a 180 on everything they’ve done feedback-wise up until this point (of the game for werewolf) and neither of us appreciates that.

This is easy to write off as ‘the players want too much’ or ‘you can’t please them all’… but if you really thinking about it- this is the result after a decade (animations are good… balance hmmmmmm)… Anyone that has been looking forward to these changes and has been following these notes and the clear and obfuscated data along with general sentiment would rightfully be disappointed in this result.

I have to ask, Jessica has responded to me before on simple questions like that. But don't get me wrong, I'm depressed as hell, I knew this would happen and people didn't believe me. Even now people are pushing for more nerfs, and the devs have no reason to care

They wouldn't go through all this effort to remake all the effects and animations and listening to feedback (often negative) over and over to fine tune the appearance of Werewolf. Clearly they care to deliver a satisfying experience. Saying over and over they don't care does a great disservice.

How I understand it is that they overbuffed it last week, and now will dial it back a bit again. Meaning it should still be better than the week before that. If not, we can still crash out.