Area-of-Effect Abilities - Maximum Target Cap Clarification

ZOS_JessicaFolsom

One of the 1.1 patch notes described some AoE (area-of-effect) abilities having their maximum number of targets reduced. This led to some consternation among the community – our apologies for the confusion; we should have been more explicit in the patch notes. Here’s the information:

All AoE effect abilities in ESO have a max target limit of six, and always have. The exceptions to this are Alliance War-specific abilities, and several others, which are specifically noted (in tooltips) as having a higher or lower limit. So, if an AoE’s ability tooltip does not list it as having a special number (greater than or less than 6) of targets, it was designed to affect 6 targets, maximum.

Abilities that apply a buff to an ally (health regeneration) have a max target limit on cast, but can be applied to an infinite number of targets. For example, Regeneration has a max target limit of two, but it will always first try to hit allies that don't already have the buff. Two successive casts of Regeneration allow quick buffing of a four-person group. Please be aware that this is not the case for AoE debuffs, which apply to the nearest enemy targets or the center of the spell for ground-target AoE abilities.

Alliance War abilities generally hit a larger number of targets. We’ve designed them this way to better support their intended use in large-scale PvP. Each Alliance War ability’s max target cap, if they have one, is per ability (the morphs are the same as the base spells.) Siege Weapons have no max target – they will affect anyone who is in their target radius.

• Assault
  • Caltrops: Max target limit of 12
  • Rapid Maneuvers: No max target limit
  • War Horn: Max target limit of 24

• Support
  • Barrier: Max target limit of 20
  • Purge: No max target limit
  • Siege Shield: Max target limit of 20

Changes/Pending Changes
With that explanation, here are the changes that are being made in version 1.1 (subject to testing).

• The following abilities had a higher max limit than six, and have been fixed to be in-line with all other area-of-effect abilities:
  • Consuming Darkness (Nightblade)
  • Dragonknight Standard (Dragonknight)
  • Negate Magic (Sorcerer)
  • Scalding Rune (Fire Rune Morph - Mages Guild)
  • Soul Shatter (Soul Magic)

Also, we are currently investigating Dark Talons, Blood Altar, and Rite of Passage, which may not be obeying the max target limit.

Xsorus

I'll pose a question for you, and the ZoS developer team.

Why do you have AoE caps in place at all?

Zargorius

Well, looks like the era of siege weapons everywhere is about to start. Thanks for the info, this should have been made clear before the launch though.

Xsorus

Zargorius wrote: »

Well, looks like the era of siege weapons everywhere is about to start. Thanks for the info, this should have been made clear before the launch though.

Of course it should of been made more clear before launch they intended an aoe cap.

But then they wouldn't of gotten a lot of money from people who bought their gaming believing there were no AoE caps in place.

Samiri

WHo the h... buys a game singly because they believes they can spam 2 ability in PvP??

Im sorry, but If thats the reason why you bought the game, well I feel really sorry for you.

Koloki

xsorusb14_ESO wrote: »

Zargorius wrote: »

Well, looks like the era of siege weapons everywhere is about to start. Thanks for the info, this should have been made clear before the launch though.

Of course it should of been made more clear before launch they intended an aoe cap.

But then they wouldn't of gotten a lot of money from people who bought their gaming believing there were no AoE caps in place.

So there are people who bought the game for the sole reason that it had no AoE caps? That is the game maker/breaker mechanic?

ZOS purposefully hide that information because this was their big sales bringer?

Try not to be so over dramatic.

Sirlex

Elder Siege Online has began. Why can we not fight with our characters instead of siege?
<Head of PvP of Which I Can Not Name> - you should be ashamed. Everyone hated GW2 WvWvW because, in large part, of this same design decision.
- With this information in the mainstream now, goodbye AvA, hello ZvZ (Zerg vs Zerg).

Why run around with 6 people when you can take 200? Not like an AoE can hit any more of you!

There is no reason to limit AoE effects. Period. Done.

RamzaBehoulve

That doesn't change anything Zenimax. We would like to see the limit removed from all AoE, not fix the ones which did not have a cap.

If you want us to use siege more, then increase area and damage, then we have to choose between character mobility and massive, but fixed siege destruction.

thelg

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom you guys do realize that this will lead to Guild Wars 2 style Stacking?

Massive zergs moving in tight groups to dilute AOE..

Morkulth

"We want to encourage small group PvP and PvE content" -Every developer interview before January.
"We want more box sales on PC and Consoles." -Every fix since January.
"We want to copy GW2 PvP because the game is so good and the PvP is so livid" -Implied with AoE caps.

Seriously ESO has been getting more simplistic and hive mentality since September.

Milky

Well, it appears I wasted my time and money. I guess I'll go back to blobbing in GW2 since it's free..... Really sad that we were deceived in this way. I don't think I'll be renewing my subscription, which pains me horribly as a big TES fan and PvP player, as it has so much potential.

For those that do not understand why having a AoE cap is REALLY bad, and why people would buy a game or quit a game based on AoE capping, feel free to visit this other forum post: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1

There are so many more dynamic and creative solutions to balancing skills than blanket nerfing every skill in the game to a target cap. There were already AoE skills that sucked, now with a cap there is no reason to even unlock them. How about a dimishing return on spamming a skill? How about countering talons by making dodge grant immobilize immunity? How about AoE doing more/less damage based on proximity? How about refining specific skills that are very strong to have their own specific, balanced cap? How about capping the amount of a resource returned from a skill like inhale, but it can still damage infinite targets?

PS There are many skills not listed in the original post with no caps, and rapid maneuver isn't uncapped as stated here. Please get your facts right ZO.

And don't dare use the excuse of AoE cap being required for performance as GW2 did, because it hasn't been an issue at all in ESO.

Marovec

If you are relying on a removal of AoE cap to pvp...wow...

Way to try and work skill and coordination into the game. Nah, lets just run in and spam AoE....much better...

Freaking PvP whiners...never happy...

prana33b14_ESO

I really feel like there was a big bait and switch that went on here. Though the devs never directly stated whether or not there were aoe caps it was directly asked to them several times in interviews pre-launch and all the mealy mouth responses led us to believe they wanted it as much like DAOC as possible ergo unlimited aoe, or at least enough to discourage GW2 style zerg balling. This was a HUGE issue for many people that played GW2 and were watching the game. I definitely would have taken a wait and see approach instead of pre-ordering had I known, and Zenimax knows this.

Anyway, Jessica, can you give us a statement on how TESO plans on ensuring that this stale game play doesn't infect TESO like it did in GW2 or are we supposed to just keep trusting you?

prana33b14_ESO

Marovec wrote: »

If you are relying on a removal of AoE cap to pvp...wow...

Way to try and work skill and coordination into the game. Nah, lets just run in and spam AoE....much better...

Freaking PvP whiners...never happy...

This doesn't promote skill and coordination, other than that the group that gets the most people to stack into a ball will win and rarely lose. It becomes solely a numbers game. Sorry we want a game better than that.

valkaneer2b14_ESO

Well I guess PvP in this game is going to become the same as every other Zerg .. but here you have a sub to pay.

Xsorus

Samiri wrote: »

WHo the h... buys a game singly because they believes they can spam 2 ability in PvP??

Im sorry, but If thats the reason why you bought the game, well I feel really sorry for you.

i bought the game believing it was copying Dark age of camelot, a game that doesn't have AoE caps, and allows a single group to Wipe a zerg which allows smaller population realms to compete.

instead its copying Guild Wars 2, a game that entirely decided based on who has more people...

Sharee

RamzaBehoulve wrote: »

That doesn't change anything Zenimax. We would like to see the limit removed from all AoE, not fix the ones which did not have a cap.

I have to agree.

The consternation among players does not come from the fact that you are introducing AOE caps to a handful of abilities that did not already have them, the consternation comes from learning that there are caps in the firstplace.

The caps cause huge blobs of players to be able to ignore capped AOE abilities, as in a group of 100 players, there is a 94% chance the ability won't affect you anyway, so why bother trying to avoid it.

It is good to know that siege AOE does not have this cap. But as long as there isn't some technical limitation, i would like to see all AOE to behave this way, including player abilities.

Lava_Croft

Thanks for the informative post and thanks for bringing the last few remaining AoE abilities in line with the rest.

To the very small but very vocal minority acting like they speak on behalf of the ESO community: Please don't.

Xsorus

Marovec wrote: »

If you are relying on a removal of AoE cap to pvp...wow...

Way to try and work skill and coordination into the game. Nah, lets just run in and spam AoE....much better...

Freaking PvP whiners...never happy...

I keep seeing this skill and coordination argument by some of the yes to aoe caps people

please tell me what skill and coordination you're going to use with say.. 8 people to wipe out a zerg the size of say, 40 people

By all means, explain how you would accomplish this task without AoE

prana33b14_ESO

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Thanks for the informative post and thanks for bringing the last few remaining AoE abilities in line with the rest.

To the very small but very vocal minority acting like they speak on behalf of the ESO community: Please don't.

I suggest you see the poll in the AvA forum section. Over 90% say no caps. Minority lolz.

Lava_Croft

prana33b14_ESO wrote: »

I suggest you see the poll in the AvA forum section. Over 90% say no caps. Minority lolz.

You might want the check the total number of votes for that poll. That's a very, very small minority, since most people probably just don't care about it. And let's be honest, nobody cared about it or noticed it in the first place until they were informed of it by ZOS.

prana33b14_ESO

LOL. statistics and polling how do they work. Anyway, I'm not going to bicker with your statements about the minority being concerned. Go read the GW2 forums at about the time it started dying. This was the main reason for it. So, again, we are trying to better this game.

Yshaar

Is Siege capped in Gw2?

And to all that want no cap: Didn't we all play quite nicely in PVP without huge zergs, mainly because of the wider terrain and some other features.

You really think this changes now that all of a sudden all know that you only hit 6 with your nova?

Didn't small groups work quite fine?

So lets all put down our pitchforks and torches. No one seemed to notice or care before and they were already in place, so why would you notice now?

Lava_Croft

prana33b14_ESO wrote: »

LOL. statistics and polling how do they work. Anyway, I'm not going to bicker with your statements about the minority being concerned. Go read the GW2 forums at about the time it started dying. This was the main reason for it. So, again, we are trying to better this game.

'We' being the very small minority of people causing a whole lot of noise about something they never noticed. It's just sad.

prana33b14_ESO

No, what is sad is you trolling this thread without any actual responses on how GW2 style zerg balls won't become an issue. People concerned about this were concerned about it before launch. You are right I didn't notice the caps. I'm level 17 and haven't gotten to pvp at all yet because I'm so busy. What a gotcha.

Sharee

You might want the check the total number of votes for that poll.

Over 3000. Real-life election polls where i live usually go with 1000-1200 to get a 95% accuracy(in a country with about 5 million voters).

So while it's a minority compared to the total game population, the results are certainly statistically significant.

Lava_Croft

prana33b14_ESO wrote: »

No, what is sad is you trolling this thread without any actual responses on how GW2 style zerg balls won't become an issue. People concerned about this were concerned about it before launch. You are right I didn't notice the caps. I'm level 17 and haven't gotten to pvp at all yet because I'm so busy. What a gotcha.

Yes, because not agreeing with the small, vocal minority is trolling. What is this, Reddit?

prana33b14_ESO

So state your argument why you disagree then instead of trolling.

prana33b14_ESO

Sharee wrote: »

You might want the check the total number of votes for that poll.

Over 3000. Real-life election polls where i live usually go with 1000-1200 to get a 95% accuracy(in a country with about 5 million voters).

So while it's a minority compared to the total game population, the results are certainly statistically significant.

math is tough

Mephane

I want my skill points from Arrow Barrage refunded. I selected the morph under the direct assumption that there is no target cap and thus a larger AoE radius automatically leads to more targets hit. If I can only hit 6 targets anyway, I'd rather take the increased fire damage.

Seriously, Zenimax. The least, the absolute very least you could do to restore some of the goodwill that you lost with this debacle, is to reimburse every single skill point spent on any ability and morph that is AoE and therefore subject to a cap no one was ever told of before.

Yshaar wrote: »

Is Siege capped in Gw2?

And to all that want no cap: Didn't we all play quite nicely in PVP without huge zergs, mainly because of the wider terrain and some other features.

Yeah we did, because everyone assumed AoE was uncapped and therefore, globbing up was a bad tactic. Now that we know otherwise, we can expect more and more zergballs rolling across the hills of Cyrodiil.

Arahmis1970

Hi ESO team,

My name is Arahmis and I have been with ESO since the BETA my invitation. I have four ideas that I would like see and share with your Developing team.
The guild store is an okay idea, but not all players join a guilds and some of us players like to solo and would like to have ways to sell our goods in a more effect way, so I am proposing and idea where your developing team can implement way for players like us to either earn the right thru a quest or simply buy with game currency a store to display our goods for "everyone" not just guild members. For example in Skyrim player are allowed to purchase their own homes, but since this is online the potential for a player to exhibit their good and reap rewards are far more better than a guilds. This would also eliminate real money trading online and spamming of in game currency trade for real cash.
Secondly, the horses as mounts are a neat idea, how about adding emotes for them? Like a horse gallop walk dancing while a player is mounted? Third, the job classes are good, but as a soloist a beast master with one or two pets would rule as a solo player and I am not talking about a mage able to summon weak pets that require magic, not everything should be magic you know! Finally the dungeons, ESO ideas are okay, but when a player like myself waits 1 to 2 hours just to join a party and need to wait again because a player drops and their are no healers or tanks sucks! Major reason for this is players do not reap enough rewards like XP's and worth while waiting for goods. Any chance of improvement to dungeons soon?