PTS Patch Notes v1.2.1

Kraven · June 2014

Okay, changed my mind. Since everyone is on the subject of balance. It's not the class skills it's the builds that need balanced. Blocking, dodging, interrupting, sprinting and sneaking all take from stamina pool so if you're stamina built you start off at more things pulling from your resource pool. Add to that the abundant ways to reduce magicka costs, it's a combo making magicka much, much more sustainable during a fight.

Let DK and NB class skills cost stamina, 2 sta based classes and 2 magicka, can still roll the over abundant DK mage it just won't be as overly simplistic. Add a fourth resource pool specifically for the other actions like blocking and dodging. Full out magicka & crit build Impulse should be on par with a full stamina crit build using whirlwind.

Atarax · June 2014

The easiest way for them to "fix" class balancing would be to allow all characters to eventually learn all class abilities. I think a lot of people suggested this in beta (including myself) and I still don't know why they decided to keep class abilities locked.

If everything was available to everyone, once people figured out their cries for nerfs were only hurting themselves, they would stop (don't believe me? take a look at The Secret World, anyone can learn any ability, and the cries for nerfs were almost non-existent when I left).

As it stands now:
Sorc=20% ulti cost reduction (which is game breaking if others don't have it), pets, and magicka regen
NB=invisibility (which thieves guild and / or assassins guild are likely to get) 20% stamina regen and health, magicka, stamina regen (with damage debuff to self)
Templar= self-healing regardless of weapon and.... that's about all I can think of
DK=damage mitigation, 30% of damage taken self-healing, etc.

I play nightblade currently, but there's no real way to balance all of this. Not and try to balance stamina and magicka builds, and hybrids, etc. etc. as others have pointed out. There are some things, like ultimate cost reduction, that simply should be available to all classes, or not there for anyone, ooooor, even better, available to anyone with the skill points.

They should just let everyone learn all class abilities, maybe open up a new class after you complete each faction or something, but regardless, having some abilities locked behind a gate like this, just gives people too much ammunition to complain, forces devs to spend time reading and balancing instead of creating new content and fixing bugs, and it really doesn't need to be this way.

Great, have classes there to give you a starting point, but after that, everything should open to everyone so we can all get back to gaming and spend less time whining that "X class ability is kicking my ass so therefore nerf it."

And yes, I just switched to light armor+magicka build in VR4, and I am having a much easier time of things now than as a stamina build. I think medium and heavy builds need a boost, and class abilities available for all, then people can stop whining.

LariahHunding · June 2014

Atarax wrote: »

The easiest way for them to "fix" class balancing would be to allow all characters to eventually learn all class abilities. I think a lot of people suggested this in beta (including myself) and I still don't know why they decided to keep class abilities locked.

I really like this. More like Skyrim. One could really play the way one wanted, with unique characters.

GazettE · June 2014

Can anyone or Zenimax Staff confirms the DK changes in this patch notes is actually applied in live server already (patch 1.1.3)? Or this changes is another Nerf for DK's standard of might?

Kraven · June 2014

Atarax wrote: »

The easiest way for them to "fix" class balancing would be to allow all characters to eventually learn all class abilities.

This actually promotes meta builds. Want to tank? You need the best tank abilities from each class. Want to heal? You HAVE to have these certain abilities from each class. Want to DPS? You're not going to touch good dps unless you use these specific abilities from each class.

As it stands each class approaches each role in a unique manner. With the exception of the current LA + DS, but even that varies by class a bit. I tank as a NB a friend tanks as a Sorc and another as a DK, we each approach the role differently. Make every class skill available to everyone and I'm forced to run with Bound armor or lightening form, otherwise I've gimped my armor/spell resist the other 2 are forced to run with siphoning strikes other wise their resources are gimped. New tank build with your system Spike armor + Bound armor + strife (increases healing received)+ Siphoning strikes + 1 taunt + wtf ever Ulti you want. Let's throw blazing shield, rune focus, bone shield, talons and blinding flashes on the secondary bar because why not.

This was a terrible idea back in beta and PTS, and it still is.

Sakiri · June 2014

Letting everyone choose any class skills they want won't fix a damned thing when everyone still will gravitate towards staff and dress.

Gutting VR mob HP and/or upping stamina weapon damage would probably fix a lot of this.

Rodario · June 2014

Meggedo wrote: »

I haven't posted much on any of the forums at all. Number one they are kind of a cluster as far as layout, which I guess a new design is coming, and I wanted to wait until I got into the game a little more. I have been playing MMO's since Ultima Online (Which I played for almost 10 years, because of gameplay and content), one of the first real MMO's made. I have Beta tested more crap than I can remember, and have probably forgotten more than I have tested as of late. When I Beta tested this game I was pretty excited, because this was the first game I had seen with a good crafting system and material distribution control. Me I have always been the crafter freak in every MMO I have done. I generally play DPS or Tanks, and I run around everywhere looking at things instead of focusing on power leveling. I figure someone worked hard to create the world, I should be respectful enough to explore it. Plus being in the computer industry, I know how much work it takes to code this stuff. That being said, I find a number of things that could use some improvement, and I am sure they have already been spoken of. My sons read more of this stuff then I do, because of the above reasons. The crafting system I love and feel it is reasonably balanced compared to other MMOs, and my two boys drove me crazy about how great it was going to be. It does not have the deficiencies' that many of the others have.
The few things that really get under my skin is the monetary system, the game play for the non-power lever, and the storage to mat requirement ratio.
The monetary system of the game is very unbalanced based on the amount of gold you get for killing things, to the cost of the repairs for armor damage. I suppose I could just run around farming all day for the cash, but that is not what I want to do. One of my sons, who is a power lever type, has made bank doing this. This really doesn't promote the idea of guilds supporting crafting players, as you sell all your mats instead of distributing them to the crafters. Crafters tend to be slower at leveling, and leveling almost seems out of reach at times for me. I am at lvl 24 right now, and I don't think I have missed to many quests up to Grahtwood; as I walk from one side to the other talking to every frigin NPC I come across. I chose a Dragonknight to play, which at this point seems to have been a mistake, as the damage they do, cannot seemed to be balanced well for crafting and battling. I have already tried respecting about 4 times, with some gold help. The idea of getting 1-2 GP per kill is a little silly, and from my understanding it doesn't scale up at all. I end up looking for chests more then killing things to support my needs. I have done all of the extra little things around the world as much as possible. If your making 1-2 gp per kill, and you die a couple of times, how do you pay a repair cost of 300 gp. You just don't go anywhere and kill things, because the risk vs the reward is poor.
The amount of Mats is astounding, and very impressive to say the least. The problem of what to do with all of it, I don't know. Again back to the monetary design, the cost of getting more slots is not balanced to the amounts you are earning killing things. I would rather do a micro transaction like I did in SWTOR than try to make 3000 gp to get only 10 more slots, and that number just grows exponentially. Researching requires items as well, which also take up space. Trying to hold on to these items to research, while one branch can takes days upon days is almost impossible. I don't know if this was a problem with sever storage space concerns, but with P2P games this should be less of a concern than a F2P game.
While I like the guild set up also, the idea of having no other way to publicly selling your wares other than spamming all day is ridiculous. Why is there no Auction House system, again is this a storage server issue? In WOW you wasted all your time running everywhere, and in this game you spend all your time spamming what you have to sell. This kind of makes the whole travel system, which is awesome, seem somewhat useless if I am spamming more than traveling. This set up also makes the crafting a lot less attractive to me anyway.
The graphics area amazing, and I can run it on Ultra like it was butter, but he user interface is lacking a lot. Doing privacy and security, I don't want to have to rely on some third party program to get what I need out of a game that should already be in the set up. I think SWTOR has the most impressive customizable UI, and taking some ideas from them would probably be a good idea. I have a strike 7 key board with a sick amount of programmable keys, but it is mostly useless to this game, as most gamer keyboards would be if you rely on the in game UI. Either make more abilities Passive, or increase the number of slots from 5 switchable ones, which is an oddball number.
I think ESO overall is an awesome game, and the general concepts and designs are good, but I am finding something's getting more annoying every day. I am hoping some of this stuff is evaluated and corrected soon, or I would rather just drop the game overall. I was hoping for a game to play for another million years, but currently I don't see that happening at all. It will definitely be time to drop it if you come out with a Kung Fu Panda knock off expansion. Just a few thoughts, sorry it was so long of a post.

Holy wall of text, Batman!

Atarax · June 2014

Kraven wrote: »

This actually promotes meta builds. Want to tank? You need the best tank abilities from each class. Want to heal? You HAVE to have these certain abilities from each class. Want to DPS? You're not going to touch good dps unless you use these specific abilities from each class.

[snip] Edit for stuff [/snip]

This was a terrible idea back in beta and PTS, and it still is.

I disagree entirely. And this is NOT the way it has played out in The Secret World at all. You see chaos tanks, blade tanks, hammer tanks, heal tanks, etc. etc. All of them are viable, and a great variety of builds in between.

Plus, people create different builds to handle different content. If anything, in practice, it's allowed people to be even more unique and creative. So... the evidence goes against your argument.

The fact is, when every player can get every ability (and keep in mind you will eventually have all of them), it allows you to experiment freely and come up with something unique that they like. True, some will come up with what they deem is the "best" build, or the "best" for a given situation, but often-times, there's another way to approach it that works just as well.

That's how giving people more options works.... it sort of... gives them more options... by... like... default.

Down with class warfare I say!

vyal · June 2014

Kraven wrote: »

... -At first I thought this was just a group mate saying "I can't see it!" because he was not paying attn and just missed it, however each time we entered it was someone different all being unable to see telegraphs. At one point the adds didn't load for our healer at all. None of these issues exist on Live for these same people or I'd say it was probably hardware.Seems more like the red indicators are under ground out of sight.

Which is why the color, height / location, visibility / transparency, and overall size / impact of telegraphs/indicators should be configurable. If not, they should permit the 'helper indication' to fire multiple times per combat per type (which they DO NOT now). All in all, yet another half-assed implemention of a fundamentally flawed system.

Want to miss it? Put two ground effects down. It's bad enough now trying to see red on top of red/orange/yellow/brown/white/black.

The worst part is that some of the telegraphs are pointless. Clannfear tailswipe is a good example. The temporal delta between indicate and fire is less than client-server latency + average human reaction time (350ms total). Annoying on open world content, deadly in dungeons.

Fourteen years ago, the lack of combat-UI customization was forgivable. Now? It's embarrassing.

And let's not get started on the L2P roll dodge, when 1/3 of all gear is based on stamina builds. After you break CC, and roll dodge, and block, your stamina is now zero and you're officially out of options. L2P? Riiiiiiiight. How about terribly broken mechanics?
How about make the break-CC take 10% of Stamina, and roll dodge, similarly, take 10% stamina, so that we can actually use stamina for weapon abilities instead of the ridiculous way the game is being played now (mmm dresses and sticks ftw! )

Mortosk · June 2014

When are you going to buff Templars? Patch 1.4? 1.5? 7.8?

Thejollygreenone · June 2014

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Dragonknight
Ardent Flame
Standard of Might (Morph from Dragonknight Standard): Reduced the amount of damage done and damage taken.

Earthen Heart
Magma Armor: Decreased the duration of this ability.

Nightblade
Siphoning
Catalyst: Increased the potion effectiveness for this ability.

Weren't these the changes that were already put in the live game during patch 1.1.3? Why are they listed under PTS 1.2.1?

I see no difference between Catalyst on live and on the PTS.

There is a difference between between live and pts for magma armor, on live the duration is correctly reduced to 7.5 seconds at rank 1 down from the previous 9 seconds. Now the duration is back up to 9 seconds at rank 1 but it doesn't scale up to 12 seconds as it did before 1.1.3. Standard of Might has the same value on live as on the PTS as far as I know.

Am I being screwed with here? Is this a major typo that no one is mentioning. Or is this whole thread just misleading me to believe these are the current PTS patch notes? Or am I just misunderstanding the changes. Someone dispell my confusion please! >_<

Ysne58 · June 2014

Sir Puppington von Hat and I just went through the normal Crypt of Hearts quest with our vr12 template characters.

Two big issues:
1. Several of the mobs did not move or fight back, including the last two bosses which are hard ones. It made that fight a cake walk.
2. Our ultimates kept refilling. We were VR10 fighting level 27 to 30 mobs. I'm pretty sure this is not intended.

We did file bug reports, but these issues are important enough that I felt the need to report here as well.

SirPuppingtonVonHat · June 2014

Many, many bug reports. Depending on the scope of the bug, it could be a big one. If anyone else has encountered this bug or know what causes it, I'd like to hear. Its never good to have around 50% of a dungeon act as target dummies, even if they would go down like chumps regardless.

driosketch · June 2014

Atarax wrote: »

The easiest way for them to "fix" class balancing would be to allow all characters to eventually learn all class abilities. I think a lot of people suggested this in beta (including myself) and I still don't know why they decided to keep class abilities locked.

That's not an easy fix, not an easy fix at all. They still have balance universal skill lines like weapons and vampire. All unlocking class skills would do is give them 12 individual skill lines to balance rather than four classes with an internal balance on the skills. The point is, whether you like the idea or not, it would complicate things not make it easier.

demonlkojipub19_ESO · June 2014

Didn't they already do those two DK nerfs? Are they going to further nerf those 2?

strongoakb14a_ESO · June 2014

deathpandax_ESO wrote: »

Orchish wrote: »

I cannot understand why Magma Armour got nerfed. A defensive ultimate that is quite easily avoided by simply kitiing around for a few seconds. It's probably the easiest ultimate to make an enemy DK waste. Yet it still got a nerf?

Completely agree. What the hell is ZoS thinking on this one.

I heard they did this to stop DKs from soloing bosses in dungeons, any DK who counts on magma armor to solo bosses in dungeons is a bad DK, so if what I heard is true their point is moot.

Cogo · June 2014

strongoakb14a_ESO wrote: »

deathpandax_ESO wrote: »

Orchish wrote: »

I cannot understand why Magma Armour got nerfed. A defensive ultimate that is quite easily avoided by simply kitiing around for a few seconds. It's probably the easiest ultimate to make an enemy DK waste. Yet it still got a nerf?

Completely agree. What the hell is ZoS thinking on this one.

I heard they did this to stop DKs from soloing bosses in dungeons, any DK who counts on magma armor to solo bosses in dungeons is a bad DK, so if what I heard is true their point is moot.

I am a DK heavy tank. And when I around level 30 or so (quite a while ago), decided to go for the Magma armor, I had another ultimate....which was not as useful as I though.

I noticed that Magma armor was almost always availible. STUPID! And remember, I am a tank, so this effects me greatly. Both at solo and grouping. Though I do most my playing in groups.

I started a thread about it. Think a week or two after they changes the Magma Armor so it didnt pop every 2 mins. Now it works pretty well.

I am not saying they changed it cause I suggested it :-p. BUT the ability was simply wrong, even if its good for me. I want a balanced game.

I think more people should start looking at the bigger view when skills gets changed. There are a reason for it. And there are a good reason for taking time before they tweak skills, since you have to take ALL skills in consideration.

Magma armor was NOT nerfed. It was fixed, and now is an ultimate, that you use when you really need to, and have it ready. Unless you do not understand what Ultimate abilities are, they are for RARE use, in special situations. When, is up to the player. It is NOT a skill you are gonna be able to use every 2 mins.....

Inco · June 2014

Well.. nothing for Templar's. Gee let me put my 'Shocked' looking face on.

Guess I'll go farm some more resource nodes. Already got 10k achievement walking around Craglorn bored to death and just doing crafting stuff.

Atarax · June 2014

driosketch wrote: »

That's not an easy fix, not an easy fix at all. They still have balance universal skill lines like weapons and vampire. All unlocking class skills would do is give them 12 individual skill lines to balance rather than four classes with an internal balance on the skills. The point is, whether you like the idea or not, it would complicate things not make it easier.

Disagree again. Whether they have class abilities locked or unlocked has no additional impact, one way or the other, on if they have to balance the universal skill lines, those are already available to everyone.

The difference with class skills is, they're not. I can't, as a nightblade, get DK standard for example. Which, unless things are perfectly balanced, will give one character an advantage over another.

It's impossible to perfectly balance all of these abilities. Right now Sorc and DK remain the most powerful classes despite recent changes. The only way to balance while keeping classes would be to do what SWTOR did and have equivalent abilities with different names but essentially the same functionality (i.e. 1 stun, 1 interrupt, 1 aoe, 1 quick resource builder, etc. per class).

What making them all available to everyone does, is allow people the ability to pick up a skill if it proves to be powerful so they can quickly balance themselves, rather than waiting for a fix. The Devs then have more relevant and useful data as, if everyone is slotting a given skill, it may need to be brought in line a bit, likewise, if no one is using a skill, it may need to be bumped up or abandoned.

True, they can gather this data to some extent even with class segregation. However, players have no way under the current situation to address imbalances other than to complain and wait.

Whereas if all abilities were open to everyone, they can at least get the ability in question to balance themselves until things get tweaked.

That said, and again I point to the Secret World as one of the few MMOs to go without classes and let everyone get every ability, it's proven to be healthy to the game to allow everyone to use everything.

Some of those benefits are:
-It improves the quality and quantity of the data devs use for balance (rather than limiting your data sources to 25% of the population, 100% have access)
-The community quickly identifies desirable and undesirable abilities, so the devs are able to identify and tweak what's not working
-It gives players more options to be creative, "play as they want," and come up with a truly unique build that does what they want it to
-It allows players the option of picking up an ability if someone is dominating the field with it; thereby giving them a way to address imbalances while devs work on solution
-It reduces the amount of whining on forums

After having played (and yes I have put waaaay too much of my life into video games) EQ, AC, AC2, DAOC, Vanguard, EQ2, WOW, Shadowbane, Horizons, Warhammer, Rift, FFXI, FFXIV, SWG, SWTOR, The Secret World, and.... others I'm sure I'm forgetting... I think I can say I speak from experience when I say that totally open character systems (which are a hallmark of the Elder Scrolls series no less!) lead to the most healthy character development systems. That's obviously my opinion based on my experience, and people can disagree, but I'd suggest you play a game that allows you to do this, to the point that you acquire all of the abilities and know how to create a viable build, before you opine otherwise.

You're really only shooting yourself in the foot. Trust me.

Tavore1138 · June 2014

Shame about the crit one, appreciate what it was aimed at but punishes NBs quite hard as crits were one way we could charge our more expensive ultimates quickly enough survive, pushes us further towards siphons for ultimate charging and away from trying to achieve critical hits.