[Discussion] Skill Depth in TESO

fingerfight · January 2015

The more I play this MMO the more I feel the skill system doesn't have any depth. I am not here to start an argument, just here to present my thoughts and hopefully you will present them too and in what way the skill system in TESO can improve.

Usually in MMO's you can improve your skills the more you play. I don't know how are others, but I barely wait to get enough skillpoints/skill xp to get that one skill or to get the next lvl of a skill. But what happens after you level up that one skill?
I don't think TESO is missing the sheer number of skills. What is missing is the thing after that.

First lets talk about the skills a bit. You spend 1 skill point to learn a skill, after that you use that skill so that it can lvl up and then you can morph it for another skill point.
The lvl up part of the skill is, in my opinion, poorly done. You don't feel that your skill has lvled up, it just does and frankly, they could have just made your skills scale with the character lvl and it would have been the same. Like this it is just more time consuming. I think the lvls of the spells are just a time filler. They aren't meaningful.

The morphing is a good step towards skill progression, but i feel it is not enough, not even close. The skill system needs more if it wants to feel like you are really progressing, aside from gear.

Also, because the TESO skills don't have any CDs, the numbers don't really give a good reason to pick one over the other. You just pick the best skill in slot and you go with that, like for example:

one damage spell
CC spell
different CC spell with reduce cost or different effect
defensive spell
buff/damage over time spell and so on

There is no incencitive to use multiple spells that have the same effect. Like for example have 5 spells that all do damage and nothing else because I want to be a glass cannon. Actually I can, but I am cutting a leg and an arm and popping an eye and I go in battle like that. And it's not like my burst is much better than the guy that uses just two damage spells.

I would personally, on a first step, try to add more skill paths so that it doesn't feel like you get a skill and that's it, ala GuildWars, but without the indepth class system, skill capturing that GuildWars had.
For example in GuildWars, skills influenced Magicka/Health in a more profound way than they do in TESO and also, they had CD or needed different resource, or needed a certain rotation so that adds another layer of complexity on top of the TESO system that just needs resource management and thats it.

What are the faults of the skill system in TESO and how will you improve them?

PS: Imo the skill system and the fact that you have to go over all the quests again if you make another character are the greatest faults of this MMO.

DDuke · January 2015

I totally agree, this is actually the biggest problem I have with the game.

I'll go over your points & present how I would personally improve the system.

one damage spell

I think one of the main problems here is that most skills are instant cast. If skills had varying cast times (I know there are a couple, but they all have only 1 second~ cast time), that'd allow some skills to be more powerful than others.

fingerfight wrote: »

CC spell

different CC spell with reduce cost or different effect

Where to begin... In PvP, the problem with CC in this game is, that it doesn't really do what the name implies (Crowd Control), instead it acts more as a "drain stamina" skill.

The problem here is, that the CC effects in the game can be repeatedly broken as long as you have stamina (it doesn't help either that there are certain builds that can maintain stamina indefinitely).

In PvE, while some amount of tactical CC usage is necessary (Negates by sorcerers), there isn't really much reason to use it, when you can just AoE & kill everything before they kill you.

How to fix these problems? There are probably more solutions, but here are a few:

Give CC break a cooldown (one minute for example)
Tweak how CC works, make it break after X amount of damage, allowing tactical use of CC as a form of survival.

and/or
Give skills with CC a "soft cooldown", allowing skills to still deal damage & perform other functions, but CC effects would have X seconds of cooldown.

I would also like to see CC being more required in PvE (especially the more difficult end game content), making the game more tactical & fun.

E.g. mobs/bosses that you have to keep CC'ed for a long time, until you kill the others

fingerfight wrote: »

defensive spell

Here lies another problem: there are only two (working) types of defensive spells: heals and damage shields. The third one (shadow cloak), is only available to one of the classes and has been broken (pun intended) for months (I've lost the count of how many).

This limited selection of defensive spells, along with the inability to use CC for defense, essentially pigeonholes player builds to use these heals and damage shields, which is why almost every player you come across has that bubble around him, or heals up after you've taken him low on health.

I'm probably showing my bias here, but personally as someone who has been primarily playing a rogue character in all past RPGs & MMOs for a good dozen or so years, I don't really take it kindly when I'm also expected to become a "healer" to survive in PvP (in fact, never before have I felt so in a MMO or RPG).

While changing how CCs work alone would go a long way here, the way to fix this problem is simple: more (viable) defensive skills, that are not heals or dmg shields, and fixing the invisibility skill (or introducing a new one) wouldn't hurt.

fingerfight wrote: »

buff/damage over time spell and so on

What ZOS did with the Valkyn Skoria set is a good example of how you can make DoT builds useful.

Make spells that synergize with DoTs (e.g. "deal X damage, increased by x% for every DoT effect")
Make more item sets that reward you for using a lot of DoTs.

Just my thoughts

NotSo · January 2015

With only 5 skills on your bar, I don't think having any sort of cooldown is a good excuse to raise the power/effectiveness of any articular skill. With that said, I think resource costs and regenerations have a huge influence on how players build their skills and how they apply them in a fight.

Aside from healing and damage shields, you can buff armor/spell resistance, and you can buff stamina regeneration to keep your blocks up, and you can reflect single target projectile spells entirely either with dk scales or with sword&board defensive stance, or you can do what I do and hit retreating maneuver with boundless storm with hasty retreat and just run away at mach 9.

I don't think any abilities should have any sort of textual synergy, that would force you to have more than one particular ability just to get the full effect out of another. To include the conjured ward skill that sorcerers have.

Soris · January 2015

DDuke wrote: »

Where to begin... In PvP, the problem with CC in this game is, that it doesn't really do what the name implies (Crowd Control), instead it acts more as a "drain stamina" skill.

The problem here is, that the CC effects in the game can be repeatedly broken as long as you have stamina (it doesn't help either that there are certain builds that can maintain stamina indefinitely).

DDuke wrote: »

Give CC break a cooldown (one minute for example)

Unbreakable stuns, silences, sleeps etc are the worst things that a PvP game ever have. Like mass mes in DAoC. You could sleep an entire zerg with a single spell over a minute and kill them one by one while they lost connection with their chars. Why the *** would anyone want that again?
You want easy pvp, stun lock, insta gib people from stealth without giving any chance to fight back. Thats not pvp.
Biting jabs is pretty close to CCs you want. Is it really fun when you are the victim?

Anyway, currently block casting causing problems and when they fix that, hard CCs in this game will be perfectly fine and enough. Then you can now use well timed CCs after they fix that. And also already a single milisecond stun is enough to kill someone in this current state.

DDuke wrote: »

Here lies another problem: there are only two (working) types of defensive spells: heals and damage shields. The third one (shadow cloak)[snip]broken

ian92415b14_ESO wrote: »

Aside from healing and damage shields, you can buff armor/spell resistance, and you can buff stamina regeneration to keep your blocks up, and you can reflect single target projectile spells entirely either with dk scales or with sword&board defensive stance, or you can do what I do and hit retreating maneuver with boundless storm with hasty retreat and just run away at mach 9.

+ Certain abilities gives flat damage reduction like archer shade, low slash, empowering sweep etc.. + dodge and block. And you cant expect someone to not to heal him/herself

DDuke · January 2015

faernaa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Where to begin... In PvP, the problem with CC in this game is, that it doesn't really do what the name implies (Crowd Control), instead it acts more as a "drain stamina" skill.

The problem here is, that the CC effects in the game can be repeatedly broken as long as you have stamina (it doesn't help either that there are certain builds that can maintain stamina indefinitely).

DDuke wrote: »

Give CC break a cooldown (one minute for example)

Unbreakable stuns, silences, sleeps etc are the worst things that a PvP game ever have. Like mass mes in DAoC. You could sleep an entire zerg with a single spell over a minute and kill them one by one while they lost connection with their chars. Why the *** would anyone want that again?
You want easy pvp, stun lock, insta gib people from stealth without giving any chance to fight back. Thats not pvp.
Biting jabs is pretty close to CCs you want. Is it really fun when you are the victim?

Anyway, currently block casting causing problems and when they fix that, hard CCs in this game will be perfectly fine and enough. Then you can now use well timed CCs after they fix that. And also already a single milisecond stun is enough to kill someone in this current state.

Why would anyone want strategic PvP indeed, where you do something else than spam your dmg buttons...

The scenario where everyone in vicinity would get CC'ed and picked off wouldn't likely happen, unless the whole raid had CC break on cooldown. Nor do this kind of skills with long AoE CC exist in ESO (not saying they should either).

Also, how are you going to get stunlocked to death if you have

a) CC break (with cooldown)
b) CC breaks after X damage taken

I'd like your thoughts on that.

That said, do you know what are the most watched PvP videos out there in youtube? WoW Rogue PvP videos. Plenty of stunlocking & "insta gibbing" people. Go figure...

I do agree the overall TTK (Time-To-Kill) in this game should be increased though, but only after giving players another ways of bypassing the "resource game", which everyone is forced to play.
You shouldn't die when you run out of stamina and/or magicka, you should die when you run out of health. Period.

Also keep in mind that if CC was more reliable, it could be used to save yourself (and thus increasing the TTK), not only to "stunlock someone to death".

E.g. imagine being surrounded by enemies, and dropping a Nova, giving you a couple of seconds to get yourself to full health & to safety.

faernaa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Here lies another problem: there are only two (working) types of defensive spells: heals and damage shields. The third one (shadow cloak)[snip]broken

ian92415b14_ESO wrote: »

Aside from healing and damage shields, you can buff armor/spell resistance, and you can buff stamina regeneration to keep your blocks up, and you can reflect single target projectile spells entirely either with dk scales or with sword&board defensive stance, or you can do what I do and hit retreating maneuver with boundless storm with hasty retreat and just run away at mach 9.

+ Certain abilities gives flat damage reduction like archer shade, low slash, empowering sweep etc.. + dodge and block. And you cant expect someone to not to heal him/herself

Those abilities won't save you alone, and must be combined with heals/dmg shields.

And yes, I can expect someone to not heal him/herself.
Have you ever played a Warrior, Thief or Mage type character in other MMOs, or have you played only Priests/Paladins?

Soris · January 2015

DDuke wrote: »

Also, how are you going to get stunlocked to death if you have

a) CC break (with cooldown)
b) CC breaks after X damage taken

I'd like your thoughts on that.

a)Say CC break have 10 second cooldown. Skills have none.
b) Think about DK's petrify skill. (Petrify: Stuns enemies for X second, affected targets can take Y damage before stun breaks also deals Z damage after the effect ends)

Now, here is the scenerio : Dk casts petrify, you CC break that. Now you are immune to any kind of CCs for 3 seconds and have 10 seconds left for your next CC break(in cooldown). 3 seconds later, DK casts it again, and hits you couple times until it breaks. When it breaks DK does this again. Your CC break is still on cooldown and you can get yourself a coffee by the time.

DDuke wrote: »

I do agree the overall TTK (Time-To-Kill) in this game should be increased though, but only after giving players another ways of bypassing the "resource game", which everyone is forced to play.
You shouldn't die when you run out of stamina and/or magicka, you should die when you run out of health. Period.

It's game design. You either have limited resources or have cooldowns on skills. If they just remove the resource management tomorrow, then people would become immortal and game would be more spam fest than its current state. People who die, only because they failed to react quick enough or because of the latency issues and lag. But with limited resources, you have to care your magicka and stamina and think twice if you should heal or do dmg with your low magicka for example. That's totally fine imo.

DDuke wrote: »

And yes, I can expect someone to not heal him/herself.
Have you ever played a Warrior, Thief or Mage type character in other MMOs, or have you played only Priests/Paladins?

You have snipe, dark flare, disease enchant and those are not rare in Cyrodiil. Everyone have at least one or two of them and spam like hell. The other guy have purify or reflect to counter your ***. Thats calls balance.

I mostly played tanky warrior/paladin and healer style in mmos, just so you asked.

fingerfight · January 2015

faernaa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

I do agree the overall TTK (Time-To-Kill) in this game should be increased though, but only after giving players another ways of bypassing the "resource game", which everyone is forced to play.
You shouldn't die when you run out of stamina and/or magicka, you should die when you run out of health. Period.

It's game design. You either have limited resources or have cooldowns on skills. If they just remove the resource management tomorrow, then people would become immortal and game would be more spam fest than its current state. People who die, only because they failed to react quick enough or because of the latency issues and lag. But with limited resources, you have to care your magicka and stamina and think twice if you should heal or do dmg with your low magicka for example. That's totally fine imo.

I think you misunderstood my point. Dunno if any of you guys played GuildWars(not GuildWars2). But in GuildWars you have 8 skills( or 7 + 1 ultimate) so a lot less than what TESO players are getting. And it was complex, like TESO you could mix and match all sorts of skills, but pvp was kinda balanced and very, very fun. And you had both cooldowns and resource management.

Now to my point. My point is that the skill system shouldn't be so shallow and only ask of you a resource management as the main point of your build. They keep adding all these hidden couldowns that no one knows about(especially someone new) instead of just putting a cooldown on your skill so that the guy that gets CCed knows that skill has x time before the other one can use it again and the guys that uses it knows that has x time before he can use it. Instead they added a thing that makes you immune to the CC after you break it... great. As it stands, it only matters if you want a skill over the other, not really how much magicka or stamina it costs.

What I mean to say faernaa and DDuke is that I don't want the resource management out of the way. I want the game to keep it, make it even more harsh but introduce other things along the way, cause resource management is not enough.
Make it so that it matters if I have a powerfull CC on my bar and make so that it counts when I use it, but make it so that I can't spam it.
Make it so that it matters if I take 5 damage spells.
Make it so that it matters if I go full defensive.

I don't know about you faernaa but I don't really see the oomph behind any skill right now. Even ultimates don't have that oomph behind them. Maybe with the ultimate generation, that will change, we will wait and see.

DDuke · January 2015

faernaa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

Also, how are you going to get stunlocked to death if you have

a) CC break (with cooldown)
b) CC breaks after X damage taken

I'd like your thoughts on that.

a)Say CC break have 10 second cooldown. Skills have none.
b) Think about DK's petrify skill. (Petrify: Stuns enemies for X second, affected targets can take Y damage before stun breaks also deals Z damage after the effect ends)

Now, here is the scenerio : Dk casts petrify, you CC break that. Now you are immune to any kind of CCs for 3 seconds and have 10 seconds left for your next CC break(in cooldown). 3 seconds later, DK casts it again, and hits you couple times until it breaks. When it breaks DK does this again. Your CC break is still on cooldown and you can get yourself a coffee by the time.

Last I checked you could still block/dodge those CCs.

Nontheless, I also proposed adding a "soft cooldown" to skill CC effects. With that kind of system, it'd require multiple CCs if you wanted to spam them, and if opponent had CC break available, or blocked/dodged that CC then that wouldn't really work.

E.g. CC1 you break, CC2 you block, CC3 you dodge, CC4 lands and lasts 4 seconds. Your opponent now has all his CCs in cooldown.

Also, as I said I'd increase the TTK in the game as well, so people don't get killed while CCed the first time.

faernaa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

I do agree the overall TTK (Time-To-Kill) in this game should be increased though, but only after giving players another ways of bypassing the "resource game", which everyone is forced to play.
You shouldn't die when you run out of stamina and/or magicka, you should die when you run out of health. Period.

It's game design. You either have limited resources or have cooldowns on skills. If they just remove the resource management tomorrow, then people would become immortal and game would be more spam fest than its current state. People who die, only because they failed to react quick enough or because of the latency issues and lag. But with limited resources, you have to care your magicka and stamina and think twice if you should heal or do dmg with your low magicka for example. That's totally fine imo.

It is very bad game design, and should be fixed asap.

What I tried to imply is, that there are already people with seemingly unlimited resources, who can break your CCs endlessly, block endlessly and heal themselves up endlessly.

People that are literally immortal until they run out of stamina/magicka.

This makes 1v1 fights against these people either impossible, or revolve more around "who gets bored first", than who's more skilled.

faernaa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

And yes, I can expect someone to not heal him/herself.
Have you ever played a Warrior, Thief or Mage type character in other MMOs, or have you played only Priests/Paladins?

You have snipe, dark flare, disease enchant and those are not rare in Cyrodiil. Everyone have at least one or two of them and spam like hell. The other guy have purify or reflect to counter your ***. Thats calls balance.

I mostly played tanky warrior/paladin and healer style in mmos, just so you asked.

I thought so. If you had played a rogue, warrior or mage character you'd feel very differently about ESO's so called "balance", trust me

But to answer your previous question: I can expect all of those character archetypes not to heal/shield themselves, since that's what their archetypes are like. Damage dealers, not healers.

NotSo · January 2015

If cc break had a cooldown then people would run around with immovable up all the time... Oh wait, we do that already so we would have the upper hand over somebody that relys on cc break with a cooldown.

fingerfight · January 2015

ian92415b14_ESO wrote: »

If cc break had a cooldown then people would run around with immovable up all the time... Oh wait, we do that already so we would have the upper hand over somebody that relys on cc break with a cooldown.

ian, you are taking it all too literal.
If they are ever gonna add more layers of complexity to the skill system so that they will make it more intricate, skills will be revisited. Maybe Immovable will just block one CC and have its cost increased. Why not, even a CD on Immovable will be good, or if the CCs have CD, why not remake Immovable entirely so that it doesn't make you immune to CC, since now CC has a purpose.

Dagoth_Rac · January 2015

Major problem with this is that while human players would adjust to the changes, PvE enemies would not. They would likely have to completely redo many dungeon bosses whose mechanics would ramp way up in difficulty if you change resource management and CC break and cooldowns, etc. While you can tweak a skill here or there, making broad changes to underlying game systems can really mess up PvE content designed around those systems. Can you imagine fighting Uulgard the Risen in Vet Wayrest if he does his fear + fire attack while everybody's CC break is on cooldown? Or Bogdan the Nightflame and his adds' mind-control-you-into-the-fire attack with CC break on cooldown?

DDuke · January 2015

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Major problem with this is that while human players would adjust to the changes, PvE enemies would not. They would likely have to completely redo many dungeon bosses whose mechanics would ramp way up in difficulty if you change resource management and CC break and cooldowns, etc. While you can tweak a skill here or there, making broad changes to underlying game systems can really mess up PvE content designed around those systems. Can you imagine fighting Uulgard the Risen in Vet Wayrest if he does his fear + fire attack while everybody's CC break is on cooldown? Or Bogdan the Nightflame and his adds' mind-control-you-into-the-fire attack with CC break on cooldown?

Of course it'd be a big change & require a lot of rebalancing.

It'd, however, be a step towards the right direction, in my honest opinion.