The more I talk with people about it - oh and dang is this issue topic no1 right now - the less I like everything. I guess we all agree that some thoughts are nice but the execution is terrible. We did some theorycrafting on how to change raid composition to be able to still beat content and kinda endet up with necro dps only if we wanted to still be able to manage small timeframe dps checks.

We really need some words from the devs I'd say. Right now future looks bleak.

JustAGoodPlayer wrote: »

GreatGildersleeve wrote: »

BalticBlues wrote: »

BRING WROBEL BACK.

Funny, I was sure I was the only one thinking this. At least he didn’t balance the game to a spreadsheet.

The combat team changed - one of old member or can you tell more detailed?

Wrobel was the old Lead Combat Designer. The current guy (Wheeler) used to be the Cyrodiil combat Lead but got promoted when Wrobel left.

Heck no.

Also those people who are living in a delusion that this will somehow "level the playing field" between midtier/casuals and the top 1%, trust me, it wont.

They will still outperform you, find ways to optimize better. These changes will actually hurt the casuals more.

Unless of course, the top tier simply leaves the game altogether. Which is happening to quite a serious degree right now.

p00tx wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

p00tx wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

I would be more interested in seeing how many hours of PTS testing has been done with the current load by those who do not like the PTS patch notes?

I keep seeing you post this in different threads, and now I'm curious how much time you've spent on the pts proving the rest of the community wrong.

@p

p00tx wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

I would be more interested in seeing how many hours of PTS testing has been done with the current load by those who do not like the PTS patch notes?

I keep seeing you post this in different threads, and now I'm curious how much time you've spent on the pts proving the rest of the community wrong.

@p00tx

How does stating I am more interested in hearing feedback from actual testing of these changes prove anyone wrong?

It does not. In fact, the most interesting thread, and serious of posts in that thread, I have seen came from actual testing. It stated details of their actual experience and the difference in damage from specific skills as well as what their stats were. They noted there was very little difference.

Another post that was interesting noted how worthless DoTs were in killing a specific mob that takes only a few seconds. It was pointed out by someone else how it is never worth using a DoT unless the DoT can go through at least half of its ticks of damage.

These discussions based on real information from actual testing vs guessing how things will work out are the most beneficial to the point they are more likely to get Zenimax's attention regardless of whether they are positive or negative about the changes.

So yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I am just more interested in the opinions that are based on actual experience. Nothing more or less.

I've seen several posts on this forum showing the opposite of what you're saying. Every video on Youtube about this shows results that are significantly lower than before. All of the math that's been posted shows numbers much lower than previous numbers. I understand you support these changes and are very excited about them, so I don't fault you, but your question has been answered many times over already.

Of course, the damage for higher-end players is less. But from what is posted in these forums the sky is not falling.

Also, you do not understand what I support as I do not support these changes are disparage them as of yet. I believe in thoughtful and constructive feedback based on actual game information vs just what I think about the changes after reading the patch notes/road map which is what most of the feedback we ahve seen in the forum is based on. In fact, my comment you quoted and replied to, asking how many hours people have tested on the PTS this cycle very much supports this view.

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

25k*. They added Major Slayer to the trial dummy, so early parses usually don't take into consideration that their damage is 10% higher than normal despite being 25% lower.

They didn't just add Major Slayer.

• Adjusted Target Dummies with raid buffs with the following changes:
  • Adjusted the Crusher Enchant on Target Dummies to mirror an Infused value, rather than an Infused + Torug's Pact value.
  • Engulfing Flames now matches the proper 6% maximum value, down from the old 10%.
  • Alkosh's Roar is now the maximum 6000 Armor reduction, up from the old 3010 value.
  • Attackers now gain Minor Courage and Major Slayer when hitting the targets.

Penetration:
Crusher is now 2108 versus 3057, but Alkosh is now 6000 versus 3010. Which means resistances have gone down by 2041. Where before, you would want exactly 5850 penetration, you now need only 3809. The change also indirectly affects your build -- as in, if you're parsing with medium then you'll be overall better off as you don't need to worry about penetration, whereas with light armour you will be overpenetrating (wasting it) like crazy now.

The change doesn't take into account less organised groups, PUGs, overland, etc. and artificially inflates the numbers you see on PTS versus Live (and they're still lower than Live by a significant amount).

The Engulfing Flames is a trivial change as a lot of groups are starting to run Engulfing Flames on a tank and not even bothering with it on a DD (or have it on just one DK for the increased bonus), since most people in organised groups are running more physical damage than actual flame damage at the moment.

Magicka/light armour parses will go down significantly more than stamina/medium armour parses on the trial dummy.

On top of gaining Major Slayer, people also now get Minor Courage, which is an approximate ~5% DPS increase over the Live dummy. These changes either shouldn't have been made in week one, which would allow people a chance to better understand the changes to DoTs and light attacks, or I would say these changes to the dummy need to be made to coincide with changes to the dummy on Live, where they could have changed the dummy in the last Live update, and that the changes give people the false impression that the gap in DPS loss isn't nearly as wide as it actually is. Even the developer comment said as much:

Note that this may create a situation where your damage seems to have gone up in comparison to other patches, when in reality it is merely closer to a coordinated group environment where these powerful bonuses were being brought. We have tried to focus on important buffs and debuffs that we see a large majority of groups build around, rather than every possible buff and debuff, as many of them are not able to be ran in tandem with one another or require more specific builds to be brought to a composition.

On the other non-trial dummies, I'm seeing around a 40% DPS decrease from Live to PTS without making any changes to my build (DK running Two-Hander; Carve+Stampede and Trap as stamina skills, which is unsustainable with the changes to the whip, this is an important factor as changes to builds are almost always required when a new patch hits). By making changes to the build, it's a much more reasonable 15% decrease in DPS without changing gear (mostly light armour).

It's not an optimised build by any means, it's just what I had in my inventory at the time. Had I made a couple more tweaks to abilities (I could swap out Trap since I have Tzogvin, but the DPS from Trap still outweighs using Caltrops or Orb from my tests, where the DPS from Orb or Caltrops is less than 1k, Trap still does 1k+ even ignoring the Minor Force from it, and can be front barred to add extra passive weapon and spell damage, though as a result you're never maxing out your Seething Fury) and CP then I could have probably narrowed the gap by another 2-3% or so, but the gap is still quite a bit higher than ZOS's proposed 6-11% "overall" DPS reduction. It's more like 11%+ and that's if you min-max your build.

Before someone says "wow low DPS noob" -- the purpose of the test is to:

• Deliberately not use the trial dummy, so that the tests would;
• Not be skewed by differences in trial dummy buffs/debuffs from Live to PTS
• To see, with purely self-buffs/debuffs, what the difference is like between Live and PTS as people doing overland and even group runs of trials won't be optimising for 4 person dungeons or 12 person raid compositions
  • To note: both Live and PTS tests had considerably lower than 20% uptime on Minor Breach from Sundered, but aside from that debuff it didn't have Major Breach or any other resistance modifying debuff
  • I was using Tzogvin, which grants 1487 Offensive Penetration, along with 6 pieces of light armour, granding a total of 7527 including CP, leaving the target with 10,675 before I got to cap; using Noxious Breath would have gained more DPS than Engulfing Flames
• Not be skewed by sets like Bahsei/Coral Riptide given the differences in sustain from Live to PTS for DK (haven't tested other classes yet and putting together a full breakdown and analysis takes time; more time than I'm willing to dedicate since I'm not a DD main)

If I optimise for single target, like using Relequen, or optimise for trial running by using Bahsei/Riptide or in general having Minor Slayer, etc. then results would be considerably higher but so would the disparity in DPS loss. This was a broad, base-line test; a direct comparison test and a test with a small tweak.

Live:
PTS:
I had to make one change, taking off Carve for Entropy as having that many stamina skills along with the new whip was unsustainable. It's also equally unsustainable by swapping to mostly magicka with only one stamina skill due to the changes in the last update to "make DK struggle." This would be different on the trial dummy as sustain isn't as big of an issue. If I didn't do that, sustain would have been impossibly bad to the point of doing multiple heavy attacks -- which by itself would have skewed the results -- this would be the overall worst impact to random people doing non-high end guild veteran content as they don't/won't bother to change out skills to adapt on the fly and they'll just do the heavy attacks. As it was, it was bad enough on sustain just tackling the 3m dummy. Brings me back to the days of trying to do dummy parses around the time of the Morrowind sustain nerfs. As soon as I started needing to do heavy attacks, it went much, much worse.

Additionally, because of the DoT tick frequency, you're going to see less overall uptime on things like Crusher and Berserker weapon enchantments on your back bar ground based AoEs.

Live

PTS


This is probably an inadvertant nerf to DPS (it's not much, but it's still there). Bearing in mind, this is a purely static test -- when you put this into a live dungeon or trial environment where ZOS wants to enforce some movement, this will be a lot lower than ~85% uptime on average. The trial dummy doesn't represent that for Crusher, for example, as the "enchantment" seems to have no cooldown and is always on.

As a side note, in case anyone is wondering about the APM / CPM of these tests:
Live

PTS


Those not doing the CPM will also see the worst overall impact.

As for the topic, it's actually a mixed bag for me. While I do like the goal, I don't like the implementation. I said the same with Account-wide Achievements, too. On top of that, I don't like that they haven't made any change to the more recent content to reflect the changes in both DPS and HPS, as an indirect result it makes it much more difficult on tanks as well as the two primary targets (tanks had already been given the least in terms of power creep over the years anyway, so it doubly affects them). There are vastly too many changes in one patch for anyone to really and reasonably work through in a single PTS week, and the effects are far reaching; i.e. indirect effects which also compound the various direct effects we're seeing.

Amottica wrote: »

Of course, the damage for higher-end players is less. But from what is posted in these forums the sky is not falling.

The issue isn't that the sky is falling, it's that the floor is being cut out from beneath anyone who has low to middling DPS.

I agree about the need to provide constructive feedback, and that is what's happening more often than not. This patch is an absolute disaster for the community at large as it will decimate the progging community.

Most changes are terrible.

Contrary to ZOS's intention, the difficult stuff in ESO becomes even more difficult allowing less players to complete certain achievements. This is certainly not improving accessability.

Totally gutting several classes doens't help accessabiliy either.

Combat becomes boring when rotations in boss fights are like applying a couple of DoTs and then use a spammable 15 times in a row. For trash fights and overland mobs it's even more boring because using DoTs is just not worth it (maybe except one backbar DoT to proc the according weapon glyph). Just spammables until everything is dead.

sneakymitchell wrote: »

I keep hearing “this will effect new players” and yet where are theses players people keep mentioning?

The reality is, it will affect everyone. It won't lower the ceiling and raise the floor, it lowers everyone and worst case scenario hits the lowest even harder.

sneakymitchell wrote: »

New players will at least know to but up dots when they see a long duration especially those who played other mmos.

No, they won't. They already don't. I could show you the countless logs of players who do nothing but light attack or use abilities very infrequently (even companions use abilities more frequently). New players, low level, inexperienced, all three individually or all together, this change will hit them the worst overall. Someone doing 10k DPS to a world boss or group dungeon boss before the patch will likely be doing 5k after the patch -- bearing in mind the difference in HPS tick frequency as well, they'll be trying to play more defensibly, taking a further DPS loss as they look even more toward heavy armour, health enchantments, or additional heals, etc. than they already are. Meanwhile, the end game will theorycraft the next new meta and take an overall minimal DPS loss of 10-15% at the highest level.

Broadly speaking, the vast majority of non-hardcore players already don't know how to do combat effectively in ESO. They will be dead in the water next update and they won't be seeing DPS increases.

sneakymitchell wrote: »

The other mmos got longer base dura. Zeno max just did what they had to. To compare to some games from other mmos.

Other MMOs also have longer cast times, channels, and individual ability cooldowns. Should ZOS also implement those?

ESO stands on its own because of its combat. While some hate it or don't understand it, others really enjoy it. We don't need ESO to be FFXIV or WoW or Lost Ark. If players wanted that, they would be playing those other MMOs.

maxjapank wrote: »

In terms of pvp, if everyone is nerfed then it's a level playing field. But what I don't like is the constant changes to everything. It's honestly exhausting.

Ah no. It's like a flat tax. Taxing a person who has $1000 to their name $500 isn't the same as taxing a billionaire $500. These changes will hurt the lower-end player much more than the higher-end.

siddique wrote: »

Heck no.

Also those people who are living in a delusion that this will somehow "level the playing field" between midtier/casuals and the top 1%, trust me, it wont.

They will still outperform you, find ways to optimize better. These changes will actually hurt the casuals more.

Unless of course, the top tier simply leaves the game altogether. Which is happening to quite a serious degree right now.

Yes, this. I have no idea how anyone thinks these changes will help an average player like me. None whatsoever. And so far ZOS hasn't explained why *they* think it will either and I don't expect them to.

@Troodon80 Fantastic work mate. This is exactly the same dps loss i'm seeing on my mag sorc. Comparing it to my live build is pretty much pointless because crystal weapon and bound armaments are so dead in PTS that it's not even valid.

However, on live with rele, kinra & mora on a 3m parse I get 56k dps.

On PTS with a rele, kinra @ mora on a 3m parse I get 45k dps.

There is a huge dps loss on non supported content and I really worry that portals in vSS HM is not significantly more difficult. It's literally an unsupported dps check.

I haven't done 6m parses because I know I won't be able to sustain it and I don't want that to impact the results.

Tannus15 wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

I would be more interested in seeing how many hours of PTS testing has been done with the current load by those who do not like the PTS patch notes?

i've done multiple parses with my sorc with changes to my builds to see what i can do to make it bearable. Stam sorc, as in the stamina morphs for sorc, are utter garbage. Anyone using them in this update is making a mistake.

i've done less with my frost warden, but still enough to get a feeling for the changes (it's really really bad if you were wondering)

I've also some some stamdk to try out the new whip which is crazy strong. it honestly feels stronger than live crystal weapon.

I'd say in the one day since the changes went live, i've spent 5 hours on the PTS testing stuff and I feel confident to say that this is the worst update i've ever seen on PTS.
And yes, I test every PTS.
Just go back through the previous update comments and you'll find me posting parses and checking sets and skill changes.

Interesting but there is a big question remaining after reading your post.

What makes it unbearable? Is it merely that there are changes in timing for your rotations, skills not working as they should (based on PTS notes), or what?

Changes in the rotation and timing are something players will have to get used to and something Zenimax expects considering OT skills have longer durations. A reduction in our parses, for those who do weave very well, is another thing that is expected and intended in this PTS considering. This part is somewhat a good thing since we have seen power creep over the years making a lot of older content rather trivial.

the skills are firing fine, the dot management is easy vs the dummy.

The biggest problem is that people are misunderstanding what the "power creep" is.
People think that somehow classes have got stronger, and it's not true. At it's basic level, sorc hasn't really changed. The power creep is the sets and buffs that are available.
In an attempt to balance the gear changes they are nerfing classes.

The idea before was everything we balanced around julianos / hundings rage. You can see this by looking at sets like burning spell weave. Julianos gives you 300 spell damage. BSW gives you 490 spell damage with 60% uptime = 294 spell damage.

the older trial sets were in line with this, like moondancer, but siroria was far stronger with the perfected bonus AND a max of 520 spell damage.
Bahsei, Relequen and coral riptide push this even further, and buff and debuffs like major vulnerability, major slayer, major berserk etc are all reasonably easy to obtain and are considered normal for a trial group.

The issue with this patch is that it's nerfing skills and classes to make builds with these benefits in line with where dps was 4 years ago. So if you do a 3m or 6m parse with rele and kinra you get 45k dps, which is what I was getting about 4 years ago with julianos and BSW.

If I use those basic builds from 4 years ago? well under 40k. They are making top end gear a requirement for entry level dps and basic crafted setups which have been staples for years obsolete to the point of "don't use this".

So if you are only able to get 40-45k damage why are some stating they hit 100k+?

Serious question.

The nerf to basic attadck

starkerealm wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Of course, the damage for higher-end players is less. But from what is posted in these forums the sky is not falling.

The issue isn't that the sky is falling, it's that the floor is being cut out from beneath anyone who has low to middling DPS.

I agree about the need to provide constructive feedback, and that is what's happening more often than not. This patch is an absolute disaster for the community at large as it will decimate the progging community.

And that is a good reason why everyone with the means should test. The spread between the top and bottom of player ability in this game is the worst I have ever seen. It is a big source of the toxicity we see mentioned in the forums often.

Amottica wrote: »

So if you are only able to get 40-45k damage why are some stating they hit 100k+?

Serious question.

It is really important to understand that when you are comparing numbers, you can't just do it willy nilly. You have to understand the context of the damage number. Here, the number is from a basic dummy, not a trial dummy. The basic dummy give you no buffs. Nothing is inflated. This would be a good measure of your damage in a solo encounter. The trial dummy serves a different purpose. It gives you various buffs you might get in an optimized groups. This is damage you could never do on your own. The trial dummy is relatively new, just a few years old. So all damage numbers from before then you can assume are from regular dummies. On this pts, they added some serious additional damage buffs to the trial dummy, which makes comparison between pts and live more difficult. For that reason, some people are comparing regular dummy parses on pts and live so that they are more apples to apples.