How to fix U35 (and ESO in general)

TheKaan · August 2022

My guild Ninja Pulls (PC EU) made a video about how to repair the damage caused by Update 35. I'm basically here to plug it, but I also think it might help restore some unity in the ESO community.

It started as a feedback video in PTS week 1, but grew and morphed into a broader evidence-backed examination of where ZOS made mistakes and how these can be fixed, either immediately or over the long term. It also exemplifies how the typical group-PvE player on EU views this whole episode. Maya, who owns the guild, did a nice job of representing our collective views and keeping her criticisms balanced, while setting out what both sides can do to avoid repeating the nastiness and despair of the last few weeks!

I think it's well worth watching for players and developers alike. Thanks.

https://youtu.be/3RGriZmq2mc

Here's the TLDR:

1. Why a 'power gap' exists and why Update 35 was always going to make it worse.
2. More proof that the original Light & Heavy Attack nerfs were BAD for lower-end players.
3. Powerful & accessible playstyles already exist, so ZOS were killing the fun for nothing.
4. Communication in both directions should be significantly improved.

Hope some of you enjoy it.

JustAGoodPlayer · August 2022

The only option I see is delete current pts and buff damage of not OP builds, because they have worse sets, multipliers and as result damage.

Add new sets for different styles of players too. If most OP builds have 120 k dps buff other builds, including only skill using players with no la or ha, ha users, wervolves to 110k dps.

Do not change or nerf already not op old content, sets and skills. Return old not fair nerfed skills. Or rework unique skillsbecause now itdo not look balanced at all.

Than think about nerfing DPS by limiting buff sets power on bosses that do not need to much DPS, as example in vMOL.

But not by nerfing players !

prof_doom · August 2022

It's never been the skills, or light attacks, or heavy attacks, or anything else the player does that is pushing up DPS, it's always been the sets and stacking buffs/debuffs.
Look at the DPS difference between parsing on the raid dummy versus a regular dummy.
For that matter I've seen people do a "naked" parse and the max damage I've seen is about 50-70k.

As far as what to do, my first instinct is: Nothing. What's wrong with high damage numbers?

If that's not gonna fly, then they're gonna have to put in a lot of work.
They're gonna have to look at what the meta was for the past 3-4 years, and figure out why, and how to scale it back a bit.
It's not gonna be easy or fast, because people are going to just adjust around what they do.

As an example, if we look at Bahsei's and Coral Riptide, the current meta, and the easy answer is to say, "well, just make it a smaller boost, or put the resource numbers back to what they were in the beginning, so that's it a high-risk, high reward sort of thing... but in reality, people will just stop using it.

When they nerfed procs, people just stopped using proc sets.
When they capped crit damage, people changed what sets they used.

And since ESO is up to like 580 different sets, it's a lot to go through, and they'll have to do it over and over and over.

As for buffs and debuffs, I think they need to go in the direction of making it easier, not harder, to get them.
Just as an example, with Turning Tide, and soon that new monster set, everyone can get good uptime on Major Vulnerability, and not have to be an elite group who had to have at least 5 necromancers who all had to concentrate on building ultimate every fight. (which wasn't all that fun)

Hoolielulu · August 2022

Thanks for sharing this, I really enjoyed it.

JustAGoodPlayer · August 2022

prof_doom wrote: »

It's never been the skills, or light attacks, or heavy attacks, or anything else the player does that is pushing up DPS, it's always been the sets and stacking buffs/debuffs.
Look at the DPS difference between parsing on the raid dummy versus a regular dummy.
For that matter I've seen people do a "naked" parse and the max damage I've seen is about 50-70k.

As far as what to do, my first instinct is: Nothing. What's wrong with high damage numbers?

If that's not gonna fly, then they're gonna have to put in a lot of work.
They're gonna have to look at what the meta was for the past 3-4 years, and figure out why, and how to scale it back a bit.
It's not gonna be easy or fast, because people are going to just adjust around what they do.

As an example, if we look at Bahsei's and Coral Riptide, the current meta, and the easy answer is to say, "well, just make it a smaller boost, or put the resource numbers back to what they were in the beginning, so that's it a high-risk, high reward sort of thing... but in reality, people will just stop using it.

When they nerfed procs, people just stopped using proc sets.
When they capped crit damage, people changed what sets they used.

And since ESO is up to like 580 different sets, it's a lot to go through, and they'll have to do it over and over and over.

As for buffs and debuffs, I think they need to go in the direction of making it easier, not harder, to get them.
Just as an example, with Turning Tide, and soon that new monster set, everyone can get good uptime on Major Vulnerability, and not have to be an elite group who had to have at least 5 necromancers who all had to concentrate on building ultimate every fight. (which wasn't all that fun)

Problem is buff sets. No one can do big numbers with out it. And it really is not even a problem - if some ... "genius" will not start to kill bosses that was not designed for so much DPS and skip all mechanics.

After that they get even more "genius" - that can not play any other way. So all you see in game is "genius" who can skip all mechanics or uptime flore optimall.

Now we even have sets to optimally uptime flore = perfect META flore uptime buff setts

Be optimal = even in uptiming a flore )))

And offcorse the only 1 % player (by their own words) do "high end content". Because they can not play with low DPS players - they are not skilled enough. But they can skip ... .

Unfortunatly for them there are people who understand it. Because we play with low DPS players - we do not skip content - and passed even with 35 k DPS some trial HMs and etc.

Yes skip is faster and more "optimal".

Even more optimal and fast is even do not play the game for such speed runers. Just think about it - how faster is skipping the play to the game ?

) You will pass it even do not playing it )

DairyCat · August 2022

I agree about light attack weaving not being the main cause for the power gap. Rather light attack weaving is the most misunderstood mechanic for newbie players and so it becomes the scapegoat for ALL game knowledge and DPS gap and so they never try to address the actual reasons for their poor DPS and so they get stuck on 10-15K DPS because they think it's all due to light attack weaving. The few people who I've taught how to light attack weave all had a fundamental misunderstanding of what light attack weaving was, they thought it was cancelling abilities to cast two abilities in one second, or that it somehow involved getting 2-3 light attacks a second when the difference between sloppy light attack weaving and "perfect" weaving is 0.4 light attacks per second and 0.95 light attacks per second. Once they understood what it was it took like 15 minutes of hitting an attack dummy to get the hang of it.

Ratzkifal · August 2022

Finally got around to watching this. Wow this video is amazingly well put together. Super simple explanation, good visuals and it's entertaining too and not some dry number crunch.