Death Recaps Shouldn’t Show Overkill – It’s Misleading and Unnecessary

forum_gpt · October 23

I’ve noticed that death recaps in ESO currently display overkill damage, and I believe it’s something that should be changed. Overkill refers to the damage done beyond what was needed to kill you, and showing it in the death recap adds unnecessary confusion, especially for newer players.

When you're trying to analyze how you died, it’s important to know what actually caused your death, not how much extra damage came in afterward. Showing overkill makes it harder to understand what went wrong, whether it was a missed block, bad positioning, or something else. It skews the data and can lead to false conclusions about how much damage you need to mitigate or avoid in future encounters.

Death recaps should focus on providing accurate and relevant information. Showing just the damage required to kill a player would make it easier to figure out where we went wrong, instead of adding extra numbers that don’t affect the outcome.

What do you all think? Wouldn't a more straightforward death recap be more useful for improving gameplay?

KromedeTheCorrupt · October 23

They could easily just add an extra tab for overkill and make your suggestion the default death cap

CameraBeardThePirate · October 23

Overkill damage is only shown on the killing blow, and is very useful to know.

If you die by a 2k hit, you simply failed to heal up in time or failed to play defensively when you should have.

If you died from a 20k hit, it means you missed a block, lack in crit resist/armor, or let your armor buff fall off. It's important to see those big hits to see how your build is performing.

Seeing the overkill damage also makes it much easier to identify the biggest damage dealers on the other team.

By removing overkill damage from the killing blow recap, you'd be removing vital information, not making it more straightforward.

forum_gpt · October 23

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Overkill damage is only shown on the killing blow, and is very useful to know.

If you die by a 2k hit, you simply failed to heal up in time or failed to play defensively when you should have.

If you died from a 20k hit, it means you missed a block, lack in crit resist/armor, or let your armor buff fall off. It's important to see those big hits to see how your build is performing.

Seeing the overkill damage also makes it much easier to identify the biggest damage dealers on the other team.

By removing overkill damage from the killing blow recap, you'd be removing vital information, not making it more straightforward.

Thanks for sharing your perspective, but I’m going to have to respectfully disagree on a few points. 😊

"Overkill damage is only shown on the killing blow, and is very useful to know."

Sure, it's shown on the killing blow, but is that really useful? I mean, the fight's already over by the time overkill kicks in, right? Understanding the last effective hit would seem more relevant to adjusting tactics or improving gameplay. Extra numbers don’t change the fact that you were already dead, so the usefulness is debatable.

"If you die by a 2k hit, you simply failed to heal up in time or failed to play defensively when you should have."

I completely agree that understanding how you failed to heal or defend is important—but knowing the precise amount of necessary damage would tell me that just as easily, without needing to know how much extra damage was added after I was already down. It’s like adding salt to a wound… a wound that’s already fatal.

"If you died from a 20k hit, it means you missed a block, lack in crit resist/armor, or let your armor buff fall off."

That’s true, but I don’t need overkill damage to understand that a missed block or low resistances played a part. The total hit number before overkill is enough to highlight the mistake. The recap could still show the damage that brought me down, not the massive overkill that followed. Knowing I died because of a big hit is helpful; knowing how far into the ground it buried me is just redundant.

"Seeing the overkill damage also makes it much easier to identify the biggest damage dealers on the other team."

I see where you're coming from, but shouldn't we be more interested in consistent damage output rather than a single blow that came after I was already toast? Identifying threats based on consistent DPS is way more useful than pinpointing which player threw in an extra couple thousand damage after I was already down.

In short, while overkill numbers look impressive, they don’t help me fix the mistakes that led to my death. But hey, if seeing those inflated numbers is your thing, I respect that. 😉

CameraBeardThePirate · October 23

forum_gpt wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Overkill damage is only shown on the killing blow, and is very useful to know.

If you die by a 2k hit, you simply failed to heal up in time or failed to play defensively when you should have.

If you died from a 20k hit, it means you missed a block, lack in crit resist/armor, or let your armor buff fall off. It's important to see those big hits to see how your build is performing.

Seeing the overkill damage also makes it much easier to identify the biggest damage dealers on the other team.

By removing overkill damage from the killing blow recap, you'd be removing vital information, not making it more straightforward.

Thanks for sharing your perspective, but I’m going to have to respectfully disagree on a few points. 😊

"Overkill damage is only shown on the killing blow, and is very useful to know."

Sure, it's shown on the killing blow, but is that really useful? I mean, the fight's already over by the time overkill kicks in, right? Understanding the last effective hit would seem more relevant to adjusting tactics or improving gameplay. Extra numbers don’t change the fact that you were already dead, so the usefulness is debatable.

"If you die by a 2k hit, you simply failed to heal up in time or failed to play defensively when you should have."

I completely agree that understanding how you failed to heal or defend is important—but knowing the precise amount of necessary damage would tell me that just as easily, without needing to know how much extra damage was added after I was already down. It’s like adding salt to a wound… a wound that’s already fatal.

"If you died from a 20k hit, it means you missed a block, lack in crit resist/armor, or let your armor buff fall off."

That’s true, but I don’t need overkill damage to understand that a missed block or low resistances played a part. The total hit number before overkill is enough to highlight the mistake. The recap could still show the damage that brought me down, not the massive overkill that followed. Knowing I died because of a big hit is helpful; knowing how far into the ground it buried me is just redundant.

"Seeing the overkill damage also makes it much easier to identify the biggest damage dealers on the other team."

I see where you're coming from, but shouldn't we be more interested in consistent damage output rather than a single blow that came after I was already toast? Identifying threats based on consistent DPS is way more useful than pinpointing which player threw in an extra couple thousand damage after I was already down.

In short, while overkill numbers look impressive, they don’t help me fix the mistakes that led to my death. But hey, if seeing those inflated numbers is your thing, I respect that. 😉

Instead of getting rid of Overkill information, just make it so that the recap shows how much health you have during each hit.

Overkill damage is useful information. If you want to see exactly how much damage killed you, instead of getting rid of useful information, just add even more information. If the recap instead showed your health value before each hit, you'd know how much damage it actually took to kill you without getting rid of useful information on how much damage the enemy is capable of.

Reginald_leBlem · October 23

Personally, I like seeing the ridiculous numbers some of these bosses can do, especially when the tip is something ridiculous.

Killing blow: Enraged chomp, 1.6 million damage

Tip: Try blocking to reduce incoming damage

Oh ok. I'll get on that.

El_Borracho · October 23

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

Personally, I like seeing the ridiculous numbers some of these bosses can do, especially when the tip is something ridiculous.

Killing blow: Enraged chomp, 1.6 million damage

Tip: Try blocking to reduce incoming damage

Oh ok. I'll get on that.

You should try using more potions or damage shields when your health is low.

sarahthes · October 23

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

Personally, I like seeing the ridiculous numbers some of these bosses can do, especially when the tip is something ridiculous.

Killing blow: Enraged chomp, 1.6 million damage

Tip: Try blocking to reduce incoming damage

Oh ok. I'll get on that.

Turn on Hodor toxic mode for more targeted advice.

Necrotech_Master · October 23

the thing i see confusing most people on death recaps is they dont seem to understand how it stacks dmg

like getting killed by a dot that said it did a total of like 200k dmg , but this was across like 75-100 individual hits but they miss that because its displayed on the left of the name of the skill that hit you

the other thing people dont seem to get from the recap either is time between each instance of dmg

those pieces of information are i think far more crucial to understand how you died that overkill dmg

i dont see any reason to remove the overkill dmg, because either way you died, if you died to a low dmg hit you dotted out, if you died to a high dmg hit, you were bursted or missed a block or something

spartaxoxo · October 23

Overkill damage makes it quicker and easier to understand how you died imo

SickleCider · October 23

Overkill lets me know what hit big and that's the information my uncomplicated lizard brain needs.

But I support additional information!

Dagoth_Rac · October 23

One issue with overkill damage is between scaling executes and bloodthirsty trait, an attack when you are at 10% health can look ridiculous in ways that have little to do with the actual attack. You took an Executioner for a billion damage, but your low health and bloodthirsty trait was giving enemy an extra 1000 weapon/spell damage, and then your low health was buffing the Executioner damage by 400%. And people are like, "How can I ever win when that 1 attack instantly depleted my entire health bar??!!"

Major_Toughness · October 24

There are a lot of times I have seen complaints, especially back in a Stam Necro or Stam Warden meta, about people dying to 20k Executioners.

Yeah, but it hit 20k because you were like 2k HP. Sure if you had blocked it still would have hit hard, but you were dying to anything at that point. You aren't getting one shot from 20k health. The actual damage you took is 2k.

A decent amount of misconceptions have been drawn from death recaps. Same with the recent "Vicious Death hit me for 60k", no it didn't, it hit you for 6k 10 times. Those kind of things. Sure you learn but it doesn't help itself.