Opinion on Target-Cap

ExoY · April 22

I personally very much dislike the introduced changes that Arcanist beam and Templar Jabs now have a target cap of 6 enemies. (Maybe even more skills?!)

One of my main reason is simply the immersion: It just feels wrong if you have e.g. seven meele enimies attacking you, and then you Jab and one doesnt take dmg.
We already have a target-cap on some heals / buffs. And while this also sometimes doesnt feel great or can be frustrating, it is a completely different aspect than applying a cap to damage skills in my opinion.

Also I am not sure, what problem this is suppose to adress?
If it is supposed to adress dmg creep then I think it will hit the wrong people. Most PvE Endgame fights do not consist of more then 6 enemies. So it will mostly affect trash fights. But those fights always have a lot of minor enimies which will die almost instantaneous and rarely more then 6 "large" enimies. However, the lower the group dmg the longer thos "small" enimies survive so basically it will feel worse to beginner groups. Also you often encounter large number of enimies in overland/solo content. E.g. Public Dungeons..... there it would just feel also and once again hurt the casual player more then the endgame user.
If it is supposed to address some PvP-related issue (balance, performance), please, at the very least, tie those changes to the battle spirit. But preferable consider other options like reduced damage per target hit or something. Just to keep the immersion alive and prevent tactics where "tanks" are basically able to body block damage.

So what are your opinions?
Let me know what you think and why (:

ForumBully · April 22

Generally opposed to AoE caps. Also opposed to giving too many skills and sets AoE components.

BahometZ · April 22

Just another awful change to the game, I can barely engage with this anymore.

Freelancer_ESO · April 23

My impression is that in most encounters most players will not have more than six targets that they can actually hit with their abilities.

I goofed off for a bit in the new Public Dungeon including the Group Event using Sap Essence which will count the number of enemies hit up to six and I rarely hit six for very long without deliberately positioning myself to do so and as such I think hitting more than six enemies is likely not a terribly common occurrence in most content.

Erickson9610 · April 23

The target cap was what made PvP fair during Vengeance. You didn't do cleave damage to every enemy who stormed in the gates, nor did you heal every ally stacked together. Target caps are frustrating, but I think they're good for the health of the game — especially for improving server performance.

Stx · April 23

I actually am okay with target caps on spammables like jabs but on dedicated aoe skills there should be no caps.

I also think the way jabs works on live is fine. Reduced damage in aoe. I think silver shards has a similar mechanic.

Joy_Division · April 23

Erickson9610 wrote: »

The target cap was what made PvP fair during Vengeance. You didn't do cleave damage to every enemy who stormed in the gates, nor did you heal every ally stacked together. Target caps are frustrating, but I think they're good for the health of the game — especially for improving server performance.

Except it doesn't improve server performance; it makes it worse as admitted on ESO Live by ZOS.

They are just a contrived and artificial mechanic that breaks immersion and makes zerging even stronger.

Marto · April 23

No group should be able to kill large groups of enemies with so much ease.

There are very fights in the game that are above 6 targets, and those are clearly intended to be a challenge and a "puzzle" to solve with positioning, resource management, and patience.

SwimsWithMemes · April 23

It's being done to simplify game engine calculations, I think.

I would prefer to see diminishing damage beyond the first 6. E.g., 100% first 6, 66% 7-12, 50% 12+ enemy

the1andonlyskwex · April 23

Most skills were already capped years ago. Capping these two seems only fair.

Trejgon · April 23

Personally I am surprised it took them this long to cap those. As for what the change was supposed to address:

I think most likely - server load of using those abilities in crowded areas. That's about the reason such caps are being introduced in mmos in the first place everytime I saw devs actually state the reasoning to the public.

Urzigurumash · April 23

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Most skills were already capped years ago. Capping these two seems only fair.

Weren't they all removed years ago? My memory says they only generally existed from like 2016 to 18.

I oppose them in PvP outside of limited applications.

i11ionward · April 23

The presence of a target cap for AoE abilities is standard practice in almost any MMORPG (and not only there). It serves to limit the power of abilities so that the damage-to-resource ratio doesn't reach unreasonable levels. As far as I know, the cap for most simple abilities is already six targets, so this change doesn't actually make any significant difference—except for the Arcanist's beam.

xylena_lazarow · April 23

At least where PvP is concerned, you need to uncap damage AoE so that smaller groups can threaten bigger ones, but you need to severely cap defensive AoE otherwise stacked healers make groups or zergs unkillable.

MashmalloMan · April 24

Target cap is a good way to balance these 2 skills that do single target level DPS, but in aoe... But yeah it feels bad when you hit for nothing despite aiming at enemies.

They should go for a soft cap instead. 1st 6 enemies take full AOE damage, 7+ take like.. 10-20%. Problem solved imo.

Performance? How many abilities do we stack that tick once a second with no cap, the difference in rare scenarios where there are 7+ enemies must be so negligible. I'd take 0.1% less fps in the name of better game design.

Treeshka · April 24

Target cap does not really make any sense for jabs or beam.

Zyaneth_Bal · April 24

Imo a target cap on abilities that you intuitively expect to hit all targets feels plain bad and wrong. If those skills are too strong then nerf damage or something, anything but this.

Aoe skills are supposed to do less single target dps

Dino-Jr · April 24

It feels terrible. I would prefer they let the abilities in question do smaller amounts of damage to
enemies beyond 6. Even if its a very small near irrelevant amount it will feel better for gameplay than 0 dmg and less awkward then seeing a health bar that randomly doesnt change at all when ‘hit’

ExoY · April 24

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

Imo a target cap on abilities that you intuitively expect to hit all targets feels plain bad and wrong. If those skills are too strong then nerf damage or something, anything but this.

Aoe skills are supposed to do less single target dps

I completely agree.
It is weird, that multi target skills are also the best single target option in many cases.

Ideally it should be, that single target skills do noticeably more dmg on one target.
This would also be a nice option to add identity to different multi target skills.

E.g. have some multi target skills be very good against 2 or 3 enemies but not really scale for even more enemies.
Whereas another skill really just hits it sweetspot with 4+ enemies. This way you really have to consider what skills you want to run for which encounter, which would make this a lot more interesting.

I can imagine, that PvP is a driving factor for not having single target skills that are noticable stronger against just one opponent to prevent to bursty setups...... so maybe include something in the battle spirit to adjust for that.

@ZOS_Kevin is it possible to get any information as to why those target caps were introduced?

randconfig · April 25

Target caps make server performance better, and reduce the insane power of arcanist beam, so I'm in favor of them.

Shagreth · April 25

AoE caps are terrible game design. It has been proven multiple times in other games, but as always, ZOS is a little behind when it comes to designing games. Instead of properly modernizing the game and how the combat feels, they introduce this kind of ***. Just when I thought I should come back to the game, I see this kind of ***—perhaps I shouldn't have.

@ZOS_Kevin Please listen to our feedback, there's nothing worse than using an AoE ability that should be hitting everything it goes through and seeing zero damage, that's just straight up denying our perception.

YandereGirlfriend · April 25

This is genuinely one of the worst ideas that I have seen proposed in a LONG time.

Offensive target caps were already done in the game's early days and they were widely hated and rightly tossed into the garbage as a failed mechanic. So why that zombie idea is rising from the grave again is a true mystery.

The day that offensive target caps come back is the day that ESO ceases being ESO.

Shagreth · April 26

randconfig wrote: »

Target caps make server performance better, and reduce the insane power of arcanist beam, so I'm in favor of them.

That's a very odd (and specific) thing to say as a player.

Trejgon · April 26

Shagreth wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

Target caps make server performance better, and reduce the insane power of arcanist beam, so I'm in favor of them.

That's a very odd (and specific) thing to say as a player.

Because MMO player may not wish for less lag in their MMO

Shagreth · April 26

Trejgon wrote: »

Because MMO player may not wish for less lag in their MMO

Unless the servers are made of paper, I can't see how in the very few instances where an Arcanist (or several) would face 6 or more enemies packed and fired a beam.. the server itself would lag more. This is a ridiculous argument, these are not Ultima online servers.

This is simply a bad way of reducing the performance of Arcanists. They could make it so that dmg gets reduced when hitting more than 6 targets.

randconfig · April 26

Shagreth wrote: »

Trejgon wrote: »

Because MMO player may not wish for less lag in their MMO

Unless the servers are made of paper, I can't see how in the very few instances where an Arcanist (or several) would face 6 or more enemies packed and fired a beam.. the server itself would lag more. This is a ridiculous argument, these are not Ultima online servers.

This is simply a bad way of reducing the performance of Arcanists. They could make it so that dmg gets reduced when hitting more than 6 targets.

Ask ChatGPT to explain to you Big O Notation and how having AoE abilities with unlimited target caps would impact server performance.

Shagreth · April 26

randconfig wrote: »

Ask ChatGPT to explain to you Big O Notation and how having AoE abilities with unlimited target caps would impact server performance.

I am aware of this—at least partially. Realistically, wouldn’t this only affect a place like Cyrodiil? Hell, probably not even that, nowadays, the servers are so damn empty (EU). I think it would be hyperbole to assume that ever since Arcanists came into play, the servers started lagging more. They’ve always been lagging. Damage falloff is still the way.

Zyaneth_Bal · April 26

randconfig wrote: »

Target caps make server performance better, and reduce the insane power of arcanist beam, so I'm in favor of them.

It’s power should be reduced by straight up lowering the damage. Aoe skills are supposed to deal less damage than st but for some reason zos insist that aoe skills keep up with st skills in terms of st damage. It’s supposed to be a choice, otherwise there’s no benefit to using single target skills if you can use aoe to deal the same damage but to multiple enemies. The way zos do this is odd to say the least.

It’s like they are afraid of some classes falling behind in terms of st damage. It’s strange how they only consider st when aoe damage is already very valuable on its own.
There’s nothing wrong with classes having different strong and weak sides like st and aoe damage, it’s how it is supposed to be. Not to mention that classes are gone anyway and it’s possible to easily shift the focus of the build

Joy_Division · April 26

randconfig wrote: »

Shagreth wrote: »

Trejgon wrote: »

Because MMO player may not wish for less lag in their MMO

Unless the servers are made of paper, I can't see how in the very few instances where an Arcanist (or several) would face 6 or more enemies packed and fired a beam.. the server itself would lag more. This is a ridiculous argument, these are not Ultima online servers.

This is simply a bad way of reducing the performance of Arcanists. They could make it so that dmg gets reduced when hitting more than 6 targets.

Ask ChatGPT to explain to you Big O Notation and how having AoE abilities with unlimited target caps would impact server performance.

The devs admitted years ago on Live that AoE caps negatively affect performance.

Avran_Sylt · April 26

I'm in favor of target caps for AoE abilities that try to be competitive with single-target damage.

As otherwise they're not only competitive, yet also resource efficient the more and more enemies you manage to pull into a single damage instance.

However... A cap may not be the best approach to this, and perhaps diminishing damage for additional targets would be a better approach to a given minimum.

And, for certain skills that are not trying to compete with single-target damage, I don't think that a skill should have a target cap.

YandereGirlfriend · April 26

AOE caps of any nature categorically do not belong in the game.

When you swing a sword and hit something you expect it to deal damage. Nobody is out here trying to relive Morrowind where dealing damage is obfuscated behind dice rolls or similar nonsense.

If there is a tuning issue between AOE and single-target then solve it with a tuning solution. There is no need whatsoever to upend the core mechanics of the game.

The Elder Scrolls Online

Opinion on Target-Cap

Opinion on Target-Cap 91 votes