Update 6 Testing Suggestions and Feedback Wanted

ZOS_GinaBruno

With Update 6 being our largest update yet, we wanted to provide some suggestions on where to focus your testing, and some specific feedback we’re looking to gather that would help us the most. Thanks in advance!

TESTING SUGGESTIONS

• Play through a Trial, Dragonstar Arena, or hop in Cyrodiil and try out the new abilities and game balance. Be sure to also pay attention to the new combat animations while you play.
• Use your copied character from the Live megaserver or use a character template to play around with the new Champion System and allocate different points.
• Stream or record your group playing through some Trials and Delves, and let us know so we can watch!
• Check out the new, larger delves in Glenumbra, Stonefalls, and Auridon.
• Preview the polished version of Redguard and Orc armor.
• Pretend that you’re a new player that’s never seen ESO before, and run through the new tutorial. Make believe is fun!
• Start at the beginning of the Provisioning skill line and level up to explore the new changes.
• Participate in our scheduled in-game events on the PTS, like running a Trial or battling in Cyrodiil!

FEEDBACK WANTED

Justice System

• Did being able to commit crimes add to your level of enjoyment?
• What was the most and least satisfying thing about the Justice system?
• Did the Legerdemain skill line feel appropriately rewarding for the activity?
• Was the Justice system clear in what you could and could not do? If not, what was not readily apparent?
• Were other players that were participating in the Justice system disruptive to your experience in a city? Did you feel being able to kill NPCs disrupted your own enjoyment of the city environment?
• How much gold are you averaging in total after an hour of Justice activities?
• Which Justice activities seem to be the most and least profitable and effective?
• Did you find murder and/or theft to be justly punitive?
• How clear is the process to fence a stolen item, and how you use the system for profit?
• Is it clear when you are and are not being witnessed committing a crime?
• Are the mechanics of pickpocketing clear?
• Are the bounty UI elements clear?
• Is the recourse for paying your bounty when you are kill on sight and finding a fence clear?
• How was the cadence of skill advancement?
• Were the legerdemain skills desirable and effective?
• Were you able to find Outlaws Refuges when needed?
• Was it easy to distinguish between selling and laundering stolen items?
• Were other players able to hinder your ability to profit from Justice activities?

Champion System

• Do you feel choices and what you focus on are more important?
• How fast are you gaining champion points per hour and/or per day? Does this cadence feel good?
• How is the overall difficulty compared to what’s currently on the Live megaservers?
• Are there things in the system that you are looking forward to?
• Was there anything not worth spending points in?
• How does light, medium, and heavy armor feel now in terms of balance?
• How does enlightenment feel?
• Is the UI easy to navigate?
• Is the UI missing anything that you need? Are you missing critical UI elements while in the Champion UI window?
• Is regular PvE content more difficult?
• How do dungeons (both regular and Veteran) and Trials feel compared to what’s currently on the live megaservers?
• Can you still complete Trial runs?
• Is it fun to spend Champion Points on non-veteran characters?

Gameplay and Abilities

• Do you like the new abilities, specifically the new class and AvA abilities?
• Do you like the new buff/debuff system?
• Do you think there too many synergies on the screen? Do they feel more useful/powerful?
• Are the synergies more exciting to use now? Do you think there are too many/not enough synergy prompts available?
• How do you feel about the revised AOE caps and new ultimate generation?
• Now that the meatbag catapults no longer stack with other healing debuffs, do they still feel too powerful?

Game Re-balance

• How do Trials and dungeons feel with and without the use of Champion Points?
• How does overall balance feel in instanced areas, especially in Dragonstar Arena?
• How does regular PvE content feel with and without the use of Champion Points?

New Combat Animations

• How does combat in general feel overall?
• Does combat feel more responsive?

Provisioning

• How does the new system feel overall?
• Does the system make more sense?
• If you’re using a copied character from the Live megaserver, did you find the transition to the new system relatively painless?
• Are all items from previous provisioning accounted for in your inventory?
• Did you feel the provisioning revamp has significantly impacted your inventory?
• How do you feel about the new recipes?
• How do you feel about the new paradigm for how food and drink, plus their subcategories, are broken down?
• If you obtained ingredients from critters, how did it feel?
• How does brewing compare to what you experienced to the live game in terms of benefit?
• Can you still rank up in provisioning with the Justice System?
• Did you feel you needed to steal in order to be an effective provisioner?
• Were you able to reasonably find recipes?
• How was your experience with crafting writs, if you performed any?

Crown Store

• What do you think about the offered mounts, pets, costumes, polymorphs and consumables?
• Did you notice any of the items broken in any way?
• How does the feel and flow while using the store feel?
• What are some things you’d like to see in the store? Is there anything you’d never want to see?
• Did your existing pets convert correctly in the new collections UI?

New Tutorial in Coldharbour

• How does the new tutorial feel? Do you feel like you’re learning more?
• Did you come out of the tutorial with a character that can perform well in the game world? Did you feel you had enough armor, a high enough level, and proper knowledge?
• How do new systems like Champion Points and Provisioning feel with a new character going through the tutorial?
• Does the new tutorial perform well? Did you notice any lag?

Armor Set Polish

• What did you think of the new Redguard and Orc armor?
• Did the update keep the spirit of the armor?
• Were there any old pieces that you miss?

CaptnCreamsicle

I'm going to be "that guy" and post a beef before the patch has even finished downloading. I think that part of the morph to the clanfear should be a taunt regardless. It just seems right. I would certainly pay a bit more attention to the charging dinosaur then the dude in a dress. (I play a male sorc) What use is the added health for the summon if all the agro is still on the caster?

Maybe I'm not understanding the way the changes will work.

LtCrunch

There are some highly questionable changes in the patch notes regarding each class.

Dragonknight

• The damage shield granted from Ferocious Leap makes Magma Armor seem redundant and seems awfully powerful for such a low cost ultimate ability.
• Increasing the cost of Dragonknight Standard and Standard of might to 250 but maintaining the cost of Shifting Standard seems completely backwards. Shifting Standard is effectively a double duration Dragonknight Standard and it's going to cost less? C'mon ZOS.
• No stamina morph for Lava Whip seems quite odd to me when considering they added a stamina morph for both Searing Strike and Fiery Breath.
• Not reducing the cost of Stonefist is highly questionable considering it's a pretty terrible ability for it's cost.

Sorcerer

• Increasing the damage dealt for the Winged Twilight is great, but this thing needs a health boost not a health reduction. EIther that or remove the cast time and make it instant like the familiar.
• Making bosses and monsters with boss immunities immune to damage from Daedric Mines for one second is highly irregular. I understand the root not taking effect but that makes this ability very unattractive for difficult PVE content of any kind.
• Adding a one second cooldown to the healing of critical surge takes away the classes only consistently reliable way of self-healing in combat. Instead of giving it a cooldown just reduce the amount of critical damage it heals for instead.
• If Critical Surge is not going to buff your spell power and weapon power then the base ability needs to have a lesser form of the healing effect from critical Surge which also applies to Power Surge.

Nightblade

• Overall I think the class is going to be in a great place with update 6.
• The cast time for Agony should really just be removed. Increasing the duration of the CC effect does not make it more attractive in any situation really. Barring that the ability should be removed and reworked into something new like Haste or Blinding Flashes were.
• Why is Shadowy Disguise 10% cheaper than the base ability? It makes it a more versatile and potent ability, if anything it should cost slightly more.

Templar

• There are several great changes to the Templar in update 6 and I think they'll be the best they've ever been with update 6!
• Nova really needs to have a reduced cost. Even with the small changes/buffs it's not worth the cost when comparing to Dragonkight Standard. I think another look at the effectiveness of Nova vs. it's cost needs to be done. If nothing else increase it's duration to be more in line with Veil of Blades of Standard.
• Even with the changes to Eclipse morphs it's not going to be a very attractive ability. It should not be CC breakable, this makes it nothing but a tool to drain enemy stamina in PVP. The self-healing from Total Dark is nice in theory until you realize Templar already has a massive amount of self-healing options.
• Honor The Dead needs a rework, a portion of the 60% spell cost return should happen immediately when healing a low health ally with the rest returning over time.
• How has Healing Ritual not been touched? It's largely considered one of the worst healing abilities in the game due to it's cast time even when considering the Ritual of Rebirth morph.
• Restoring Aura is much worse off now then it was pre-update 6. If you give the Radiant Aura morph a Major Intellect buff as well when activated and it will work out well.

imakescribbles

I plan on spending more time on the PTS later, but before I head out for the day I wanted to give some initial feedback from my looting/killing spree. Having unbeatable guards and guards that can see you from a good distance away is fun. I can imagine getting to know where the Refuge entrances are and ducking into them if a patrol comes my way, but I also don't see the downside of just hiding in a house. On that same note, I don't see why I wouldn't just enter a house, kill everyone, and loot their stuff, as opposed to trying to sneak around them and then steal their things, since I can just stay in the house until my timer resets and then go outside. During my initial spree, I didn't notice any regular NPCs even caring that I walked by them while I was in kill-on-sight mode. It even seems like they should be able to call for guards while they're in houses, or something to make it more worthwhile to sneak around as opposed to killing all the time. I'll spend some more time with it and post back since I'm still getting the hang of all the new stuff.

OtarTheMad

So far Encase has a delayed reaction after you cast it.
Crown store is locked atm.

Shamul

Regarding Provisioning: I noticed the names of the recipes while you are cooking are "White" instead of green or purple. It would be good to have the text be the color of the recipe again. I see they are now sorted by elegance. Perhaps have the names color coded again. For example: the word "Gourmet" should be purple, Entremet should be blue. Also, my inventory was full before the patch and is still full so I don't think there was any change there. It appears to not have condensed.

OtarTheMad

I posted this in another thread but figured I'd try here as well. @ZOS_GinaBruno.

FYI ZOS. I went to Khenarthi's Roost and my character CANNOT leave it. I've tried using Wayshrines, the Boat, hitting L and going into a campaign. It locks me in an eternal loading screen. Also when I tried to go to Cyrodiil via hitting L it told me that it could not queue due to an internal error. I am repairing pts right now in hopes that it fixes it.

EDIT- Nope, my v 14 Sorc is still stuck in Khenarthi's Roost and CAN'T leave. I can travel within Khenarthi's Roost like from Mistrial to the other Wayshrines but not out of it. And my other 2 characters I want to test are stuck in Cyrodiil campaigns that aren't on PTS so I can't even log onto them.

TheKıngIsBack

Templar

Puncturing Strikes / Biting Jabs

The damage buff and cost reduction is very good. But i think this skill is become only viable in stamina builds. Stamina + Weapon power scaling ruining my Magicka DPS templar build at least make scaling from highest attribute( make stamina scaling optional for stamina builds) . I dont want either %60 dmg buff and/or %25 cost reduction. I just wanted to scale it from magicka + spell power.

slipm4t

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

New Tutorial in Coldharbour

• How does the new tutorial feel? Do you feel like you’re learning more?
  Pace was perfect, it was very clear as to what I was learning (or being taught), and what I was experiencing. Very good changes.
  
• Did you come out of the tutorial with a character that can perform well in the game world? Did you feel you had enough armor, a high enough level, and proper knowledge?
  This felt fine.
  
• Does the new tutorial perform well? Did you notice any lag?
  No lag, but two things that could/can be improved (timing or maybe lag): When guarding Lyrissa before she transfers to the prophet, when killing the enemies, they dissolve before they are done, it's an odd transfer. Secondly, the last boss before leaving with the Prophet, the game is teaching the "break-free" thing, I get the trigger to "break-free" prior to even knowing that I'm locked up. I think something more should trigger that learning exercise.

WebBull

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*] Do you like the new abilities, specifically the new class and AvA abilities?

Unless there is a dramatic increase in how AP is gained, is your objective to only cater to the top 5% of the players for this skill line? Level 24 is insanely high.

Helluin

Using different builds and sets of gear/weapons atm is possible, so both in Pve and in PvP you are able to change from a magicka to a stamina setup, from a role to another one, to support more your group or simply to change your playstile, just changing skills and equip.

With class skills based on magicka, spell dmg and some on weapon crit, others on spell crit this ability to switch on live servers is easily doable.
For example with a skill like Concealed Weapon/Surprise Attack a stamina build can have high critical chances but low damage or a magicka build can have low critical chances but high damage or an hybrid build have good critical chances and good damage.

With 1.6 instead if a morph is based on magicka or on stamina this is no more doable during group Pve and PvP (especially because of queues), a player infact is forced to go to a capital city and respec morphs and attributes.

The cost to respec morphs I hope will always be low as it is but it would be better be able to have a dual build in the meaning that out of combat you can swap not just gear, weapons and skills but also the morphs with a stamina or magicka option.

Because of this reason then imho it would be better add the chance to switch at least these morphs and attributes without going to a shrine or add a shrine also inside Cyrodiil.


This changement could be easier in another way: X class skills per class could be based or on stamina/weapon dmg&crit or on magicka/spell dmg&crit simply checking which is the highest stat and not in the way they are now on PTS.
Like Ultimates scales off the best stat, these morphs could do the same.
Thinking to hybrid builds, another option is to consider both stats using a different multiplier. This would help also hybrid builds with Ultimates and some specific skills.

imakescribbles

I took your suggestion and played through the tutorial again. I do like the improvements, and wouldn't mind playing through it again with new characters.

At first I wasn't sure what the blue border was supposed to signify, and I couldn't understand why my attacks weren't having an effect. I figured it out pretty quick though, so it wasn't a big deal. If I really were playing for the first time, maybe it wouldn't have been as confusing.

I like that you start with a two-handed weapon, and are forced to sneak at one point. Sneaking up on the sentinel was pretty cool because of its quick, jerky movements as it looked around. The first mage-related thing I came across was looting some chests and getting a resto staff. As someone who always plays a mage of some kind as my main, this was a little disappointing, but only a little because I tried out all sorts of new weapons as I looted them.

The one and two-handed axe/sword animations feel very natural. The staves, besides being different from each other, don't feel different from 1.5, but I also didn't have a problem with how they felt in 1.5. The storm atronach ultimate visuals feel much improved. It made me jump because I was expecting the old visuals, and I was already on edge because I'd just finished a killing spree and was running for my life.

I very much enjoyed starting a new character and already being able to customize it with champion points. Respeccing them is so cheap that it feels like less of a commitment than skill points do. With skill points, I usually do a little research before I spend because I don't want to pay the respec cost, but with CPs I can just go for it and experiment.

aco5712

Havent been into the PTS yet but the chain change. Making it pull you if it doesnt work for some reason. WHY? Chains is already hard enough to deal with when it doesnt work on flat ground for some opponents for whatever reason and now you have to make it a worse ability. Remove this reserve pull and give chains a bigger z-axis but just not enough to get into keeps.

Also, i do think the leap with the full health dmg shield is a bit much. Maybe 50% shield or something?

Ysne58

I turned the tutorial messages off. It took a bit to figure out that I needed to use interrupt in that second battle before it would really start. I was doing all sorts of things including looting containers while I was in that "pre-combat" stage. The fact that you have changed it up so much makes it interesting again. I haven't gotten to Auridon yet, so I don't know how the skill level will stack up. I'll report back later.

Leovolao

Remove the critical surge 1 second cooldown. Just cap the skill at a certain amount of targets and/or reduce the healing received.

Soulshine

Justice System:
question - NPCs will kill you on the spot if you heal them, whether intentional or not, or if you throw a heal (again, intentional or not...) at a fugitive player that is being attacked by said guard. Is this WAI?

As heals are aura based, it is not possible to always avoid healing random players running by or an NPC that decided to wander into my aura while I was testing a skill.

bob850

Justice System:

I deposited all my gold into my bank so the guards wouldn’t be able to withdraw gold when they killed me. All bankers now refuse to do business with me. I have been waiting for my Bounty to decay for more than an hour but Im still at Fugitive level. With no bank access to withdraw gold and Fugitive level not decaying, I can not clear my bounty.

Bounty: 55k

Cody

The zerg busting skill is underwhelming. People just heal thru it like it's nothing; it needs to do MUCH more damage than it does now. If it stays the way it is, zerg blobbing will never change

HippieTheGreat

Ok I've been playing with the new animations for a while here now. I love most of them, but the 2 handed weapon animations are just off. Sword, Axe, and Maul all look wrong. The weapons have no "weight" to them, it looks like they are swinging around a giant cardboard tube or a....lightsaber.

*edit* The bash animation for Sword and Shield is to fast. Once again, there is no weight to the shield its like you are swinging around a piece of paper.

Edit 2: Ok the animations on all the melee weapons is not good. Your character looks like it takes more effort to do the light attacks. They need more "power" added to them. This is beyond disappointing.

radiostar

I'm going to make a new char and go through the Prison and see how it's changed!

xaraan

Feedback so far:

Justice System -- Having a Heal over time going on someone and then they attack a citizen and you immediately turn into a criminal. -- I think there should be a middle ground here. You obviously don't want people healing the enemies with no repercussions, but this is a recipe for trolling IMO and a little extreme in most situations. I don't know if the cops shoot the paramedics if they try to help hurt criminals out there on the east coast, but there should probably be a buffer on healing before you turn criminal. -- judging from how powerful the guards are, a small heal won't help a criminal anyway.

which brings me to...

Justice System - guards. I didn't pick a fight, but I watched about fifty players get slaughtered by guards. It looked like noob non-vets fighting v14 emporers in cyrodiil it was so one sided. Seems like they are a bit too powerful. I mean, if they are that strong, why did I have to kill molag bal - go send a few of them. Or why am I fighting in Cyrodiil - again, just send a few of them in there to clean it up.

Animations --

Some of the new standing animations are nice! I like the resto staff and fire staff standing positions and the new crouch for stealth.

Nightblade animation -- BLUR, everytime you do anything when blur is active you have a chance to trigger the animation - shouldn't you only be dodging enemy attacks? Why am I making the dodging motion when I throw down my ultimate, or circle of protection or try to taunt?? Sometimes it's hard to tell when an attack triggered b/c the dodging animation goes off and you wonder if whatever you cast did or not. (This was one reason I liked blur (miss chance instead of dodge) before over evasion and a reason i quit using hist bark - this animation is horrible and needs work).

Nightblade animation -- SIPHON STRIKES -- this is the third or fourth time I've talked about this in as many patches. This has been a problem since you guys first did the weapon caching thing back around when you released armor dye patch. Problem - the glow from the power on the weapon stays after switching weapons. So, if you have a bow out and switch to dual wield, you see a big glowing bow shaped red streak hovering in front of your face and left hand where the bow was being held. When you switch back to bow, you know have two little glowing weapon effects on both hands instead of the bow. This happens on every weapon type - I've been between staves, sword/shield, daggers, bow, etc. It also happens on expert hunter, but since that isn't a toggle isn't as noticeable. Other players cannot see this, only the caster, it looks normal to everyone else (just like after weapon caching first came out and you couldn't see a newly equipped weapon in your hand, but other players could). Not the biggest deal in the world, but it's been unfixed long enough I think. Just change the power to show only glowing hands or something if you can't fix the weapon glow.

Provisioning -- I found it odd that tomatoes didn't become tomatoes in the new system, but they became a different rare ingredient, so I guess all is fair. Just weird.

Enchantments -- The enchantment to potion power increase changed to only give you an increase in how long the potion lasts and not in overall effectiveness. I didn't see this in notes (could have missed it), so should probably be in the notes if it's not.

Racial changes -- Thought I saw you say there were no racial changes, but there are. Argonian potion passive is different and a few others seems to have changes to the % of bonus.

Nightblade passive change -- CATALYST-- was changed and not in patch notes. Originally it 'increased potion effectiveness' (and was good) now it just gives you bonus ultimate after drinking a potion -- ok I guess, but not nearly as useful. Anyway - should be in notes it hasn't been added yet.

LOAD SCREENS - Getting extremely long loading screens when porting, whether walking through door with loading screen or traveling. Had to alt/f4 several times and relog.

CRITICALS -- Seems like crit on weapons took a pretty good hit, my crit dropped over 15% from live to pts with exact same setup gear and passive wise. Not sure if intentional, but seems like quite a bit of a drop.

GROUPING -- cannot invite players to group from guild list anymore. I saw that you cannot travel to players in your guild, only on your friends list now. But you should definitely be able to group with players in your guild and send invites from that list.

That's all I can recall for the short time I played tonight. Will post more as I test.

Sordidfairytale

All of the Ragout recipes appear to do double Stamina buff.

Grandmas Roast Rabbit:
Increase Max Health and Stamina by 3432 and Max STAMINA by 3120 for 1 Hour.

Grammy loves Stamina.

Not sure if the second Stamina buff is supposed to be Magicka, but Stamina is getting the second buff number.

16594 + food = 16594 (diff of 0)
11765 + food = 14880 (diff of 3115)
9406 + food = 12238 (diff of 2832)

Brizz

Unable to use cc break while in werewolf form. Werewolf form also does not receive cc immunity after being controlled (can shut them down indefinably)

ticket # 150128-000391

I will be CRUSHED if werewolf form goes live this broken.

Brizz

As a Nightblade, attacking a target with shields on does not proc siphoning attacks. This is also applying to the redguard racial (adrenaline rush)

Ticket # 150128-000406

DeathDealer19

I dont know if this counts as a bug but im playing on the PTS, and 400k XP to get 1 champion point is insane. Its WAY too much. I just spent one hour questing and barely got 55k XP. We were told we would earn CP at a rate of 1 per hour generally. At this rate it will take 5-6 hours. Not to mention, i have done 90% of quests already so i will have no chance to get 400k xp every day let alone every hour. There are no grinds that can even do that.

DeathDealer19

I love everything aside from stamina cost to block and 400k xp per CP. 400k is insane im not even halfway to my first unlocked CP and ive been on since 8pm EST

Komma

Justice System...

How is it we go to the enemy factions to kill and steal and come home to be attacked by our own guards? Who is passing the information to our guards about actions in enemy land? Please separate the three factions and turn us loose in the enemy cities!

LaerothKeykalyn

DeathDealer19

did I mention 400k XP is INSANELY high for 1 CP? has anyone else tried to get one yet? its hopeless. 1 hour of gameplay estimate was SO FAR OFF

Enodoc

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Check out the new, larger delves in Glenumbra, Stonefalls, and Auridon.

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌ is this the same three larger delves from Update 5, or are there more now? No delve updates are mentioned in the Patch Notes.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO

TheKıngIsBack wrote: »

Templar

Puncturing Strikes / Biting Jabs

The damage buff and cost reduction is very good. But i think this skill is become only viable in stamina builds. Stamina + Weapon power scaling ruining my Magicka DPS templar build at least make scaling from highest attribute( make stamina scaling optional for stamina builds) . I dont want either %60 dmg buff and/or %25 cost reduction. I just wanted to scale it from magicka + spell power.

then take the morph that does that... only one morph is stamina based the other magica. whats the problem