Q&A with Eric Wrobel on ESO Live

cote-bmsb16_ESO

I want to kill city guards. Why can't we kill guards? Please make it happen

Tanis-Stormbinder

Pancake-Tragedy ✭✭✭
February 11
Can sorcerers get a ranged instant-cast single-target class ability (that isn't an execute) so that we don't have to rely on weapon skills for dps?

This Please^^

Gargragrond

The new inflated numbers look ugly, they are harder to read and slower to process. The negative sides far outweigh the marginal extra precision they provide. Can you please strip the last digit of every number displayed in the UI.

EsORising

First ...how will console players communicate with each other? I know they can use the mic in party chat but what about guild chat? or shy guys that don't want to use their mic? or what about local/zone/trade chat? Is it just going to be a empty chat window? How about some voice to text tech that would work wouldnt it?

Second..Kudo's to the guy that asked if we can have more than 5 slots; I'm sure thats a change a lot of other people want too. Maybe +2 slots for - weapon swap as an option for some players? Then we can have pure archer or class builds, would be an interesting new element. For everyone that likes that you should click awesome on his post.

Third..there is always a third.

Velcon

Magicka Detonation should change a little to become a zerg buster. The damage is too low against a zerg. I think it should be damage is increased by x% based on how many enemy players are within the radius of the blast. The way it is atm the damage can easily be healed

Lettigall

Is there a chance that Templar skill Puncturing Strikes will be changed before update 6 goes live? Giving CC immunity to this skill didn't balance it, but instead made it worthless. Skill which isn't used for it CC effect now disables not only your main CC skill but also your teammates CC skills.

Digiman

What is with the changes to sorcerers, cloth armor and destruction staff skill line? Are you forcing the class skills into becoming shield stacking pet users? That literally takes 4 ability slots to keep pets up on each ability bar?

So far Sorcerers are looking extremely bleak, should they reroll or are we forced use non sorcerer skills to be fun?

AriBoh

Lettigall wrote: »

Is there a chance that Templar skill Puncturing Strikes will be changed before update 6 goes live? Giving CC immunity to this skill didn't balance it, but instead made it worthless. Skill which isn't used for it CC effect now disables not only your main CC skill but also your teammates CC skills.

Also is the GCD on focused charge really necessary?

Sublime

Right now there is no way to tell how many CSPoints a player has spent by looking at this HP bar. While this is not really important for PvE, it is incredibly important for PvP.

As an example, if you see somebody running around with 24k HP it could either be somebody with very few CSP and a medium-glass-cannon build that is aiming for sustain, or somebody with a lot of CSP spent and an extremely glassy build that is going to unleash tons of damage at you.

TL;DR
Do you have something in mind to indicate the amount of CSP spent, similar to the AvA ranks?

likewow777

I read through all the comments and only really saw two Templar related topics, so I want to echo a couple points.

Lettigall wrote: »

Is there a chance that Templar skill Puncturing Strikes will be changed before update 6 goes live? Giving CC immunity to this skill didn't balance it, but instead made it worthless. Skill which isn't used for it CC effect now disables not only your main CC skill but also your teammates CC skills.

This^

darkknightfkb16_ESO wrote: »

Also is the GCD on focused charge really necessary?

And This^

Plus, Restoring Aura is now almost completely useless. There must be a way to at least give the caster an extra boost, similar to what's on Live. Whether I'm tanking or healing, when I activate Aura or BoL or anything else to keep me going, I do so knowing my group members are getting some of it too. To me, Templars are supposed to help the entire group, and by killing skills, especially healing skills, you hurt not only us but who we play with as well.

jopeymonster

Templar concerns 1.6, Post #1

Eric,

Puncturing Strikes/morph
Please explain the justification for the changes on Puncturing Strikes/morphs. The reduction to the critical bonus of the morph, on top of the CC immunity, make this skill underwhelming. We understand the the need to reduce cheap CC stun locks, but a different solution should be implemented. Having this skill put a cc immunity on the target, regardless if they block or not, is severely crippling the capability and desire for Templar PvP. They become liable for providing a no-cost break free to opponents during battles (which can be abused and exploited), and given the fast pace of 1.6 PvP combat, this can decide the outcome of a fight, rather then just cause a momentary advantage or disadvantage.

This is further discussed, with some good alternative suggestions at the thread below:
forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/151342/templar-puncturing-strikes-and-morphs-evaluation-based-on-pts-testing

Focused Charge/morphs

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Slightly reduced the post-global cooldown for this ability, making it feel more responsive.

Please remove the GCD completely. The travel time and animation are the GCD and having additional time added merely cause bugs and ruins the viability of using this as any opener or in combination with other skills. Many Templars have already been using S/S or 2hand charges skill in lieu of this, which basically means this is a never used skilled. After the most recent Crit Surge Sorc QQ, it should probably be obvious that players do not like added GCDs, and it's funny that this issue has been "fixed" for Sorcs, more so then Charge.

Here's a good discussion thread for this skill:
forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/151486/templar-focused-charge

Restoring Aura

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Restoring Aura now grants you the buffs Minor Fortitude, Minor Intellect, and Minor Endurance when the ability is slotted into the ability bar. When the ability is activated, it provides Major Fortitude and Major Endurance.

Another nerf that should not have been implemented. I want to believe this was to try and bring this ability in line with the new buff system, yet the given benefits of this ability are now subpar for dps stamina builds, which relied on it highly. This would be the equivalent of taking Dragon Blood and making it a 6 sec ability, instead of 23 secs. The solution of just taking Repentance over Restoring Aura is not truly a solution, and like many of the Templar abilities, causes the entire class to conform to cookie cutter builds that have no growing or staying power.

If ZOS is intent on not redesigning this skill to be competitive with similar skills, the duration of this skill needs to be doubled, at least, to bring it up to standard.

Morphs - changing to Stamina or Magicka

timidobserver wrote: »

Question 2: Rather than changing certain class skill morphs over to stamina, have you considered simply making certain morphs into "universal" morphs that scale to your best stats like ultimates? That way, the morphs maintain usefulness to magicka builds while also gaining usefulness to stamina builds.

Since this questioned was asked, I'll just post it here as another recommendation. I would like to see that skills are given the option, at morph selection to be either Stamina or Magicka morph. This gives players full control to truly play as they want, and it allows every player to decided what situation they can use the skill in. Many times, certain aspects of a morph are beneficial to a build, but due to scaling, it becomes limited and many times, unused. It is understandable if programming restrains limit this, but the skills that are open to stamina morph are limited at best, and sometimes too situational (or broken, see Puncturing Strikes above) to be used effectively.

Resto Skill Tree in General

You would believe that Templar's should serve as the de facto healers in this game per this tree, but would you believe that any Templar healer would only be using Rushed Ceremony/morphs. Even the Ultimate in this line is a waste of space. Cleansing Ritual/morphs sees it's use, especially in PvP, but not as often as you would think, given its capability. And this is more of a indication that there are too many healing abilities that do the same thing (i-cant-click-names-aoe-durdur). Even with the increase to Healing Ritual, why would I use it (something that locks my actions and has limited range) over Healing Springs (instant cast, stackable, low cost)? 99% of the time, I wouldn't. And that 1% is likely because the group is either doing so well that I can faceroll the heals, or I forgot to equip a healing staff. Rune Focus, even though I feel it has untapped potential, would still be situational, but effective. So, to summarize, Restoring Light has always only had 4 useful in any situational skills (and always had a very subpar ultimate), and now with 1.6.2, you can count the useful skills down to 2, maybe 3, if you can find a reason to slot Rune Focus in PvP, or Cleansing Ritual in PvE.


Thanks for reading, even if you didn't.

-J

Fruity_Ninja

Hi Eric

Enjoying playing PTS so far. It's like learning the game all over again!

Questions regarding Dark Exchange- the sorcerer self heal. It has great potential to give the class a proper self heals but why the vulnerability? Is there no way to make it more instant? Or to at least allow us to defend ourself whilst healing?

As it stands, it is great to regen during downtime, but using it mid-combat is a dangerous proposition.

Yusuf

Will you implement "blank" costumes in the crown-store to "save" the current look your character has, which in turn can be equipped as a costume?
Some of the best costumes in the game are still in one's inventory instead of the UI but since you can steal normal clothing-items in 1.6 that include the styles of those costumes but are also dyable it would be possible to have an even better version of one's favorite costume.

Also, would you please think about a collections-UI for all the trophies and maybe treasure-maps that a character possesses?

evedgebah

Could you please discuss the new damage and mitigation formulas and the reason for changing them instead of adjusting other values?

Without Truncation:
( ARMOR - ARMOR ÷ 50 ) ÷ 630* = Mitigation %
*630 is for VR 14
(ABILITY + POWER × 10.46) × COEFFICIENT

Why does the system seem to not use whole numbers in many places if you're already involving truncation in many instances?

Having looked through the new scaling coefficients for skills, it seems that there is not an even distribution of DPS abilities across the various classes. Was this intentional? Can you describe the internal process used to balance each class' ability to perform the DPS role prior to PTS release for player testing? We'd like to understand your process so we can better provide feedback.

DDuke

Not directly combat related, but from what I've understood Eric works on itemization as well.

Trials Gear

• Why was it nerfed?
• Intentional? Not intentional?
• How are you going to make the most difficult content in game worth playing, and compensate the people who spent hundreds of hours grinding those sets?

This seems like a very bad move in a moment when there is no new end game content on the horizon, and people need something to do during the next 6+(?) months.

david.haypreub18_ESO

Hi Eric,

Two Questions:

1. Can you please explain why the developers feel the Templar charge (Focused Charge) needs a Global Cool Down? Very few skills in the game have one, and the Templar charge does not seem to be substantially better than the charge one can get from the 1HS and 2H lines (neither of which have a cool down). In a recent poll I posted, the Templars overwhelmingly feel the charge has not been fixed.

2. Is it possible to just remove the CC from Templar's Puncturing Strikes? The recent change to make the skill grant CC immunity is more than a nerf; it doesn't just reduce the value of the skill, it actively works against it. The majority of Templars on the boards seem to prefer not having the CC, since it is so short and grants immunity that it actually seems counterproductive.

Hookgrin

Sacadon wrote: »

What did ZOS learn from the recent PvP event with us (aka: lag/crash fest), the next steps to resolve and ETA on when we can expect to see the changes?

^This. I added "/crash".

spoqster

Have you considered removing the skill damage value dependence on stamina/magicka? And what is the reason for having this in the first place?

I always liked the original split of class abilities costing magicka and utilities costing stamina, and have been mostly running hybrid builds. However, if you are maximizing dps you can't afford that, so I understand the motivation to make some weapon/class skills available to both stam and magicka min/maxers.

Taking out the damage dependence on max stat values may make the need for stat switch morphs obsolete and will at the same time provide a bit more choice between food and drink buffs.

duncan_cougarpreeb18_ESO

derpsticks wrote: »

I ask because I have a strong hunch that certain skills, when activated, may be the root cause of a large majority of lag in this game or at least the feeling of lag.

I've especially noticed this with respect to the guard skills in both pvp and justice systems. When they use a skill everything seems to hiccup, sometimes a little sometimes a lot.

That guard would cause massive lag spikes was obvious the instant it was first shown on ESO Live in December.

Seriously stupid idea to implement such a lag generator in a game already struggling with bugs (well they removed some torch bugs from PvP, so there are now 1% less bugs in the game or so ...)

Turelus

Have you considered enabling player collisions in Cyrodiil between rival factions.

Meaning tactics like shield walls blocking breaches would be plausible.

LtCrunch

Turelus wrote: »

Have you considered enabling player collisions in Cyrodiil between rival factions.

Meaning tactics like shield walls blocking breaches would be plausible.

Cool idea but I have a feeling this would just make the lag much, much worse.

TheBull

NB Skill Agony - It cannot be used against blocking, riding, stunned, knocked or down. Basically any target that is doing anything but standing there the NB just does the cast animation over an over. Please make this function more like Petrify and Rune Prison.

#FixCloak - Charges and ranged attacks on PTS still break cloak.

likewow777

calyddon wrote: »

likewow777 wrote: »

calyddon wrote: »

kostuums en en huisdieren staan nu bij de verzamelobjecten en nemen geen ruimte meer in in je bank of rugzak. maar de trofeeën nemen nog wel ruimte in mijn bank/rugzak, dat in mijn ogen ook een verzamelobjecten is zou dat nog kunnen worde verandert zodat dat ook tussen de verzamelobjecten staat

Here's the translation of our Dutch friend's comment for the English speakers, courtesy of Google translate. I don't know if its totally accurate but it seems to make sense to me.

"costumes and pets and are now in the collectibles and take no more space in your bank or backpack. but the trophies still take space in my bank / backpack, which is also a collectibles in my eyes could that still may be changed so that stands between the collectibles"

oops sorry I select the wrong text with cut and paste

Its no problem!

RoamingRiverElk

It has been stated that ESO wants to support small group play in the Alliance War. However, the trend is going towards zerging in PvP.

- The upcoming fixed rate of ultimate gain means that numbers will prevail - it used to be that you were dynamically rewarded for achieving things by being able to activate an ultimate more often.
- DK Talons still have an AOE cap that is nowhere close to 60.
- Magicka Detonation does not do enough damage to zergs (make it do more damage the more players it affects!).
- Siege weapon damage is easily purged by one person spamming the skill for 24 people.

How do you plan to make small group play more viable (besides ganking stragglers), and zerging less viable in the future?

Kragorn

I don't expect an answer, but if I don't ask ...

"You said at the start of this exercise you were intending to boost weak skills and not intending to do much nerfing .. 1.6 is one huge bunch of nerfs to many skill lines and there are precious few buffs of any significance.

So what happened to make you do the total opposite of what you said you were going to do?"

Ghostnight013

Hi thanks for answering this, hopefully! ;-)

Any plans on balancing jewelry enchants, currently in 1.6 the cost reduce enchants are worth 200 cost reduction while stam/mag recovery are only 52. Recovery only works every 2 seconds, which means for a recovery enchant to be equivalent to a cost reduce you would have to only be casting a spell every 8 seconds which means cost reduce is really the only viable choice.

On live, the cost reduce and recovery enchants were at least a bit closer together, there the recovery enchants were equal on anything with a 2 second cast time and better beyond that. Since most spells are less than 2 second cast for fights cost was better but between recovery was better. In 1.6 cost is always better.

Jitterbug

If Stiffler is the only one being interviewed who will he interrupt the whole time? :P

angelyn

I posted this on the ask us anything in error. So here it is:

I read somewhere that secondary effects from skills would be capped at 6 targets. Is this true?If it is true then I have some further questions:

Why did Crit Surge get a cooldown put in on a secondary effect?

Was it intentional to reduce the functionality twice over by having both a cooldown and a cap on a secondary effect?

And are there any other skills in the game which have both a cooldown and a cap on their secondary effect?

Faulgor

1) Light armor has suffered quite a bit in Update 6 with its reduced resistance ratings. This is in itself is fine, and serves to distinguish the different armor types from each other, but Light Armor has gotten not much in return for its offense - a Glass Cannon only makes sense when it's actually a Cannon.

Have you considered adding effects like increased Spell Power to Light Armor passives, similar to how Medium Armor grants additional Weapon Power?

2) Currently, Duel-Wielding has the most weapon and spell damage, closely followed by Two-Handed Weapons. This creates the strange situation where magical spells are stronger with a greatsword or two maces than a staff.

Have you considered adjusting staff damages so they provide more spell power than melee weapons, but less weapon power?

Also, what is the reasoning behind giving bows the same weapon damage as one-handed weapons?

Muizer

Don't know if this is an appropriate question, but we'll see.

In version1.5, "reduce feature cost" and "stamina regeneration" on jewelry were closely balanced, with the better choice being dependent on actually occurring situations.

With the proposed changes favouring "reduce feature cost" by a factor 2-3, aren't you concerned you've made the "stamina regeneration" obsolete?