PvE Tanking Future. - DO NOT GET RID OF STAM REGEN WHILE BLOCKING IN PVE

eventide03b14a_ESO

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sausage wrote: »

Well, that was needed, currently tanks press block and suck all magicka and stamina in PVP from 10+ guys. Thats why DKs hated NBs fear so much and wanted it to be nerfed to make them even more powerful.

Thread is about PvE not PvP sure it's ruining PvP but then again, you are a tank built for taking damage, and having the resources to do so, not have them forcefully taken away, but anyway. This is going to fully impact PvE to a point where the content is going to be unbeatable and then they will have to change it. May as well change it now

Unbeatable maybe for you. Want me to teach you how to tank without hold down block the whole time?

eventide03b14a_ESO

Zeg0ta wrote: »

For endgame pve this is gonna suck. Tanking AA axes for example your taunting 3 sometimes 4 axes at a time it's very crucial that you can't run out of stam or drop block or you'll get one shot. Blocking cost a lot even with reduced block cost . This is really gonna turn tanks away from endgame pve. There has to be another way . Say for example reduce the amount of damage you do while blocking or if you wear a 5 piece heavy armor set you negate the no regeneration debuff.

Wards are going to be a lot more meaningful then. Maybe people will start using some of them. Instead of Templars just casting BOL maybe they will actually start using Ward Ally/Healing Ward? How about using Bone Shield and having the tank activate the synergy. This isn't the end of the world people. L2P.

SeptimusDova

Bugged I don't need your permission for anything.10424 latency is unacceptable.

BuggeX

SeptimusDova wrote: »

Bugged I don't need your permission for anything.10424 latency is unacceptable.

Just a Addon will show you the extended latency over 999, so how do you know the Addon is working properly?

Attorneyatlawl

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

No stamina regen while blocking will put a stop to the perma blockers. This is more directed toward PvP, but unfortunately will affect PvE as well.

How exactly do you expect people to tank in PvE now?

Blocking in PvE END GAME content is a must, there is a high use of stamina regen for tanking in PvE you can't just take that away, you will completely destroy the PvE content and cause a horrible uproar with this decision, I really hope ZOS that you are only having this affect PvP only as an effect in Cyrodill because there is no way a tank can take damage in Trials and plan certain bosses they will get one shot, there is no way you can tank in VDSA with everything eating your stamina and having no regen.

I hope those at ZOS have actually played trials before to understand this.

L2P? This game wasn't designed for perma blocking in mind. Seriously you are not supposed to block everything. There other defensive abilities other than right mouse click.

It's important to note that @Nifty2g plays with, by his accounts, extremely high latency (he related to me in-game rarely, if ever, having a ping of under 300, and usually higher) as to his feelings on the timing being difficult. With that sort of lag, I don't doubt it is, unfortunately.

Attorneyatlawl

BuggeX wrote: »

SeptimusDova wrote: »

Bugged I don't need your permission for anything.10424 latency is unacceptable.

Just a Addon will show you the extended latency over 999, so how do you know the Addon is working properly?

Look at the LUA and you'll see how simplistic it is: it takes the number from the game, and instead of truncating it like the default indicator does for readability purposes (because by the time your latency level is over a second, most people won't care if it's 5 versus 2 seconds), it simply shows the full value.

trimsic_ESO wrote: »

BuggeX wrote: »

trimsic_ESO wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Domander wrote: »

I'm very much looking forward to this change with block. Block should be something used strategically.

This. Time your blocks rather than tape down the key. Also confirmed with some tanks that run regularly that the Manti's autoattacks are indeed very slow on the swing timers and only will hit a proper tank build for 8-9k... it's just the specials (also a low swing speed) that hurt if you miss blocking, and those are as well-telegraphed as they look . Just like in PVP you should only be blocking selectively/timing when, anyways... that just shifts it to PVE as well. I think it's a fix, frankly, for both just as much as eachother.

People with a stamina build have access to a very limited set of defensive abilities to mitigate incoming damage. Most of what they can access to are part of the core game mechanics, such as blocking and dodging. There is almost no defensive weapon skills, thus requiring people who tank to use their class skills, which use magicka. This is the reason why so many DKs are tanking with 5 pieces of heavy and 2 LA, and use their stamina to mainly block and taunt. This is the reason why, in some extents you are right when you agree that blocking shall be used strategically: doing so does not impact them.

However, you should also consider the players with a stamina build. Remember, they have a limited access to defensive skills, because they can use only a limited amount of magicka. With the next update, blocking and dodging, their two main defensive skills will get nerf. This is a serious issue for the stamina players, and will push them to abandon their build and embrace a magicka build instead. Is this what we want? An Elder Magicka Online game? I don't because I wish a game with a great build diversity so that everybody can choose a build that corresponds to their play style.

There are so many Stamina based Skills to mitigate Dmg, well for DK this arent Class Skills, but public skills.

Absorb Magick, rly nice skill to heal urself
Vigor
rally if you want to use 2h for second bar
ring of preservation
bone shild
evasion

Vigor and rally do not mitigate damage; they heal over time, and are less effective than magicka heals. A PvP stamina player will probably have both; a PvE stamina player will hardly have any of them.

Absorb Magic is great. But single use, and only against magic projectiles. It's not as good the reflective scale, which is a DK class ability and therefore uses magicka.

The ring of protection is nice, and often used by tanks.

Bone shield lasts 6 seconds, costs a lot of stamina, and grants a protection against physical damage only, which in Elder Magicka Online is not the best option

Evasion is a flat 20% damage reduction in average, but we have no control over when it procs. If we're lucky it will proc on a crystal fragment, if we're not lucky it will proc on a light attack.

Best DK tank abilities according to the community:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/200565/best-dragon-knight-tank-abilities

All are class skill abilities, and therefore use ... magicka ...

No player in the game only has access to stamina, or only has access to magicka, skills. If the benchmark you're concerned with is simply, "Can people choose how to play?" then that isn't going to be changed when simply looking to complete areas like Trials. The practical impact of that question comes down to either making the content simple enough that most anything can clear it without issue, versus some moderation between there of making it so difficult that anything but a fully optimized and min-maxed build will fail to do so, and the choices becoming essentially singular other than player skill. At the moment, and mathematically at least from the changes hitting PTS today, that bar isn't shifting either way in the direction of one extreme or the other, nor is it near either one right now on the live servers.

Vigor is going down to Alliance War Skill Rank 5 to get in the next patch, and will effectively be available to everyone off the bat as a result.

Rally is a base weapon line skill, so it has nothing to do with whether you have ever stepped foot in Cyrodiil .

Dodge buffs are avoidance chances, not flat mitigation as you describe: regardless of how many hits are aimed at you, the chance is identical on every single one. It doesn't matter if you dodged a light attack a second prior; each one is an individual dice roll as to whether it will be dodged or not from the Evasion buff. A dodge percentage chance is completely and wholly unaffected by every other test before or after of its criteria such as this buff. It's the exact same thing as rolling a pair of dice in real life . Come up with a total of "four" three times in a row, and the next roll is just as likely to be a total of "four" as it was the other times.

I'd agree that in the context of PVE, Bone Shield isn't a great choice.

Circle of Protection/its morphs are, as you noted, pretty much standard issue.

And as far as skills that cost Magicka versus primarily being built as stamina... it's going to be a net gain for you to drop a hair of health, stamina, or other regeneration bonus between attributes/gear/champ to get reliable access to your off-resource pool. In a full-out stamina build, your magicka pool acts as utility, and being small, is wasted if you let it hit full. Leave it too small, however, and you'll run into the problem of not having much margin between full or empty, making it much tougher to make use of regularly. Likewise on a Magicka build, your stamina pool becomes the "utility" one instead of being shared with your main damage resource.

Regardless of your primary resource pool choice, the secondary pool still exists and is extremely valuable. The champion system combined with cost reduction glyphs can bring your secondary resource costs down significantly compared to using them towards your primary resource pool (ie light armor builds gain less out of the cost reductions used towards magicka from glyphs and the champion system due to how the formula works in applying the flat reductions prior to percentages (which then effectively lowers their cost reduction contribution by that percent)).

In a stamina build, for example, slapping on a magicka cost reduction glyph with a flat value of 200, along with a 20-point champion investment to spell cost reductions (6%) and using a light armor sash (belt slot) to get the undaunted bonus also provides a 3% one. If you're hitting a mitigation skill that costs magicka, you're then bringing it down in cost and only losing 9% of the glyph value in the final calculation. A spell that has a base cost of say, 2500, goes down to (2300 * 0.91) = 2093 from just those couple of extremely simple and non-intrusive tweaks to most any stamina build. Percentage-wise the total will vary on the spell's base cost, but for this example that is an effective reduction of 19.4% off of that minor change alone.

Turn it around for stamina builds, and you'll find the same is true of every other cost reduction type in the game, which hasn't changed other than the champion system percentages being additionally available for use in two years. Slap on 50% in cost reductions to block from heavy armor and sword-board passives, and you'll bring the 2160 base cost down to 1080. Apply a cost reduction glyph and instead of the intuitive thought of "200 lower cost should bring it to 880", it actually will bring it to 980 as you are losing half of the glyph's value in the calculation since it's applied prior to the percentage bonuses. This isn't complex math that's inaccessible to anyone. It does, probably, circle back to the whole discussion point of how hard or not gameplay should be, and it certainly should not be designed around ignoring the basics of the numbers in an RPG , a genre based entirely around that and storyline/lore, back to the days of pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons.

The same goes for medium armor builds with stamina cost reduction for skills, and any other permutation you come up with where you are using a percentage reduction of any kind in conjunction with the flat, numerical ones. ]Which is also why, earlier in this thread, I had linked a thread I wrote awhile back about PVP and the complaints of "permablocking" to explain that you can't get the cost reductions as low as many were complaining about.

Math like this extends to basically every aspect of the game you can think of, including tanking . And frankly, I disagree completely with the notion of making things easier, or not making them harder, because not everyone took the time yet to learn how the game works. It takes very little time as a new player to get yourself up to speed with how the essentials like cost reductions work. It's simple enough, though: within all of a few seconds as a brand new player, you can deduce by equipping and unequipping a jewelry item with cost reduction that the number isn't matching one-to-one, and I hope at least that most people would be intrigued enough from there to equip and unequip other items to realize the mechanic. A few seconds' worth of math done in your head later, and you can come up with it: flat cost reductions (numerical) are applied additively, before the percentage ones are applied (also additively).

Bromburak wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Also attorney, when you accuse someone of putting words in your mouth, it is helpful when you point out what words those are. Saying that someone is misrepresenting others only works when you can show what is misrepresented. Sort of like how I pointed out your misrepresentation of ultimate generation.

@Personofsecrets, Ultimate generation does require you to do more than just hold block and use damage skills. You can verify this in-game easily enough for yourself.

(tutorial-level youtube video of basic and simple mechanics)

@Personofsecrets It makes no sense to show him his contrariness.
And his reaction to the video confirmed it just again ... Its like talking to politicians.

No worries, I believe others already have recognized this days ago.
Don't waste your time , its not worth it.

Considering how easy it is to calculate all of this off the top of your head (and for new players, either look up the base amount or go in-game and block a few hits from a single mob while watching how much stamina they lose with nothing equipped... one of the first things anyone concerned with tanking should have been doing once they hit the level cap), I'm still honestly baffled as to the point of linking that video repeatedly as if it were some breaking news or relevant to a balance change discussion when talking about the most difficult areas in an entire game. Am I giving too much credit as to the basic preparation most people do to make sure they can perform their roles well in when joining up to run things in a multiplayer environment where it isn't just about them and other players are affected by how they play, or something?

Let me put it this way: If you were a chef, would you be lecturing other cooks as to what temperature meat is unhealthy for people to digest at, when trying to talk about how to make a steak medium-rare for an upscale restaurant? That's the exact thing posting what really amounts to tutorial-level information is presented in that video in response to people already discussing well above and beyond those rudimentary basics. The OP came from someone who inarguably is an experienced player, @Nifty2g. And so when I came to post, I thought it would be a given that the basics were understood.

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

Zeg0ta wrote: »

For endgame pve this is gonna suck. Tanking AA axes for example your taunting 3 sometimes 4 axes at a time it's very crucial that you can't run out of stam or drop block or you'll get one shot. Blocking cost a lot even with reduced block cost . This is really gonna turn tanks away from endgame pve. There has to be another way . Say for example reduce the amount of damage you do while blocking or if you wear a 5 piece heavy armor set you negate the no regeneration debuff.

Wards are going to be a lot more meaningful then. Maybe people will start using some of them. Instead of Templars just casting BOL maybe they will actually start using Ward Ally/Healing Ward? How about using Bone Shield and having the tank activate the synergy. This isn't the end of the world people. L2P.

People get very attached to, and set in, their builds in any MMO for some reason and anecdotally I've noticed most seem to feel as if once they've found something that works, that's where they not only want to, but should only have to, do rather than ever continue to look to improve how well they play or their build is designed.

Obviously, there are huge numbers of skills in the game that can amply and more than compensate for the effectively minor change to your stamina regeneration in the course of a minute. Is it that creative an idea to have one of the stamina-based DPS miss one attack occasionally to provide the synergy for the tank? Absolutely not. You are completely right about that: the game already allows for a huge variety of ways to mitigate, avoid, or essentially buffer/negate damage. Like I said earlier in the thread a few times, but was glossed over in favor of character attacks and complaints of how it will be too hard with no facts, just subjectivity, backing those opinions up... the current character stat and power allocations simply allow for it to be too easy, to where many (most? I assumed it wasn't from in-game chats, but I've since seen virtually everyone in this thread claim to always be holding down block rather than time anything) simply ignore the game's design and mechanics, which proves in and of itself that it is too easy: hence, the reason for this change to make it slightly more difficult. History repeats itself, as it has for decades in MMO chats by now.

All the way back to the earliest promotional videos of dungeons and Cyrodiil for ESO, the design intent was extremely transparent and laid out clearly: they didn't aim for people to simply sit there being damage sponges in combat, taunting once, staying still, and essentially taping down their block key. There may be some tanks who find themselves humbled once they log in on the PTS today if they have gotten lazy due to that, and find themselves then able to adjust easily enough like I've said a few days later .

SeptimusDova

Bugged
Solar winds
Kali Linux
Nmap
Use the tools form your own conclusions.

eventide03b14a_ESO

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

No stamina regen while blocking will put a stop to the perma blockers. This is more directed toward PvP, but unfortunately will affect PvE as well.

How exactly do you expect people to tank in PvE now?

Blocking in PvE END GAME content is a must, there is a high use of stamina regen for tanking in PvE you can't just take that away, you will completely destroy the PvE content and cause a horrible uproar with this decision, I really hope ZOS that you are only having this affect PvP only as an effect in Cyrodill because there is no way a tank can take damage in Trials and plan certain bosses they will get one shot, there is no way you can tank in VDSA with everything eating your stamina and having no regen.

I hope those at ZOS have actually played trials before to understand this.

L2P? This game wasn't designed for perma blocking in mind. Seriously you are not supposed to block everything. There other defensive abilities other than right mouse click.

It's important to note that @Nifty2g plays with, by his accounts, extremely high latency (he related to me in-game rarely, if ever, having a ping of under 300, and usually higher) as to his feelings on the timing being difficult. With that sort of lag, I don't doubt it is, unfortunately.

That is unfortunate but that doesn't mean the game has to be played on super pre-school level because people don't have good enough hardware or good enough internet service or live too far away. Seriously. There are minimum requirements to play and I'm sorry if you don't meet them but thousands of us do.

Attorneyatlawl

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

Zeg0ta wrote: »

For endgame pve this is gonna suck. Tanking AA axes for example your taunting 3 sometimes 4 axes at a time it's very crucial that you can't run out of stam or drop block or you'll get one shot. Blocking cost a lot even with reduced block cost . This is really gonna turn tanks away from endgame pve. There has to be another way . Say for example reduce the amount of damage you do while blocking or if you wear a 5 piece heavy armor set you negate the no regeneration debuff.

Wards are going to be a lot more meaningful then. Maybe people will start using some of them. Instead of Templars just casting BOL maybe they will actually start using Ward Ally/Healing Ward? How about using Bone Shield and having the tank activate the synergy. This isn't the end of the world people. L2P.

Just to touch on this again... : A recurring theme as a counter-argument in the user interface improvement threads I've been making for just shy of two years at this point having begun in mid-2013, from some people is that allowing readier access to the absolute bare essentials of gameplay like toggling on health bar numbers or having a combat log tab would break the game. I argued always, of course, that it would improve it to have those options, and without them a large number simply wouldn't learn how to play it. Now we are in mid-late 2015, and a small balance tweak to block costs is being blown out to be the end of the game because by many, and the basics keep being brought up with spreadsheets and youtube videos for what is drop-dead simple in reality, seemingly because without that most people don't get how it all works.

(Obligatory plug for UI threads in signature, and a deep sigh.)

Attorneyatlawl

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

No stamina regen while blocking will put a stop to the perma blockers. This is more directed toward PvP, but unfortunately will affect PvE as well.

How exactly do you expect people to tank in PvE now?

Blocking in PvE END GAME content is a must, there is a high use of stamina regen for tanking in PvE you can't just take that away, you will completely destroy the PvE content and cause a horrible uproar with this decision, I really hope ZOS that you are only having this affect PvP only as an effect in Cyrodill because there is no way a tank can take damage in Trials and plan certain bosses they will get one shot, there is no way you can tank in VDSA with everything eating your stamina and having no regen.

I hope those at ZOS have actually played trials before to understand this.

L2P? This game wasn't designed for perma blocking in mind. Seriously you are not supposed to block everything. There other defensive abilities other than right mouse click.

It's important to note that @Nifty2g plays with, by his accounts, extremely high latency (he related to me in-game rarely, if ever, having a ping of under 300, and usually higher) as to his feelings on the timing being difficult. With that sort of lag, I don't doubt it is, unfortunately.

That is unfortunate but that doesn't mean the game has to be played on super pre-school level because people don't have good enough hardware or good enough internet service or live too far away. Seriously. There are minimum requirements to play and I'm sorry if you don't meet them but thousands of us do.

This post was made in October 2013 by me as a reply in closed beta to someone arguing that allowing for there to be minimum requirements would ruin the nebulous term "immersion" for single-player Elder Scrolls game fans:

Attorneyatlawl wrote:

Alright... here's the non-rant version .

Honestly, having to try to figure out a lot of things from unrealistic environmental cues yanks me out of the game world due to frustration and difficulty in figuring out what's happening, much more than having some text labels to disambiguate things. When I see someone now, I am constantly reminded due to no nameplates that I need to go back to reticule mode, point at them, and then quickly catch their name as they run by, if I want to know who they are. This is quite jarring from focusing on the game.

I would make the same argument of things like the minimap, and floating combat text + combat logs: right now if I want to tell where I am on the map and focus on the gameplay rather than the UI, I have to open up the big map, zoom in on my area, and keep re-opening it as I go along, memorizing short portions of my route as I go along. This distracts from the environment immensely, as well as actually playing the game vs. playing the UI.

It also makes you have to constantly think about where groupmates are rather than the gameplay: a split-second distraction from the game world to look at a nameplate is far more immersive on the whole than having to ask in teamspeak where someone is, or scramble to figure out if the guy off to your left is the healer or the tank that the boss is going after because you were busy fighting but noticed the agro changed.

A combat log is great and an essential tool for both balancing and finding bugs in a game's combat system, but when playing it's often useful to have immediate feedback: right now you see something happen, and you have to think outside the game world and the combat to things like: "Did my hit crit? Did it even land or did it just get blocked, or did I end up out of range and it cancelled out? Did my health just bounce up or was it a laggy healthbar? Did I even get a heal from my groupmate? Where's the tank?"

As far as PVP and nameplates, PVP is by its nature competitive... you don't play PVP in an MMORPG to feel like you're immersed, you play it to have fun and to try to win. Solo PVE is much better-suited towards the gameplay style you describe. However, this is an MMORPG title, and while it does support a good system for solo players, it's ultimately designed to be massively multiplayer and an online game with other people.

Forcing players to do without tools that immediately tell them what they want to know for what in your opinion, is more "immersive", is basically saying "It has to be my way, and no, no one else matters", which doesn't really fly in a multiplayer game. Everyone has their opinion of what makes for better immersion and forgetting about time going by in the real world, but for me at least, missing this critical gameplay information and immediate feedback reminds me I am playing a game as I try to figure out what's actually going on and where I'm going.

Regarding your red bull analogy, you don't see a timer, but you feel the level of fluid in the can decreasing thanks to the sense of touch and temperature compared to the rest of the can you're holding. In a game, you don't feel a food you're eating, so you need to make concessions against how the real world works in order to let the player know what is happening. Same thing with a health bar: you don't feel like you're about to collapse, or that you just took a huge attack that makes it hard to move: you see your health bar drop quickly and your character stagger. Remove the health bar to further "immersion" from distracting UI elements, and you remove yet more critical gameplay info and jar the player from the gameplay itself. That's really why we need options, because everyone's opinion on the matter is different.

By letting people decide what makes their gameplay the most fun in a way that only affects their own game client representation of the UI and game world, you allow everyone to have fun rather than just a handful of people. There's no way to make everyone happy... you're right: but you will make a LOT more people happy than just a handful by letting them choose their game experience's framework, than forcing one on them that they either love or hate, in a matter of opinion.

PS That ended up far longer than I meant to go on for... but your post deserved a solid reply. As far as playing another game? When I love the actual game and it has the unique feature of Cyrodiil that hasn't been replicated in over a decade since the last game I played with it... I don't have any other options if I want that gameplay. I already waited a decade , and it would stink to have the game mired down by such basic features as the UI . There simply aren't plenty of other games out there for people who want an integrated PVE and PVP experience with territory control and structured RVR-type systems.

Without these things... this kind of thread is where we have ended up. I saw that coming all the way back then, and it wouldn't surprise me if my countless tags to @ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, and @ZOS_KaiSchober, on that subject have probably become a friendly running joke . Whether or not options for the information to be visible in the UI are available, doesn't make the gameplay underneath change.

eventide03b14a_ESO

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

No stamina regen while blocking will put a stop to the perma blockers. This is more directed toward PvP, but unfortunately will affect PvE as well.

How exactly do you expect people to tank in PvE now?

Blocking in PvE END GAME content is a must, there is a high use of stamina regen for tanking in PvE you can't just take that away, you will completely destroy the PvE content and cause a horrible uproar with this decision, I really hope ZOS that you are only having this affect PvP only as an effect in Cyrodill because there is no way a tank can take damage in Trials and plan certain bosses they will get one shot, there is no way you can tank in VDSA with everything eating your stamina and having no regen.

I hope those at ZOS have actually played trials before to understand this.

L2P? This game wasn't designed for perma blocking in mind. Seriously you are not supposed to block everything. There other defensive abilities other than right mouse click.

It's important to note that @Nifty2g plays with, by his accounts, extremely high latency (he related to me in-game rarely, if ever, having a ping of under 300, and usually higher) as to his feelings on the timing being difficult. With that sort of lag, I don't doubt it is, unfortunately.

That is unfortunate but that doesn't mean the game has to be played on super pre-school level because people don't have good enough hardware or good enough internet service or live too far away. Seriously. There are minimum requirements to play and I'm sorry if you don't meet them but thousands of us do.

This post was made in October 2013 by me as a reply in closed beta to someone arguing that allowing for there to be minimum requirements would ruin the nebulous term "immersion" for single-player Elder Scrolls game fans:

Attorneyatlawl wrote:

Alright... here's the non-rant version .

Honestly, having to try to figure out a lot of things from unrealistic environmental cues yanks me out of the game world due to frustration and difficulty in figuring out what's happening, much more than having some text labels to disambiguate things. When I see someone now, I am constantly reminded due to no nameplates that I need to go back to reticule mode, point at them, and then quickly catch their name as they run by, if I want to know who they are. This is quite jarring from focusing on the game.

I would make the same argument of things like the minimap, and floating combat text + combat logs: right now if I want to tell where I am on the map and focus on the gameplay rather than the UI, I have to open up the big map, zoom in on my area, and keep re-opening it as I go along, memorizing short portions of my route as I go along. This distracts from the environment immensely, as well as actually playing the game vs. playing the UI.

It also makes you have to constantly think about where groupmates are rather than the gameplay: a split-second distraction from the game world to look at a nameplate is far more immersive on the whole than having to ask in teamspeak where someone is, or scramble to figure out if the guy off to your left is the healer or the tank that the boss is going after because you were busy fighting but noticed the agro changed.

A combat log is great and an essential tool for both balancing and finding bugs in a game's combat system, but when playing it's often useful to have immediate feedback: right now you see something happen, and you have to think outside the game world and the combat to things like: "Did my hit crit? Did it even land or did it just get blocked, or did I end up out of range and it cancelled out? Did my health just bounce up or was it a laggy healthbar? Did I even get a heal from my groupmate? Where's the tank?"

As far as PVP and nameplates, PVP is by its nature competitive... you don't play PVP in an MMORPG to feel like you're immersed, you play it to have fun and to try to win. Solo PVE is much better-suited towards the gameplay style you describe. However, this is an MMORPG title, and while it does support a good system for solo players, it's ultimately designed to be massively multiplayer and an online game with other people.

Forcing players to do without tools that immediately tell them what they want to know for what in your opinion, is more "immersive", is basically saying "It has to be my way, and no, no one else matters", which doesn't really fly in a multiplayer game. Everyone has their opinion of what makes for better immersion and forgetting about time going by in the real world, but for me at least, missing this critical gameplay information and immediate feedback reminds me I am playing a game as I try to figure out what's actually going on and where I'm going.

Regarding your red bull analogy, you don't see a timer, but you feel the level of fluid in the can decreasing thanks to the sense of touch and temperature compared to the rest of the can you're holding. In a game, you don't feel a food you're eating, so you need to make concessions against how the real world works in order to let the player know what is happening. Same thing with a health bar: you don't feel like you're about to collapse, or that you just took a huge attack that makes it hard to move: you see your health bar drop quickly and your character stagger. Remove the health bar to further "immersion" from distracting UI elements, and you remove yet more critical gameplay info and jar the player from the gameplay itself. That's really why we need options, because everyone's opinion on the matter is different.

By letting people decide what makes their gameplay the most fun in a way that only affects their own game client representation of the UI and game world, you allow everyone to have fun rather than just a handful of people. There's no way to make everyone happy... you're right: but you will make a LOT more people happy than just a handful by letting them choose their game experience's framework, than forcing one on them that they either love or hate, in a matter of opinion.

PS That ended up far longer than I meant to go on for... but your post deserved a solid reply. As far as playing another game? When I love the actual game and it has the unique feature of Cyrodiil that hasn't been replicated in over a decade since the last game I played with it... I don't have any other options if I want that gameplay. I already waited a decade , and it would stink to have the game mired down by such basic features as the UI . There simply aren't plenty of other games out there for people who want an integrated PVE and PVP experience with territory control and structured RVR-type systems.

Without these things... this kind of thread is where we have ended up. I saw that coming all the way back then, and it wouldn't surprise me if my countless tags to @ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, and @ZOS_KaiSchober, on that subject have probably become a friendly running joke . Whether or not options for the information to be visible in the UI are available, doesn't make the gameplay underneath change.

Every game made for the PC ever has had "minimum" requirements. They would include those on consoles if their was a difference in hardware. The point is that you can't ask them change something for you when it works for thousands of other people.

Attorneyatlawl

[quote="eventide03b14a_ESO;2076528
Every game made for the PC ever has had "minimum" requirements. They would include those on consoles if their was a difference in hardware. The point is that you can't ask them change something for you when it works for thousands of other people.[/quote]

Exactly... and this goes for gameplay in a game, as well as the system requirements for hardware and software. I've played this game for quite awhile and never had heard the argument of a steady (and therefore predictable) third-of-a-second ping rate making multi-second swing timers unable to be blocked unless you held down the key... until the other night.


(Full 4K size: http://i.imgur.com/iXg6mwg.jpg)

It's an interesting one, but you can't design the game around edge cases like that .

Petros

...those axes will be a pain

SeptimusDova

I am on the same Fiber line as Zos 150Mbps up 150Mbps down
I am a retired Network Engineer and managed 9 states including FAA real time data feeds. I may know something about networks. Please do not make the assumption that I am using a simple UI for latency tests.That is insulting to me. In addition to the above listed programs Nessus and Cactii are great programs for NOC to node use. In case you all didn't know it I was the guy who three weeks before release gave the bot code samples to Zenimax. We had several discussions on the phone about the issue. It is not a "Network" issue in an end users periphery's. That is a simple hardware requirement. One that I easily exceed.

Attorneyatlawl

SeptimusDova wrote: »

I am on the same Fiber line as Zos 150Mbps up 150Mbps down
I am a retired Network Engineer and managed 9 states including FAA real time data feeds. I may know something about networks. Please do not make the assumption that I am using a simple UI for latency tests.That is insulting to me. In addition to the above listed programs Nessus and Cactii are great programs for NOC to node use. In case you all didn't know it I was the guy who three weeks before release gave the bot code samples to Zenimax. We had several discussions on the phone about the issue. It is not a "Network" issue in an end users periphery's. That is a simple hardware requirement. One that I easily exceed.

Thank you for your work, and I mean that genuinely... but that has little to do with most players not having high latency which was what the conversation was about .

a.skelton92

uso245 wrote: »

The people saying "need more skill" I understand both sides of this. It can be fun to actively block at proper times but honestly from an endgame PvE standpoint this will merely turn most of the tanks off which doesn't help with the fact that MMOs tend to have a shortage of tanks to begin with.

PS: I'll still tank on my stamina dk personally but I know quite a few tanks that have already decided to call it quits.

Well, lets face it, it doesnt ever take much for "gamers" to call it quits though does it. They will quit over bugger all just because they were not asked personally "if its okay with you".

SeptimusDova

I see the stamina issue and the latency lets call it "delay" shall we for the sake of discussion. As being correlated. in the manner of timing the blocking and mitigation.
I will be on the pts and I will test it. It has been encouraged that others do the same. This change can be a pro or a con as seen from the perspective of the individual player. In the defense of both sides Seems improbable doesn't it! It is impossible to have a Nash Equilibrium when the Game Maker makes changes to a two party PVP game, changes rules and mechanics. The pro it can be said to help stop zergs the con it allows for less defense against zergs and blobs. In dungeon fights SO, Vdsa and so forth this does not benefit some play styles and benefits others. At the end of the day it is zenimax's game and we either play or don't. And at the end of the day we as consumers stay and pay or we don't. That is just life 101.

Attorneyatlawl

SeptimusDova wrote: »

I see the stamina issue and the latency lets call it "delay" shall we for the sake of discussion. As being correlated. in the manner of timing the blocking and mitigation.
I will be on the pts and I will test it. It has been encouraged that others do the same. This change can be a pro or a con as seen from the perspective of the individual player. In the defense of both sides Seems improbable doesn't it! It is impossible to have a Nash Equilibrium when the Game Maker makes changes to a two party PVP game, changes rules and mechanics. The pro it can be said to help stop zergs the con it allows for less defense against zergs and blobs. In dungeon fights SO, Vdsa and so forth this does not benefit some play styles and benefits others. At the end of the day it is zenimax's game and we either play or don't. And at the end of the day we as consumers stay and pay or we don't. That is just life 101.

(Homer Simpson meme pic goes here because I'm on my phone) "Your logic has... No place.... Here.....!"

/agree

Attorneyatlawl

a.skelton92 wrote: »

uso245 wrote: »

The people saying "need more skill" I understand both sides of this. It can be fun to actively block at proper times but honestly from an endgame PvE standpoint this will merely turn most of the tanks off which doesn't help with the fact that MMOs tend to have a shortage of tanks to begin with.

PS: I'll still tank on my stamina dk personally but I know quite a few tanks that have already decided to call it quits.

Well, lets face it, it doesnt ever take much for "gamers" to call it quits though does it. They will quit over bugger all just because they were not asked personally "if its okay with you".

Having seen posts on some games complaining that the female characters had armor that wasn't skimpy enough and that they were quitting because they felt the game artists were too prude because of that.... Nuff said. You're right .

I've learned over the years to not get quite so worked up, at least most of the time, about balance changes in MMOs. There are always hysterical claims of how everyone will quit because of x, people saying it will won't destroy the game, people saying it is needed, and copious numbers of very disturbing jabs about needing valium such as witnessed in this thread. There usually are also heaps who refuse to discuss the facts, focusing instead on individual people's experiences and bickering, while a handful do have meaningful discussion amidst the flames. The meme of putting on firefighting gear came about for a reason . So did the saying of "Learn from history, or be doomed to repeat it."

I use a very simple and reliable benchmark as to whether I should be playing a game: "Am I still having fun? If not, is there something better to play?" if both of those are a no, I wait. If just the first is I leave. If just the second is true, I weigh where I feel each game will be in 3 months and decide later.

SeptimusDova

lol George Santayana. Such a truism has never been more complete. In all facets of life. If after the PTS has completed and data has been collected the Block sequence may be Block-Ward-Block -Ward and so forth. Of note is what is Akamai doing in ZOS network? I really hope workable solution can be found that meets in a medium for both sides.

BalgusFlinn

Jared_lindsey86_ESO
✭✭✭
Y'know they could FINISH ALCHEMY and introduce Poisons of Ravage stamina. Solves the PVP issue while leaving PVE unaffected...


omg this!!!!

Rinmaethodain

PTS patch notes are up.

The only thing that ZOS made to "help" players make up for the absolute 0 stamina they get while blocking is:


- serpent stone will now add stamina regen instead of health

Too bad that serpent stone regen will still be equal to..... 0 while blocking

Personofsecrets

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

No stamina regen while blocking will put a stop to the perma blockers. This is more directed toward PvP, but unfortunately will affect PvE as well.

How exactly do you expect people to tank in PvE now?

Blocking in PvE END GAME content is a must, there is a high use of stamina regen for tanking in PvE you can't just take that away, you will completely destroy the PvE content and cause a horrible uproar with this decision, I really hope ZOS that you are only having this affect PvP only as an effect in Cyrodill because there is no way a tank can take damage in Trials and plan certain bosses they will get one shot, there is no way you can tank in VDSA with everything eating your stamina and having no regen.

I hope those at ZOS have actually played trials before to understand this.

L2P? This game wasn't designed for perma blocking in mind. Seriously you are not supposed to block everything. There other defensive abilities other than right mouse click.

That is an interesting thought you have there with regards to what the developers had in mind when designing the game.



Wow, look at those 5-piece bonuses. It's almost as if the developers designed the best tanking sets with the idea that blocking should be heavily incentivized and done all of the time.

I suppose what the developers wanted or incentivized in the past doesn't matter due to what they want now. I also suppose that tanks will have to deal with, not just their inherent stamina regeneration behing nerfed, but also the sets they use being nerfed as well.

tpanisiakb16_ESO

MaximusDargus wrote: »

PTS patch notes are up.

The only thing that ZOS made to "help" players make up for the absolute 0 stamina they get while blocking is:


- serpent stone will now add stamina regen instead of health

Too bad that serpent stone regen will still be equal to..... 0 while blocking

This really, really bothers me. I'm sure Eric Worbel said they're doing things to help PvE tanks ("but the content is more challenging, for sure"). I see nothing in the patch notes, just a gigantic nerf hammer slammed on our heads.

Personofsecrets

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Now we are in mid-late 2015, and a small balance tweak to block costs is being blown out to be the end of the game because by many, and the basics keep being brought up with spreadsheets and youtube videos for what is drop-dead simple in reality, seemingly because without that most people don't get how it all works.

The purpose of the video and spread sheet that I have posted, in case that is what you have in mind, is to help people not have a flawed view of tanking while they are thinking of if the stamina regeneration nerf is good, bad, worth it, not worth it, etc.

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Considering how easy it is to calculate all of this off the top of your head (and for new players, either look up the base amount or go in-game and block a few hits from a single mob while watching how much stamina they lose with nothing equipped... one of the first things anyone concerned with tanking should have been doing once they hit the level cap), I'm still honestly baffled as to the point of linking that video repeatedly as if it were some breaking news or relevant to a balance change discussion when talking about the most difficult areas in an entire game. Am I giving too much credit as to the basic preparation most people do to make sure they can perform their roles well in when joining up to run things in a multiplayer environment where it isn't just about them and other players are affected by how they play, or something?

You are baffled by the point of the video? Here, I will post this again,

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Also attorney, when you accuse someone of putting words in your mouth, it is helpful when you point out what words those are. Saying that someone is misrepresenting others only works when you can show what is misrepresented. Sort of like how I pointed out your misrepresentation of ultimate generation.

@Personofsecrets, Ultimate generation does require you to do more than just hold block and use damage skills. You can verify this in-game easily enough for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yacj4kIQRhM

There is the point. You wrote "Ultimate generation does require you to do more than just hold block and use damage skills. You can verify this in-game easily enough for yourself." I went out as you suggested, tested, and showed that an idea you brought up continuously was flawed. Hey, everyone makes mistakes, and that is okay, but let's talk about how tanking really is when discussing a nerf that drastically effects it.

As for the point about the how block cost mitigation works, if resource management is an issue for tanks in the future, who are presumably using bracing and fortress, then they may not want to follow your suggestion and use enchantments that give soft-cap styled diminished returns. It is possible that tanks may not have a choice in the matter and will have to take their lumps by using inefficient enchantments. Maybe now, with the stamina regeneration nerf, the developers could consider removing that cap like they have already done for most of the other things in the game.

Personofsecrets

tpanisiakb16_ESO wrote: »

This really, really bothers me. I'm sure Eric Worbel said they're doing things to help PvE tanks ("but the content is more challenging, for sure"). I see nothing in the patch notes, just a gigantic nerf hammer slammed on our heads.

Off couurrrsshhh.

SeptimusDova

Is there a potion of blocking Immovable or something? Will drinking that potion make you constipated? It blocks does it not? Can it be added to the quick slot bar as a filler between block /ward/potion/block ?

Cously

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Sausage wrote: »

Well, that was needed, currently tanks press block and suck all magicka and stamina in PVP from 10+ guys. Thats why DKs hated NBs fear so much and wanted it to be nerfed to make them even more powerful.

Thread is about PvE not PvP sure it's ruining PvP but then again, you are a tank built for taking damage, and having the resources to do so, not have them forcefully taken away, but anyway. This is going to fully impact PvE to a point where the content is going to be unbeatable and then they will have to change it. May as well change it now

Unbeatable maybe for you. Want me to teach you how to tank without hold down block the whole time?

You do know Nifty and his team are holding the highest score of VDSA on NA right?

Halfwitte

Wow there it is the ace in the hole finally revealed for everyone to see in the grandiose 50+ pages of patch notes that magnanimous change that will make the 0 stamina regeneration while Tanking change bearable and manageable, Here it is LADIES AND GENTLEMAN FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE! THE ONE THE ONLY CHAAAANNNNGGEE!!!
That mattered.




CUE APPLAUSE!!!

troner2

Nifty2g wrote: »

Artemiisia wrote: »

you will have to block whens needed and not just sit there doing perma block

Then you pretty much die in Trials / VDSA, anything that power attacks you is a one shot. Have you not done any end game pve?

then like he said, you block the heavys and dont just perma block, there making it less easy

challenge = FUN!