IC feedback. Whats working/not working so far

Vatter

So I think IC has a lot of potential. So far I have noticed a few things that are working and not working. I'm sure there is a lot more that I'm gonna miss. Feel free to add to the list.

1. I love the fact that I have to sneak around past npc's and opposing factions fighting each other in the streets to get to my objectives.
2. I love the thrill of possibly losing my TV stones if I don't plan ahead and end up at the wrong place at the wrong time.
3. I like the quests and quest rewards so far.
4. The city itself is a labyrinth that has lots of possible entrances and exits. ( and places to hide)
5. I love the no stamina regen while blocking. Its fantastic to not see dk or nb tanks just running around nuking everyone and everything while infinitely blocking. This game is just too easy as it is so having to pve tank with these changes should add some spice.
6. I love the roll dodge penalty. Not seeing infinite dodge rollers is awesome.
7. I love the reduction in damage, healing, bubbles (although there is a problem with bubbles still but we'll talk about that in a sec)
8. I love the armor and enchant changes.
9. I love the nirnhoned changes

Some of the things not working so far -
1. Your biggest problem at the moment is lag. Huge latency spikes are happening ALL THE TIME. Getting killed to ghost attacks and mixing that in with 100% Tel Var stone loss makes it EXTREMELY frustrating. If the current lag makes it to live I think your sales will drop dramatically. Something HAS to be done about this.

2. Bubbles are still incredibly strong. I think the biggest culprit is the ward from restoration skill tree line. I would consider reducing the +300% to +100% or lower.
Its actually pretty easy to stay alive a lot longer then you should using just this skill.

3. Door ganking. The load screen that happens when going in and out of doors can be very long leaving you open to getting jacked for your TV stones. I would recommend adding a timer when moving in and out of doors where if your killed you lose 0 TV stones. something like 15-20 secs should do it but I'd research average load screens with latency to get a better time.

4.The trophies are taking up way to much space. Wouldn't it be easier to just to have them all count as a single pile rather then separate?

5. I would consider slightly reducing the amount of resources it takes to obtain v16 gear or increase the drop rate.

6. Respawn locations are a bit to close to each other. Any possibility giving each just a bit more space?

7. Some of the new set bonuses aren't that great at all. I'm sure you've seen which they are.

8. I would consider a change in armor penetration. i'm wearing 5 heavy, 1 light 1 med and my armor is 18k which gets reduced to 0. Most people have 25k+ armor penetration. The sharpened mace mixed with cp is to blame here. You really should have some protection when wearing 5 or more heavy armor pieces.
Maybe a much bigger bonus to resolve when wearing 5 pieces or more of heavy armor? The CP heavy armor focus just doesn't cut it. Or maybe reducing the mace and hammer armor bonus.

9.I think cloak might need a penalty like streak does. IC is NB heaven. putting a +50% cost for consecutive uses within 4 secs might do the trick. Its pretty op as it is. NB's can just sprint through mobs easily and focus the aggro on you.

10. Losing TV stones to a single light attack. Something really has to be done when your fighting npcs and an enemy player uses a single light attack on you then gets all your stones if the npc kills you. Thats just BS.

11. There really should be a hierarchy in your "smart healing" system. it should go self>group>everyone else. too many times I've constantly tried to heal myself only to heal the dope who likes to sit in siege fire. it does nothing but drain my resources and make that player a healing black hole.

Thats it for now. I'll add more as I continue to test Imperial City.

OGLezard

Buff shields ftw!!!!!

Vatter

OGLezard wrote: »

Buff shields ftw!!!!!

............

Morimizo

Great post of pros and cons, and helpful ways to fix.

"8. I would consider a change in armor penetration. i'm wearing 5 heavy, 1 light 1 med and my armor is 18k which gets reduced to 0. Most people have 25k+ armor penetration. The sharpened mace mixed with cp is to blame here. You really should have some protection when wearing 5 or more heavy armor pieces.
Maybe a much bigger bonus to resolve when wearing 5 pieces or more of heavy armor? The CP heavy armor focus just doesn't cut it. Or maybe reducing the mace and hammer armor bonus."

This one especially bothers me, because the Reinforced and Nirnhoned traits were reduced significantly as well. Instead of just nerfing the CP, I vote for restoring these traits and even buffing them to compensate.

But we all know how that story ends.

MCMancub

The only change armor penetration needs is to go from a flat amount to percentage based. This is a change that needs to happen.

That said, I can never take people seriously when they complain that they have too much armor taken from them by pen. Armor penetration is designed to counter armor every time. You're not doing yourself any favors by stacking more armor to be shredded. Flat health counters armor pen.

Vatter

MCMancub wrote: »

The only change armor penetration needs is to go from a flat amount to percentage based. This is a change that needs to happen.

That said, I can never take people seriously when they complain that they have too much armor taken from them by pen. Armor penetration is designed to counter armor every time. You're not doing yourself any favors by stacking more armor to be shredded. Flat health counters armor pen.

so why do we even have armor types in the game?

MCMancub

Vatter wrote: »

MCMancub wrote: »

The only change armor penetration needs is to go from a flat amount to percentage based. This is a change that needs to happen.

That said, I can never take people seriously when they complain that they have too much armor taken from them by pen. Armor penetration is designed to counter armor every time. You're not doing yourself any favors by stacking more armor to be shredded. Flat health counters armor pen.

so why do we even have armor types in the game?

No one stat should be more powerful than all other stats. Therefore, every stat in the game needs a counter. Damage counters health, armor counters damage, armor penetration counters armor, and health counters armor penetration. It's a circle of counters to ensure no one stat is more powerful that anything else.

Morimizo

MCMancub wrote: »

Vatter wrote: »

MCMancub wrote: »

The only change armor penetration needs is to go from a flat amount to percentage based. This is a change that needs to happen.

That said, I can never take people seriously when they complain that they have too much armor taken from them by pen. Armor penetration is designed to counter armor every time. You're not doing yourself any favors by stacking more armor to be shredded. Flat health counters armor pen.

so why do we even have armor types in the game?

No one stat should be more powerful than all other stats. Therefore, every stat in the game needs a counter. Damage counters health, armor counters damage, armor penetration counters armor, and health counters armor penetration. It's a circle of counters to ensure no one stat is more powerful that anything else.

Sure, but the original point is that if armor penetration is always way more than what armor someone can wear, that is not a balanced counter. And the ability to stack more HP is also nerfed (the decreased enchantment armor glyphs) and set piece stat nerf, will both contribute to this being more of a problem.

So, I agree that this should be a % instead. Doubt it will be changed tho.

Aunatar

Again with the "counter" thing? Ok, if you think everything needs a counter, provide some balance, then. How is it possible that stacking 7 reinforced heavy armor parts is completely countered by a simple trait on 2 weapons? A trait which is useful not only on heavy armor, but on everything else, also mobs and bosses? And it's still 7 pieces vs 2. Come on, be serious.

Komma

Vatter wrote: »

9.I think cloak might need a penalty like streak does. IC is NB heaven. putting a +50% cost for consecutive uses within 4 secs might do the trick. Its pretty op as it is. NB's can just sprint through mobs easily and focus the aggro on you.

You need to separate the magicka NB with the stamina NB. With roll dodge already being nerfed to the extreme a move like this would be the death of Stamina NB in pvp and maybe even kill off most magicka NB's.

It already doesnt work all the time as it is. Add that cost and you may as well remove the skill from the game. It doesn't stun or do dmg like bolt escape so dont even compare it to that.

Stam NB's took plenty of hits this round so please consider all the issues before asking for something like this.

sabresandiego_ESO

Great post and great list.

MCMancub

Aunatar wrote: »

Again with the "counter" thing? Ok, if you think everything needs a counter, provide some balance, then. How is it possible that stacking 7 reinforced heavy armor parts is completely countered by a simple trait on 2 weapons? A trait which is useful not only on heavy armor, but on everything else, also mobs and bosses? And it's still 7 pieces vs 2. Come on, be serious.

Because the implementation of said counter is not correct. As I've stated above (I have to repeat myself quite frequently on these forums due to incompetence, it seems), the system should be based on a percentage value, not flat value.

How is it possible that stacking 7 reinforced heavy armor parts is completely countered by a simple trait on 2 weapons?

2 traits shouldn't shred every part of a 7 piece armor set (again, percentage based values are needed), but you're being incredibly obtuse if you think nothing should counter you by stacking 7 pieces of reinforced armor. Even if the values were percentage based, you'd still be whining that armor isn't a catch-all-to-win stat. The day tanks can stack armor/spell resist and nothing else and never die is the day ESO dies. The best genre of games to look to for these combat mechanics, surprisingly, are MOBAs, as every part of a MOBA revolves around combat balancing these 3 fundamental traits: health, damage, and mitigation.

EDIT: Again, I'm not saying the implementation is correct, but these are all equivalent, at least in theory.
1. "How is it possible that stacking armor is completely countered by people stacking armor penetration?"
2. "How is it possible that stacking armor penetration is completely countered by people stacking health?"
3. "How is it possible that stacking health is completely countered by people stacking damage?"
4. "How is it possible that stacking damage is completely countered by people stacking armor?"

There should always be a counter. I'm not saying ZOS has implemented any of these stats perfectly (I think they're all relatively in an OK position), but this is the principle that should be followed.

Vatter

MCMancub wrote: »

Aunatar wrote: »

Again with the "counter" thing? Ok, if you think everything needs a counter, provide some balance, then. How is it possible that stacking 7 reinforced heavy armor parts is completely countered by a simple trait on 2 weapons? A trait which is useful not only on heavy armor, but on everything else, also mobs and bosses? And it's still 7 pieces vs 2. Come on, be serious.

Because the implementation of said counter is not correct. As I've stated above (I have to repeat myself quite frequently on these forums due to incompetence, it seems), the system should be based on a percentage value, not flat value.

How is it possible that stacking 7 reinforced heavy armor parts is completely countered by a simple trait on 2 weapons?

2 traits shouldn't shred every part of a 7 piece armor set (again, percentage based values are needed), but you're being incredibly obtuse if you think nothing should counter you by stacking 7 pieces of reinforced armor. Even if the values were percentage based, you'd still be whining that armor isn't a catch-all-to-win stat. The day tanks can stack armor/spell resist and nothing else and never die is the day ESO dies. The best genre of games to look to for these combat mechanics, surprisingly, are MOBAs, as every part of a MOBA revolves around combat balancing these 3 fundamental traits: health, damage, and mitigation.

EDIT: Again, I'm not saying the implementation is correct, but these are all equivalent, at least in theory.
1. "How is it possible that stacking armor is completely countered by people stacking armor penetration?"
2. "How is it possible that stacking armor penetration is completely countered by people stacking health?"
3. "How is it possible that stacking health is completely countered by people stacking damage?"
4. "How is it possible that stacking damage is completely countered by people stacking armor?"

There should always be a counter. I'm not saying ZOS has implemented any of these stats perfectly (I think they're all relatively in an OK position), but this is the principle that should be followed.

You have completely missed a very fundamental point on heavy armor. The entire purpose to wearing heavy armor in eso is to MITIGATE PHYSICAL DAMAGE. By wearing nothing but heavy armor you are sacrificing other stats that light armor and med armor give IN ORDER TO TAKE LESS PHYSICAL DAMAGE. THATS THE COUNTER TO IT. YOU DO LESS DAMAGE, AND HAVE LESS REGEN. look at the passives you get for equipping heavy. Having an ability to completely reduce armor to 0 when the whole point of the design is to give you some protection at the expense of other stats is not balanced.

Aunatar

MCMancub wrote: »

Aunatar wrote: »

Again with the "counter" thing? Ok, if you think everything needs a counter, provide some balance, then. How is it possible that stacking 7 reinforced heavy armor parts is completely countered by a simple trait on 2 weapons? A trait which is useful not only on heavy armor, but on everything else, also mobs and bosses? And it's still 7 pieces vs 2. Come on, be serious.

Because the implementation of said counter is not correct. As I've stated above (I have to repeat myself quite frequently on these forums due to incompetence, it seems), the system should be based on a percentage value, not flat value.

How is it possible that stacking 7 reinforced heavy armor parts is completely countered by a simple trait on 2 weapons?

2 traits shouldn't shred every part of a 7 piece armor set (again, percentage based values are needed), but you're being incredibly obtuse if you think nothing should counter you by stacking 7 pieces of reinforced armor. Even if the values were percentage based, you'd still be whining that armor isn't a catch-all-to-win stat. The day tanks can stack armor/spell resist and nothing else and never die is the day ESO dies. The best genre of games to look to for these combat mechanics, surprisingly, are MOBAs, as every part of a MOBA revolves around combat balancing these 3 fundamental traits: health, damage, and mitigation.

EDIT: Again, I'm not saying the implementation is correct, but these are all equivalent, at least in theory.
1. "How is it possible that stacking armor is completely countered by people stacking armor penetration?"
2. "How is it possible that stacking armor penetration is completely countered by people stacking health?"
3. "How is it possible that stacking health is completely countered by people stacking damage?"
4. "How is it possible that stacking damage is completely countered by people stacking armor?"

There should always be a counter. I'm not saying ZOS has implemented any of these stats perfectly (I think they're all relatively in an OK position), but this is the principle that should be followed.

The points 1 and 4 are a complete contradiction. Who is being obtuse, sir?
FYI stacking armor with 7 heavy parts means you do no damage and you don't kill anybody.
If you lose 1v1 against an armor stacking tank wearing 7 heavy reinforced pieces.. then it's only a l2p issue. Average players know they should ignore the living walking stone and kill him after his friends (maybe even mobs). Do you even pvp? Please save us from these OP 7 armor stacking tanks -.-
And please stop being rude, we are just discussing the mechanics of a game on a public forum, nobody is stealing your money.

Robbmrp

Vatter wrote: »

So I think IC has a lot of potential. So far I have noticed a few things that are working and not working. I'm sure there is a lot more that I'm gonna miss. Feel free to add to the list.

Some of the things not working so far -
1. Your biggest problem at the moment is lag. Huge latency spikes are happening ALL THE TIME. Getting killed to ghost attacks and mixing that in with 100% Tel Var stone loss makes it EXTREMELY frustrating. If the current lag makes it to live I think your sales will drop dramatically. Something HAS to be done about this. Change this to 50% loss

2. Bubbles are still incredibly strong. I think the biggest culprit is the ward from restoration skill tree line. I would consider reducing the +300% to +100% or lower.
Its actually pretty easy to stay alive a lot longer then you should using just this skill. Remove shield stacking so that you only get the benefit of the greater shield or just a heal(healing ward) when a greater shield is active.

3. Door ganking. The load screen that happens when going in and out of doors can be very long leaving you open to getting jacked for your TV stones. I would recommend adding a timer when moving in and out of doors where if your killed you lose 0 TV stones. something like 15-20 secs should do it but I'd research average load screens with latency to get a better time. Update Stone loss to 0 when killed within x meters of a spawn/door point. If you get 0 stones, there goes the incentive for an easy kill

4.The trophies are taking up way to much space. Wouldn't it be easier to just to have them all count as a single pile rather then separate? Setup Trophies like Tel Var Stones so no bag/bank space is needed

5. I would consider slightly reducing the amount of resources it takes to obtain v16 gear or increase the drop rate. Drop to 50% of existing

6. Respawn locations are a bit to close to each other. Any possibility giving each just a bit more space? Factions should spawn in different districts. With spawn points so close you rez and die within 15 seconds. This doesn't even occur within a keep battle, why should it in IC. If your rezed by a player that's different.

7. Some of the new set bonuses aren't that great at all. I'm sure you've seen which they are. A set that encourages a player to cast when they are at full health? Totally unneeded IMO

8. I would consider a change in armor penetration. i'm wearing 5 heavy, 1 light 1 med and my armor is 18k which gets reduced to 0. Most people have 25k+ armor penetration. The sharpened mace mixed with cp is to blame here. You really should have some protection when wearing 5 or more heavy armor pieces.
Maybe a much bigger bonus to resolve when wearing 5 pieces or more of heavy armor? The CP heavy armor focus just doesn't cut it. Or maybe reducing the mace and hammer armor bonus. Armor penetration should be a % not a fixed amount, that would only apply to someone's resistance value, if you have 50% penetration, you can only penetrate 50% of their physical/spell resistance. There should never be more than 70% armor penetration IMO.

9.I think cloak might need a penalty like streak does. IC is NB heaven. putting a +50% cost for consecutive uses within 4 secs might do the trick. Its pretty op as it is. NB's can just sprint through mobs easily and focus the aggro on you. Agro should stay with the person who obtained it, not someone who was pulled into it by another player. This goes with #10, player must do a certain % of damage to be awarded TVS.

10. Losing TV stones to a single light attack. Something really has to be done when your fighting npcs and an enemy player uses a single light attack on you then gets all your stones if the npc kills you. Thats just BS. Tel Var stones only given based on a certain % of damage done. If NPC does 90% of the work, player who casts 1 spell gets nothing. 40-80% damage from a player required to earn Tel Var stones.

11. There really should be a hierarchy in your "smart healing" system. it should go self>group>everyone else. too many times I've constantly tried to heal myself only to heal the dope who likes to sit in siege fire. it does nothing but drain my resources and make that player a healing black hole. Since these spells are supposed to include a bonus heal to the caster that rarely seem to get it, lets change that. When any spell is cast that also includes a heal for the caster, give the caster a HoT heal unless they are lower than 50%, they they should be assigned the priority of one of those being healed.

Thats it for now. I'll add more as I continue to test Imperial City.

Here's my take on the not working as well with my comments bolded above. @ZOS should also work to resolve the existing bugs in the game with this update. Anything that's not "working as intended" needs to be fixed with this. They've gone on long enough.

Vatter

@Robmrp - "Update Stone loss to 0 when killed within x meters of a spawn/door point. If you get 0 stones, there goes the incentive for an easy kill"

I think the biggest problem with this suggestion is that since the city has so many in's and out's people will just sprint for a door when they are about to be killed so they don't lose TV stones. It has a lot of potential to be exploited

Stikato

Agree entirely with OP. Great list, thanks for writing this out!

cjthibs

Not to stir the pot here, but the entire historical purpose of hammers/maces/mauls is to defeat heavy armor.

The amount of penetration might be a bit high, but that's what it was designed to do and it was extremely effective at it.

ZOS_RichLambert

/lurk

Dracane

Great post. I can most certainly agree with everything on your list.
I don't like the damage reduction so much. But I can see why they did that, because block and dodge roll is getting nerfed.
I rather have unkillable newbies than permablocking/dodging people

timidobserver

cjthibs wrote: »

Not to stir the pot here, but the entire historical purpose of hammers/maces/mauls is to defeat heavy armor.

The amount of penetration might be a bit high, but that's what it was designed to do and it was extremely effective at it.

I guess that historically getting electrocuted by high voltage electricity is a one shot resulting in instant death other loss or consciousness, so we should make all lightning abilities work like that?

Zsymon

I think one of the most important needed changes is definitely too armor/spell penetration. Make it percentage based as suggested, or even better just massively lower the flat pen numbers, so it becomes impossible getting more than 8K pen without sacrificing a ton of other stats. If a heavy armor build provides like 19K armor, then no one should ever achieve more than 7-8K armor pen, and you should sacrifice a lot to reach even that.

It is too easy to stack both raw damage and penetration, it's not like you have to choose, nor do you have to sacrifice much for it, so this whole "counter" argument makes no sense. The only build that should ever reach 100% armor pen is a DK with Corrosive Armor, that only lasts 9 seconds.

Ezareth

@ZOS_RichLambert

I think the biggest issue right now is the extreme penalty you get for using bash or block at all with the way the stamina regen change was implemented. This idea needs to be revisited. Make zero regen kick in .5-1 seconds after holding block, make it rapidly decrease after holding block, make the cost of blocked attacks increase like dodge roll. Something. *Anything* other than the current implementation of the mechanic which penalizes skill and makes combat a boring key-mashing spamfest.

Zsymon

Or just change stamina recovery to tick every 0.5 seconds, or even less, that way you only lose 1 second of recovery after you stop blocking, now it is 4 seconds that you lose.

lonewolf26

File this under not working. The crafting costs for Vet Rank 16 gear are far too high compared to the amount of benefit that they give. Consider either significantly increasing their benefit to make it desirable to farm 10 times the materials as Vet Rank 15 gear requires, or scale down the material cost of Vet Rank 16 gear to be linear. +2-4 mats per level would be more consistent and acceptable than the current implementation on the PTS.

Zsymon

lonewolf26 wrote: »

File this under not working. The crafting costs for Vet Rank 16 gear are far too high compared to the amount of benefit that they give. Consider either significantly increasing their benefit to make it desirable to farm 10 times the materials as Vet Rank 15 gear requires, or scale down the material cost of Vet Rank 16 gear to be linear. +2-4 mats per level would be more consistent and acceptable than the current implementation on the PTS.

I really wonder how design decisions like that even make it on PTS. How can anyone possibly think it would be a good idea to put something like this in.

actosh

Vatter wrote: »

9.I think cloak might need a penalty like streak does. IC is NB heaven. putting a +50% cost for consecutive uses within 4 secs might do the trick. Its pretty op as it is. NB's can just sprint through mobs easily and focus the aggro on you.
Thats it for now. I'll add more as I continue to test Imperial City.

agree, same pls for Mist form if used consecutive within 4 secs.
@ZOS_GinaBruno pls tell this the devs .

AssaultLemming

Komma wrote: »

Vatter wrote: »

9.I think cloak might need a penalty like streak does. IC is NB heaven. putting a +50% cost for consecutive uses within 4 secs might do the trick. Its pretty op as it is. NB's can just sprint through mobs easily and focus the aggro on you.

You need to separate the magicka NB with the stamina NB. With roll dodge already being nerfed to the extreme a move like this would be the death of Stamina NB in pvp and maybe even kill off most magicka NB's.

It already doesnt work all the time as it is. Add that cost and you may as well remove the skill from the game. It doesn't stun or do dmg like bolt escape so dont even compare it to that.

Stam NB's took plenty of hits this round so please consider all the issues before asking for something like this.

Yah, as a stam nb currently I can only cloak 4 times, less if I want to also cast anything else such as double take. Magicka nb do feel ridiculously op with their ability to infinite cloak though. If it stays like this it's hard to see why I would stay stam, cloak and concealed weapon are all you need to stealth kill to victory...

trimsic_ESO

Vatter wrote: »

8. I would consider a change in armor penetration. i'm wearing 5 heavy, 1 light 1 med and my armor is 18k which gets reduced to 0. Most people have 25k+ armor penetration. The sharpened mace mixed with cp is to blame here. You really should have some protection when wearing 5 or more heavy armor pieces.
Maybe a much bigger bonus to resolve when wearing 5 pieces or more of heavy armor? The CP heavy armor focus just doesn't cut it. Or maybe reducing the mace and hammer armor bonus.

Mace / hammer penetration bonuses have to be good, otherwise the reward / risk ratio is too low for a melee character.

silky_soft

AssaultLemming wrote: »

Komma wrote: »

Vatter wrote: »

9.I think cloak might need a penalty like streak does. IC is NB heaven. putting a +50% cost for consecutive uses within 4 secs might do the trick. Its pretty op as it is. NB's can just sprint through mobs easily and focus the aggro on you.

You need to separate the magicka NB with the stamina NB. With roll dodge already being nerfed to the extreme a move like this would be the death of Stamina NB in pvp and maybe even kill off most magicka NB's.

It already doesnt work all the time as it is. Add that cost and you may as well remove the skill from the game. It doesn't stun or do dmg like bolt escape so dont even compare it to that.

Stam NB's took plenty of hits this round so please consider all the issues before asking for something like this.

Yah, as a stam nb currently I can only cloak 4 times, less if I want to also cast anything else such as double take. Magicka nb do feel ridiculously op with their ability to infinite cloak though. If it stays like this it's hard to see why I would stay stam, cloak and concealed weapon are all you need to stealth kill to victory...

You know all they need to do is scale the amount of time off your resource pool. Just like how break free, cc skill/spell, shields, streak, blocking and dodge roll should be. Limit them to a theoretical max, say cast/use 5 times in a row which would be 20% of max and stop regen. Obviously less for blocking and more for break free. Make utility more skill based than high resource and spam based.

I have sacrificed weapon damage for stam regen so I just dodge twice and stealth. Just wait for a gap in peoples shields then kill. I just leave good players that know how to defend till last instead of going for them first. These changes to dodge, overall damage and giving me vigor earlier have just made me lazy compared to live. It's a lot easier to play glass cannon since I'm no longer glass.

timidobserver

Morimizo wrote: »

Great post of pros and cons, and helpful ways to fix.

"8. I would consider a change in armor penetration. i'm wearing 5 heavy, 1 light 1 med and my armor is 18k which gets reduced to 0. Most people have 25k+ armor penetration. The sharpened mace mixed with cp is to blame here. You really should have some protection when wearing 5 or more heavy armor pieces.
Maybe a much bigger bonus to resolve when wearing 5 pieces or more of heavy armor? The CP heavy armor focus just doesn't cut it. Or maybe reducing the mace and hammer armor bonus."

This one especially bothers me, because the Reinforced and Nirnhoned traits were reduced significantly as well. Instead of just nerfing the CP, I vote for restoring these traits and even buffing them to compensate.

But we all know how that story ends.

Yeh they really need to revisit penetration in general. I like the new armor master set, but as it stands, there is no point in investing heavily into mitigation. Even people that aren't using the mace bug can still manage to bypass most of your armor and spell resistance unless you are a full dedicated tank build.