Greetings ESO Forum Posters

ZOS_Wrobel

My name is Eric Wrobel and I’ve had the pleasure of working at ZeniMax Online Studios for over five years now. A lot of my time here has been spent designing and implementing player abilities. As the Lead Combat Designer, my duties include all core combat mechanics, itemization, and new systems relating to combat and balance. In the last update, my team spent most of our time on Grouping Tool improvements, Enhanced Battle Leveling, Champion Point Catchup, and Champion Point Caps.

I’m a long time reader, first time poster. For a long time, my plan was to spend every second of the day working, then reading the forums after work. I’m going to change that stance, however, and be a bit more active on the forums now. I’ll be popping in from time to time to comment in threads and also get feedback. Keep in mind I’m not able to respond to every issue and post, but that doesn’t mean I’m not reading.

Looking forward, we have a lot of new features and updates for you all on the combat side of things. In the next major update, we are looking into ability improvements to all classes. We also plan on updating bleed abilities to apply to every monster type in the game instead of only certain ones – this will include new visual effects for these abilities so you can tell when a robot is “bleeding”. In general, we want you to have a greater variety of successful builds by making all abilities interesting, while retaining the uniqueness and identity. This thread would be the perfect place for you to share your top 3 most desired class ability improvements. The more detailed and specific your feedback, the more helpful it will be.

We appreciate how passionate everyone is about this game; it’s the reason we keep doing what we do. Please continue to post your constructive feedback on our ideas!

Bashev

Very positive move! Now I hope that we can have some constructive discussions.

Cuyler

Welcome to the Forums @Wrobel, I'm sure we're all looking forward to hearing more of your ideas!

Here's some skills that come to mind:
DK
1. Chains - no more too high too low; should not cause CC immunity;
2. Dragon's Blood - needs moar heals;
3. Molten weapons - need an execute that doesn't require heavy attacks.

Thank you!

JD2013

Welcome to the forums, Eric! Down the rabbit hole for you!

Xendyn

Well hey there and welcome.
Now we can add you to the summoning list....

j/k



well, probably not lol

p.s
hope you brought extra-thick skin with you.

Ahzek

Whalecum !
Now stam sorc woes :
1. revert thundering presence changes.

2. A way to stack burst damage similar to what magicka sorcs can do ( a high damage short duration DoT/ a delayed insta cast nuke/ etc. Be creative here, I dont want a copy paste crystal frag, instead something more in line with assasins will -maybe tied to shock damage ? - would be far more interesting).

3. Fix the broken/ useless skills. That is: make surge work correctly on shields/ turn dark deal into a viable self heal/ make overload actually deal damage on stamina builds, even without many points in elemental expert/ give atro some love

Paulington

Hey Eric! Welcome to the forums, glad to have you here.

#1: Power Overload. This ability currently gives -3% damage over base Overload when it really should give +3%, it's been like this a while and I made a thread on it but I can't see anyone actually looking at it currently.

#2: Bound Aegis. Please make this an ability you can hide. It's essential as a Sorcerer DPS and so I have this lovely armour that I can't see. I can hide it with costumes but that's not enough.

#3: Negate Magic. This ability is now mostly useless in PvE because every ability you want to negate is not negatable. Please make it consistent and actually negate magic in some way or replace the ultimate with something useful. It is fantastic in PvP, sure, but as it currently stands Sorcerers have one viable ultimate in PvE and that's a little upsetting.

I am sure there are more, especially other classes, but I just wanted to post and pick my top three. .

Warraxx

thanks for addressing the bleed issue. Now i don't have to change my name to Warrmaull or Warrswordd...

SturgeHammer

Awesome to have you here!

Here are my top 3 class ability requests:

1. A stamina morph of crystal shard that is melee range, with other spells and weapon feats having a chance to make the next cast instant, cheaper and deal bonus damage. I think this would be an elegant way to give Stamina Sorcerers the melee range ability we have been craving, while maintaining ability's signature Sorcerer feel.

2. Refreshing Path should have a more potent healing component or apply a snare to enemies that are inside the AoE.

3. Dragon Blood healing needs to be increased significantly.

UrQuan

Welcome, and

Xendyn wrote: »

p.s
hope you brought extra-thick skin with you.

^this.

There are a lot of extremely negative folks on the forums who will call you names and just generally be insulting jerks. At some points it will probably make you say "forget this forum crap, I don't want to engage with all of the trolls". Try to ignore the insulting crap, and separate the gold from the dross.

To all of the forum posters: let's try to have productive interactions with @Wrobel please! I know that a lot of you are capable of making your points in a constructive and respectful manner. To those who struggle with it, please look to the example of those who are constructive. So far this thread has been fine that way, so let's keep that up.

Eejit1331

Templar:

Sun Shield - increase timer to 20 seconds.
Please increase the range of javelin to 28 meters
And make all sun / solar / blazing ect.(to include the passive proc) Based off of fire damage

Thanks so much!

Jhunn

Woah, well that was a surprise. Positive, but I'll be waiting to get my hopes up too much.

#removeAOEcaps
#bringbackdynamicultigen

Edit: I like how Gina edited his post

Cinbri

For some reason i afraid that improvement class skills means nerfing templar skills

Jitterbug

Good to have you!

My three skills:

1) Amphibious
2) Argonian Resistance
3) Quick to Mend

sirinsidiator

Nightblade here.

1. Not really a pure class ability suggestion, but please make AOE and single target abilities do a similar amount of damage over all targets per time. Right now AOE is completely overpowered in terms of numbers.

For example when there are 5 enemies and I hit them with a surprise attack I do 9k per hit, but only to one target after another. With steel tornado I do around 6k per hit to all of them at the same time, meaning I do more then 3 times the damage and the number grows when their health gets low - thanks to the passive - or when there are more enemies.
Many times more damage with no drawbacks. Not a good balancing choice IMHO.

2. Improve Shadow Image to either be locked when I am out of range of my shadow, or allow me to recast the shadow without wasting time getting an "Out of range" warning.

3. Make Agony useful. I haven't actively used that skill since I started playing the beta. Cripple too. Everything else is just better.

CP5

What is this I don't even...

In all seriousness this looks promising (the whole posting on forums thing) and I hope it pans out well. I only have two things at the moment that I want to bring up and those are the sorc's pets and stamina sorcs.

Right now stamina sorcs feel more like powerful weapon platforms, only really drawing passives and toggles from their class skills to channel the power of wrecking blow and steel tornado, things like the stamina lightning form didn't help out with this and I was curious if the 'suprise' you mentioned a few ESO Live's ago (which was mentioned after the passive's being changed as well as thundering presence being a stamina skill) was in game now or still coming. Things like the blood magic or disintegrate passives stam sorc's can't really use, and so many skills are so dependent on high levels of magicka there isn't much in the way of options.

I also wanted to know if the team had any plans to make the sorc pets something a bit more useful outside of solo, primarily pve content. They are mostly decoys, the clannfear can tank but has no regen and provides no threat on a pvp field to make people consider its presence. The twilight is made of paper and the fact that the matriarch not only has a 30s cooldown on a channeled heal, but that heal requires 40% of the pets health to use it, there are just so many drawbacks with the pets that despite my irrational love for the clannfear its still a hard call to not just ignore them completely.

CtrlAltDlt

Hi Erick,

Are you in charge of pvp updates/content? The pvp community has voiced their concerns over some of the issues that are hindering enjoyment of pvp. I'm sure you can find these in forum posts over the past few weeks so I am not going to reiterate them here but it would be great if you or whoever is in charge considers those topics

Valen_Byte

Wrobel wrote: »

My name is Eric Wrobel and I’ve had the pleasure of working at ZeniMax Online Studios for over five years now. A lot of my time here has been spent designing and implementing player abilities. As the Lead Combat Designer, my duties include all core combat mechanics, itemization, and new systems relating to combat and balance. In the last update, my team spent most of our time on Grouping Tool improvements, Enhanced Battle Leveling, Champion Point Catchup, and Champion Point Caps.

I’m a long time reader, first time poster. For a long time, my plan was to spend every second of the day working, then reading the forums after work. I’m going to change that stance, however, and be a bit more active on the forums now. I’ll be popping in from time to time to comment in threads and also get feedback. Keep in mind I’m not able to respond to every issue and post, but that doesn’t mean I’m not reading.

Looking forward, we have a lot of new features and updates for you all on the combat side of things. In the next major update, we are looking into ability improvements to all classes. We also plan on updating bleed abilities to apply to every monster type in the game instead of only certain ones – this will include new visual effects for these abilities so you can tell when a robot is “bleeding”. In general, we want you to have a greater variety of successful builds by making all abilities interesting, while retaining the uniqueness and identity. This thread would be the perfect place for you to share your top 3 most desired class ability improvements. The more detailed and specific your feedback, the more helpful it will be.

We appreciate how passionate everyone is about this game; it’s the reason we keep doing what we do. Please continue to post your constructive feedback on our ideas!

Great to see you on here!

My only suggestion to you at this point would be to stop listening to the 1%ers...the big guilds that have been bending the ears of zos since launch. The 'order' comes to mind...I think there ideas have done enough damage.

I think we have heard enough from the big guilds. Time to listen to the small groups...the solos (great job on wrothgar) and lets not forget one of the largest groups...the duo players.

Oh ya and could you fix the DKs...we are supposed to be badasses you know.

Faunter

Wow, finally decided to start posting, huh? Welcome, Stifler!

MLRPZ

Is that the place to talk about AoE cap ?

FENGRUSH

My god..............








AOE CAPS @Wrobel REMOVAL?

Faunter

FENGRUSH wrote: »

My god..............








AOE CAPS @Wrobel REMOVAL?

LOL

ZOS_GinaBruno

Jhunn wrote: »

Woah, well that was a surprise. Positive, but I'll be waiting to get my hopes up too much.

#removeAOEcaps
#bringbackdynamicultigen

Edit: I like how Gina edited his post

Didn't edit anything, it's just a forum bug whenever we put something on the Dev Tracker after it's been posted.

zerosingularity

Glad you have a presence here now, though it says you are a soul shriven and not an admin, lol. (Better start posting lots to rank up!)

While I am aware you wanted the top 3 class skills we desire improvements on, there are just so many skills that need love, and not all of them are class skills.

Some skills I feel that need fixing:

Destruction staff:
Wall of Elements - This skill is lackluster at best. The additional effects are what stand out the most. While the damage is a joke for this skill, it would be ok if the effects were good. Only the frost version seems worthwhile for the slow, and to proc the new Winterborn set, but even then, no one really uses frost staves. Both the fire and lightning versions need love, and the frost as well. This skill should probably have a high chance to proc the elemental effects, so people want to use it in their AoE or DPS rotations.

Duel wield:
Whirlwind, Whirling Blades morph - No matter what is done to this skill, it will be utter trash, the reason being that Steel Tornado has over double the radius. Maybe increasing the base range of the skill, so the Steel Tornado range isn't so much of a difference would help, and possibly giving this morph another buff, like health return or something.

Undaunted:
Bone shield - This would be a great shield for stamina users, since all classes have access to it. However the high cost, low value, and short duration make it too weak to use. Sure the synergy is very good, and it is intended for group play, but the user gets little benefit. A duration and % shield increase for the user would be nice, along with making the different morphs possibly more useful.

Blood alter - This skill is in dire need of some love. The synergy is great for a nice group heal, but health regen is worthless so it is not worth slotting, especially due to the cast time. Both morphs are fine, but the base skill needs a lot of love so that you would WANT someone to slot this in your group.

PVP skill:
Guard - I am not aware of anyone who uses this, even more so now since the block regen nerf. It says you regen stamina with it up, but the stamina cost per second is rather high. To break even you would need over 1.6k stamina regen, and even then that is just for having it active. I do not know if this allows stamina regen while blocking if it is active, but the skill probably needs some more love. (Tanks should chime in here.)

Sorcerer skill:
Crystal Shard, Crystal Blast morph - The area of affect is pretty useless, the other morph is only really used when instant cast, so maybe this morph as an AoE should be normally instant cast (less damage obviously), or do AoE and another affect. Or be the stamina morph all stamina sorcerers seem to want. (No magicka sorcerer will mind the loss, give those stamina Sorcerers some more love!)

Nightblade skill:
Death Stroke, Incapacitating strike morph - The stun is far less potent than the ultimate gain for virtually every scenario. This morph needs more love, though I am not sure what would be best.

Shadow cloak, Shadowy Disguise morph - This is rarely used, the guaranteed crit does not make the skill worthwhile to cast compared to the other morph, which cleanses numerous DoTs.

Aspect of Terror, Manifestation of Terror morph- Does anyone even use this morph? The other morph, Mass Hysteria, is really strong in PvP, but this one feels like the ugly duckling that needs some love.

Also, thanks for making bleed work on ALL mobs, it was very much needed.

GreenSoup2HoT

Hello Eric Worbal. I'm glad you have finally reached out to the forum's!

Here are the three thing's i would really like to see changed. This is coming from a Vampire Nightblade's point of view.

1: Vampire skill tree :

Drain Essence: Let it scale off any resource damage wise. Just so stamina user's can make use of this skill.

Stage Timer's: Reverse the duration of stage timer's. Stage 1=2 hours, Stage 2=1 1/2 hours ETC

Benefit's for your stage: This is something i would love to have changed. There is not much insensitive to be stage 1 compared to 4. Make vampire abilities hit harder at stage 1 but cost more. This would make stage 1 worth it. (This coupled with the above change would make playing vampire's so much more fun)

Dawnbreaker: Reduce the 60% extra damage to vampire's and werewolf's and change it to 25% for PvP. Leave the 60% for PvE. Would be nice not to get one shot by this for a change . You could also instead add some kind of resistance glyph for jewelry (Ex: Supernatural Resilience).

Mist Form: This ability is not granting CC/Snare/Immobilize immunity while in use. Also give this skill the ability to sprint while in use. You get major expedition but your locked to walking speed. If i have the stamina it would be nice if i could sprint to.

Poison Mist: This need's just a flat out damage increase. Enough to make your opponent want to run away. I'm thinking around 1k-2k damage (which translates to 500-1k in PvP).

Feeding: Please change this mechanic. Make it so feeding can only be broken when the enemy takes damage. If i find someone alone, I wanna drink my fill and return to the shadow's. Feeding should not be something that initiates combat.

2: Flurry. Please make the duration much more desirable. This skill is just so cumbersome to use in the fast pvp environment. When i picture flurry it should be really quick, not like im underwater.


3: Reduce all Gap Closer range's. When using ranged weapon's/skill's, you feel as if you can never create a gap from melee user's. At least make it more difficult for melee user's to close this gap. Most of the time before i know a group of player's are friend or foe they are already in gap closer range. 28 Meter's is just way to much.

Bonus round

-Radiant Mage Light: Change this ability to a 1 minute buff. Having two slot's for this one ability really hurt's.

-Agony: Stamina morph?

-Power extraction: Can this copy the mechanic's of Sap Essence but be the stamina alternative?

-Soul Siphon: Why does this ability not heal yourself and only allies? This morph is completely useless outside of group play. Even still very situational. Make this ability heal yourself as well.

FENGRUSH wrote: »

My god..............



AOE CAPS @Wrobel REMOVAL?

OMG Fengrush you made me spit out my drink!

Lord-Gibson

Templars need some serious help.

1. Ultimates, Would love to see better ultimate for pvp
2. AoE, since there is something really lacking here along with CC
3. Dark Flare, needs less channel time and no arc

All in all Templars have a tough time outside of playing in a group. There are a lot of things that could be done here. I dont know why they have been done so wrong in the dps department. I love my Templar and would love to continue to play with him but its getting too frustrating and Im so close to going to another game.

BossTuggles

First off HOLY *** he is a real person!

So many things to point out and complaints to be made I do not even know where to start.

Here is a good one, Is there a reason that with every patch in this game you are deteriorating small scale pvp. Also, with every patch the games performance in Cyro has gotten worse and worse. Was this a goal of yours?

You make statements like "I’m a long time reader, first time poster. For a long time, my plan was to spend every second of the day working, then reading the forums after work." . Is this factual? Do you actually read what we discuss? (forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/88049/do-you-think-there-should-be-an-aoe-cap/p1)? What work have you actually put into this game. I personally only spend my time in Cyro so I can understand not a constant stream of updates and fixes but some of the stuff that has been in game since beta and release are still commonly occurring. I can understand if its a lack of resources or manpower in making new things for the game however, everything you implement is just broken. The game has simply gotten worse and everything you implement into the game has made ESO a lesser version of itself. Take your latest patching of the Vet Maelstrom Arena. You patch it to fix the mechanic of the shield not being created quick enough to avoid the screams on the Behemoth boss stage 7. However in trying to "fix" this mechanic you in fact broke it entirely. How is this even possible? Do you not even test the changes you make or are you just using the PC playerbase as your playtesters for console release?


Why do you make your first epic appearance into the forums to announce something so irrelevant as a visual effect for bleeding statuses?

Since you claim to READ these forums regularly, how about you spend about 10 minutes of your day and wander into the PvP section of these here forums.

Wollust

Alucardo

1. Magicka DK execute (for stam I have no issue using Executioner)
2. Stam whip for DK that scales off max stamina and weapon damage (all I want for Christmas)
3. Chains - sometimes it doesn't go off. If that could be looked at I'd appreciate it. Also, for lack of Magicka DK mobility and gap closers, if you could make it impossible to dodge (or at least pull you to the target if they dodge it but they receive no damage), that'd be great.

Sublime

sirinsidiator wrote: »

1. Not really a pure class ability suggestion, but please make AOE and single target abilities do a similar amount of damage over all targets per time. Right now AOE is completely overpowered in terms of numbers.

Please, don't. Removing this choice from the skilltrees would not only leave us with less options to specialize in, but also have a major impact on PvP since blobing would become even easier. AOE cap discussion etc etc.

Elsonso

Wrobel wrote: »

My name is Eric Wrobel and I’ve had the pleasure of working at ZeniMax Online Studios for over five years now.

Welcome to the forums!