PTS Patch Notes v2.4.0

a1i3nz

Kinda disappointed by the shield duration nerf. A lot of players rely heavily on harness magicka for VMSA.
Also why change nirnhoned to increase the damage of the weapon? Will that then raise my spell damage with 1h swords? I would rather have penetration and resistance but guess we'll have to try it first.

Djeriko

Once again @ZOS_GinaBruno where your patch notes show how they are fixing appearances on new armor and styles but nothing on the old stuff. So I have to remind you once again. Here's a list with pictures for your comparison:


Was it intentional for Redguard Heavy armor girdles (belt buckles) to able to hover in the air much lower than the belt and have since then become a GROIN CUP! This has been since the Redguard armor redesign and has yet to be fixed. This not only looks odd but causes a clipping issue where the buckle goes into the character model.
Solution: Maybe it's just me but belt buckles should be on the belt...

Was it intentional for several styles of shields to be positioned incorrectly? The list includes, Akaviri, Altmer, Ancient Elf, Breton, Dunmer, and Xivkin (I'm pretty sure there are more...)
All of these styles' highest level of shields is positioned incorrectly on the character's back and arms when carried. You can also see that a shield is positioned incorrectly while looking at the straps inside the shield when carried. Just like the Redguard Girdle, if the arms aren't aligned with the models arm, it looks wrong. Also when you put an ancient armor shield on in first person and hold block, you will see what I mean. It completely takes up the screen compared to other shields) The identified shields look really odd when on the model's back. If you can't see the model's head, it's too high on the model. Is the model wearing the shield to protect the back of his head?! I'm guessing whoever positioned it on the model's back put the bottom of the shield at the waistline for some shields but not all. This results in tall shields fitting incorrectly instead of being centered and worn properly.
Solution: Lower the position of the shield on the character when worn and held. Easy reference point is the straps on the shield can be put parallel with the arm and when worn on the back the shield needs to be lowered to at least show some portion of the model's head when seen from the rear.

Xivkin Shields suffer from a similar incorrect positioning as the previously mentioned shields however it just hovers away from the character model's back when worn and arm when being held. (MAGIC HOVERING SHIELDS FOR EVERYONE!)
Solution: just bring the shield into the model's body a little.

Was it intentional for Glass heavy armor and Mercenary heavy armor to produce incorrect colors when using the dye system? Red dye on other armor styles makes red. Easy to understand however red dye on Glass armor (specifically heavy armor) makes pink. And then darker color red dyes produce an even lighter color pink. Black makes grey and so on. How is that supposed to make sense? Also in previous patch notes, you pointed out that it was possible to have different styled gauntlets equipped with actual red color and wear glass boots that had the correct red color the matched. This shows that the system can actually produce a RED on glass heavy armor that was correct but instead we have to just settle for pink.

Comparing Coldharbour Ash Black on multiple styles to Glass Heavy armor becomes comparing black to grey...



Comparing Pact Conqueror Red on multiple styles to Glass Heavy armor becomes comparing red to pink...



Comparing Covenant Conqueror Blue to light blue...



Dominion Conqueror Yellow to a little lighter yellow...



White actually looks about the same but needs work on the cloth areas, you would think cloth would be willing to accept dye better than hard metallic surfaces.



Keep in mind that both sets of armors are using the same dye with screen shots taken minutes apart so the lighting is the same as well as being made of the same material (rubedite) so the underlying metal should be red. Underlying color does not matter in this game obviously since you get the same result seen above regardless of what level the armor is. The argument of material is irrelevant Glass heavy armor as well as Mercenary heavy armor is suffering incorrect colors from the dye system. So I'll keep asking until someone on the dev team answers.


Was it intentional for Glass and Mercenary heavy armors to be singled out for having the worst dye? Wouldn't it make sense to have all dyes look the same on all heavy armors? WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

Was it intentional for Outlaw shields (after level 36) to have a large central portion that could not be dyed at all? The shield has a border, an emblem, tribal symbols and this big empty area in the middle. This empty area is white and it seems like a waste to have the largest area on a shield to not be dyed. Wouldn't it make sense to make the largest area be the primary color, the border and the emblem be the secondary color and the tribal symbols be the tertiary color. Seems like such a waste (It took you over a year to give us shield dyes after armor dyes, please don't let it be another year until someone sees this error)

Was it intentional for the icon for Outlaw shields sanded beech level (level 26-34) to have an icon that is a staff? If you don't know, just go to a crafting station and look at the icon.
Also was it intentional for Outlaw shields with the hickory wood (level 36-44) and higher to have the icon of the mid level icon(lower than level 36)? The higher levels gives us a kite shield that is not the icon displayed.
Solution: I know these are bugs. Just verifying that you know about it and are looking into it.

Was it intentional for the combat system to instantly sheath the character's weapon immediately after the first strike in combat? This almost 50% of the time when Entropy and it's morphs or Shielded Assault is used on the first hit. It especially looks weird after a Shielded Assault where my character sprints up to an enemy while his weapons and shield magically put themselves up and bumps into the enemy. I then have to unsheathe my weapons and try to continue to attack. I shall provide video of this.
Solution: I know this is a bug. Just verifying that you know about it and are looking into it.

Was it intentional to have character's sprint on the mounts back? This was seen in the video of the last ESO live. Looks funny yes but crappy at the same time. The fact that you guys pointed it out shows it may be the first time you've seen it. We've seen it many times and to me it's just like that time we had spaghetti leg model's that ran while dancing. It's annoying. Please fix it.

Djeriko

A Templar and Sorceror ability question:
Was it intentional for the skills Healing Ritual, Rune Focus (Temp) and Surge (Sorc) to have morphs that do not improve as the morphs increase in level? Every Morph increases through a rank system (I, II, III, IV). With each rank increase we see an improvement in the change provided by the morph that makes it unique. But with these three, particularly Channeled Focus (morph of Rune Focus) Ritual of Rebirth (morph of Healing Ritual), and Power Surge (morph of Surge), they do not show any improvement or change as the ranks increase. Ritual of Rebirth offers us a shorter cast time as soon as the morph is selected but no change after that. Channeling Focus gives us Magic back every half second. But then the stats stay the same even if it increases. Power Surge gives us add Spell Damage but the stats stay the same through the ranks. Logically I would expect Ritual of Rebirth to lessen the cast time with each rank and Channeling Focus should increase the Magic you receive back. Power Surge would be harder to do because of the cookie cutter Major and Minor buff thing you have going now so you might have trouble showing an increase there so why not increase health received from crits a little each rank too.

Another Templar ability question:
Was it intentional for Rune Focus and it's morphs have incorrect tooltips? Rune focus currently works exactly like Circle of Protection in the fighters guild. It drops a rune on the ground. On the tooltip for Circle of Protection it states "Area" on what it targets whereas Rune Focus says it targets "Self". Self targeted spells such as Spiked Armor for DK's do exactly what they say, it targets yourself and leaves you free to move around with your buff. So why does Rune Focus and it's morphs target a ground area while still saying "Self" and Circle of Protection (fighters guild ability cloned from Rune Focus) say ""Area"? If you wanted to make a self targeting spell for Templars that Rune Focus does, just remove that whole rune on the ground and just give the buffs to the character themselves like Spiked Armor does. I think all Templars will love not having to worry about watching the ground anymore, being able to move, and still get their buffs just like DK's can do.

Aquanova

With this many major changes, is there any chance of us getting a free respec this time?

AzraelKrieg

Aquanova wrote: »

With this many major changes, is there any chance of us getting a free respec this time?

Nope. No free respecs. People complained with IC, they reiterated at PAX they won't be doing free respecs with updates.

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

With this many major changes, is there any chance of us getting a free respec this time?

Nope. No free respecs. People complained with IC, they reiterated at PAX they won't be doing free respecs with updates.

Hmm I think they said no mandatory respecs. They could mail every character one bound to that character or just drop it in the inventory.

AzraelKrieg

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO wrote: »

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

With this many major changes, is there any chance of us getting a free respec this time?

Nope. No free respecs. People complained with IC, they reiterated at PAX they won't be doing free respecs with updates.

Hmm I think they said no mandatory respecs. They could mail every character one bound to that character or just drop it in the inventory.

That would be a good idea. I don't see ZOS doing that though.

olsborg

Elder shields online, wts shieldbreaker pieces, 1 million each piece.

Tyrac

Hhahahahaha wreckingblow spammers got pwnd

Tevalaur

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Crafting & Economy
Alchemy

• Changed the fourth alchemical trait on White Cap from Lower Spell Crit to Detection, to avoid a quadruple effect match. This quadruple match was not supported by the system, and is no longer possible.

@ZOS_GinaBruno
Lower Spell Crit is only available currently on White Cap and Nirnroot. If you plan to change it to no longer be on White Cap then it can no longer be learned as a trait on Nirnroot and will affect the Botonist and Nirnroot-specific achievements making them unable to be completed.

If you're truly going to remove the effect off White Cap then you need to add it to another plant or remove it from Nirnroot (and the entire game) as well.

GRYM.LOCKE

So essentially...

1: Take away all stuns near enough
2: Take away all knockdowns near enough
3: make shields useless

love to see how PVP *** OVER PVE again

thanks ZOS amazing how you got to be best MMO 2015...... it wont happen in 2016 thats for sure

[edited for bypassing profanity filter]

nordsavage

Boo at bracing removal haven't tanks had it hard enough.

karakondzula

Finally some sort of nerf to damage shields, magicka det and penetrations. No weapon ultimates tho, Wrobel lied again

XxLone_WolfxX402

Is the whole point of a dk is to do fire damage? why change it to poison this does not make sense???
cant you just keep it as it is dk were amazing in the first place BECAUSE of their fire damage... now change it to poison silly, silly and more silly.

I also see they are going ahead with removing the vet ranks bad move zos, I dont know why people wanted this now its just going to be a grind fest from 1 to 50 gg zenimax. I remember when levelling vet ranks used to be a pain remember 1 million xp to level 1 vet rank??? now its 850k really people cant be asked to level vet ranks and so they complain it being too tedious????

plus we all know that after this goes live there will be the inevitable of tons and tons of crashes and lovely reports being sent to zos and people being mad in the forums.... we all know this to be true don't we???

Lettigall

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Francescolg wrote: »

Sorc shield is still on top of all re-castable absorb shields, just because each re-casting can proc Crystal Frag! Every skilled sorc knows how to combine shield-stacking + crystal frag procs in PvP battles, add some ports left and right (not streak^^) and this will work like a charm (still easy mode). You will have a little bit less dps but still mostly instant skills, no casted/channelled spells and very high mobility, while having best-def possible + max dmg output, all out of magicka/spell dmg.

My sorc sees no problems

The problem is that you can be put on the defensive really easy, if someone CCs you just before your shield runs out you'll have no defense unless you instantly break it and reapply the shield. Meanwhile you do 0 dps and the attacker can keep increasing the preassure. We all know some CCs take more time to break (Fear and Fossilze for example) which will make it easy to burst through the 22-25k health pool.

Sorcs will have a very hard time vs skilled stamina DKs and NBs, hard-CC > burst > ult > GG and GN

Welcome to the world of others classes and builds! Somehow we survived all those "horrid" CCs without shields!

Epona222

AzraelKrieg wrote: »

Spearshard wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno, I may have missed it, but are going to get a respec when the patch goes live? There are some big changes.

No respec. They reiterated that at PAX in there Q&A. After people complained about having to respec with IC release they stopped doing it completely.

I want a free respec - after the update goes live I will have 8 characters at max level just on my main account on NA (and another 3 on my 2nd account on NA, and another 3 maxed on my main account on EU) and that is a LOT of gold I will have to spend, or more probably not be able to spend, on respecs.

I wish they'd just do some sort of token system for a free respec after major updates - that way people who "can't be bothered" to reallocate their skillpoints aren't forced to, but those of us who would like to and have multiple characters won't be left massively out of pocket. It's a massive expense for those of us with alts.

olsborg

Why does vampires gain the regen passive without any vampire abilities slotted, but werewolfs dont? Why do zos hate werewolf so much?

GarnetFire17

Seems like ZOS does not care for defense too much. Don't complain about the dungeons being made easier because the game as a whole is about to get more difficult it seems.

dwemer_cog11

Epona222 wrote: »

I wish they'd just do some sort of token system for a free respec after major updates

They can just reset respec cost values back to 3k gold, no need to program anything new.

Epona222

dwemer_cog11 wrote: »

Epona222 wrote: »

I wish they'd just do some sort of token system for a free respec after major updates

They can just reset respec cost values back to 3k gold, no need to program anything new.

When were they ever at 3k gold? Skill point respec has halved in price since early on after release, and I'm still looking at around 120k to respec 8 characters.

TheHsN

I got Sick of hen they buff something they Nerf other thing...

All stamina cost are lower then magicka cost
Nerf Hardened Ward and Harness Magicka 6 second duration from 20 ***.......
Nerf Detonation....

I was right to cancel my sub last week now im quiting....

Ok make the buff stamina ok i got it...it was needed...BUT *** nerf to those ***.....BYE ESO

EgoRush

These changes look amazing overall. Omg. I just quit the game and you go and throw this at me?! ZOS please.

greylox

I can live with the shield nerf, 8 secs is fine but not one morph of the spiders in magicka?!? And inevitable det is off my bar now by the look of it.

Love the heavy armour changes, can't wait to try on my tank.

olsborg

The annulment (harness and dampen magicka) light armor ability change was very, very bad, just makes shields generally a bigger issue then it already is, currently magicka sorcerors are the shield-"problem" but soon every magicka class will be aswell, wts shieldbreaker set.

Cyantific87

TheHsN wrote: »

I got Sick of hen they buff something they Nerf other thing...

All stamina cost are lower then magicka cost
Nerf Hardened Ward and Harness Magicka 6 second duration from 20 ***.......
Nerf Detonation....

I was right to cancel my sub last week now im quiting....

Ok make the buff stamina ok i got it...it was needed...BUT *** nerf to those ***.....BYE ESO

LOL,

Cya.

On a serious note though, l2adapt. With every patch comes a lot of change and that is a good thing. If we didn't have changes like this it would become a stale and boring game. I play magicka class on Sorc, NB and Templar and the changes are absolutely great. I look forward to trying out new styles and perfecting a new build!

There are way too many people whining on this thread about the changes and it just seems like it is for the sake of it instead of having any real validation.

Duiwel

Just so you guys know for future clipping "graphics" fixes.

The Ebonheart Pact heavy armour's neck looks like a giraffe if you wear any helmet other than the pact one. So perhaps just look into that for next time

I am not sure how I feel about some of these combat changes especially the fighter's guild daedra ones... So I will see ( good thing I always have all passives for fighters guild (except the bounty one) anyway )

Epona222

I have honestly got to a point now where I just wish they'd stop changing things - barely had time to get used to the changes in the last update. Seems as though everything is going through a major overhaul every update and causing a lot of angst and problems. I just would like someone to say "ok that's it" at some point and no more major changes, even with the new character slots available to buy we only have a maximum of 12, and it's too much to keep people wondering if their main or even their new character will be viable in 3 months time.

Tarrin

Hats

Arandul

"no need to jump up and down anymore!"

There is always a need to jump.

I'm so excited about the change to bound armaments!

And also, I was so apprehensive about this patch and was honestly dreading it having just come back to the game, but after reading the patch notes I'm pretty excited for it and think this is the right direction for the game to go. There are improvements everywhere and I think this is where ESO needs to be in order to stay fresh and relevant. Also the champion point move is smart since it allows perpetual level caps... Granted I will hate making new armor with the release of each new material... But whatever.

Septimus_Magna

Lettigall wrote: »

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Francescolg wrote: »

Sorc shield is still on top of all re-castable absorb shields, just because each re-casting can proc Crystal Frag! Every skilled sorc knows how to combine shield-stacking + crystal frag procs in PvP battles, add some ports left and right (not streak^^) and this will work like a charm (still easy mode). You will have a little bit less dps but still mostly instant skills, no casted/channelled spells and very high mobility, while having best-def possible + max dmg output, all out of magicka/spell dmg.

My sorc sees no problems

The problem is that you can be put on the defensive really easy, if someone CCs you just before your shield runs out you'll have no defense unless you instantly break it and reapply the shield. Meanwhile you do 0 dps and the attacker can keep increasing the preassure. We all know some CCs take more time to break (Fear and Fossilze for example) which will make it easy to burst through the 22-25k health pool.

Sorcs will have a very hard time vs skilled stamina DKs and NBs, hard-CC > burst > ult > GG and GN

Welcome to the world of others classes and builds! Somehow we survived all those "horrid" CCs without shields!

So what class skills should sorcs use to mitigate dmg and heal themselves?
Casting hardened ward only gives a temporary health buffer, it does not restore any health.
Surge hardly works in pvp and the Twilight is clunky and unreliable.

The fact that sorcs have to recast their shields more often will require more magicka regen which means less spell dmg. And because sorcs will have to spend more time casting shields their dmg will drop even more. So their dmg output is nerfed in two ways and their defense is nerfed by 70%. Its not like sorcs are so OP at the moment that they need to be nerfed left, right and center.


p.s. I havent been played my sorc for months because its pretty bad in pvp groups but I have played one long enough to understand that this is a terrible dissension.