A Laundry List of Changes to Make - Come Post Your Own Changes Too!

Personofsecrets

Start

Greetings everyone. In no particular order I will write about some of my recent thoughts. Please feel free to add to this list with your own discussion of bugs, mechanical difficulties, or culture within this game. Please also try to post proofs regarding the issues that you take up.

Tanking Videos

1. Maw Second Boss

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

Honestly, I dreaded the fact that there would be dungeons that required two tanks to work together on the same boss. I also hate how there is almost no need for tanks so I was going along with a new focus by the dungeon team of making tanking a more needed role.

That being said, the reason why I dread multiple tanks taunting along side each other is shown in the above video. For some reason, that particular enemy does some really strange stuff when I taunt it the same way that I would taunt any other boss. Even his light counterpart isn't weird. I feel like something is messed up with the taunts, it has to do with multiple taunts, and I don't have a clear cut way of preventing the issue. Taunting every other attack or waiting for the very first taunt I put on him to fully expire seems to help the aggro loss issue, but this is a strange enemy for sure. Hopefully multi-tank raids in the future don't end up with a boss that has this issue.

2. Knock Back Long Stun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=987snMBZGTk

Some instances of being knocked back and, I think hit by another attack at close to the same time, result in being knocked back, but then being stunned for a long period of time. As the video shows, such an occurrence can be quite costly.

3. Extended Chains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMN7gm-q1Sk

In this video I show a bug where enemies can not be targeted by the Extended Chains gap closer ability because they are "too high or too low."

This bug often happens despite enemies being on the same level ground compared to the caster and there are even times where a caster can use chains successfully on enemies that are actually much higher or lower than themselves.

On top of these issues, this bug is strange because using a potion prevents the too high or too low error from preventing chains being cast.

One would think that this issue would be fixed after being well known for over a year, but welcome to the Elder Scrolls Online where the developers joke about broken abilities on April Fools Day and do little else to address certain bugs.

4. Chains and Siege Shield

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8bmQddcwqI

I don't feel like taking away more of chains versatility is fair. This change to chains was a really ham-fisted way of trying to stop abuse. Why does this skill and gap closers in general give the development team so much trouble? That trouble is really concerning to me.

5. Bar Swapping and Effects

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUFkIu1RExw

The number of people that I've had to tell to not use the Ebon sword and shield is in the double digits. The development team should really work on making sure that same effects which are on two bars don't fall off during the bar swap. To the development teams credit, at least entropy works good now, but shield enchantments still fall off.

6. Vulnerable Frames

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJqsFNZ0LgQ

Vulnerable frames just aren't fun. It is probably true that the vast majority of tank deaths are because of vulnerable frames meeting latency or FPS lags. As a special bonus, at least developers may be able to use the same fix to the Ebon set to remove the vulnerable frames that happen when a bar swap occurs.

Other Stuff Without a Video

1. Orc Passives

The PTS Orc passives just don't feel that good and that is mostly because they are inconsistent. It's racials are just setup in a way where there are too many effects and no individual effect is powerful enough on it's own to make the Orc interesting. Remember, like the Maelstrom Sword, the more effects that something has, because of balance reasons, the more lackluster and situational each effect must be. HP regen is a throw away passive and it's counterpart, healing received, isn't even useful in PVE. Additionally, the Orc increased damage passive only, out of all of the morphed weapon skills, will increase the damage of 5 of those skills and 3 of those are part of the Sword and Board tree.

Compared to Imperial (The best tank race) Orc isn't that great because, as a tank, the extra health and stamina is a much better buffer for survivability than hp regen or healing received. That is just how the cookie crumbles because in the only content that is currently a good gauge for tank builds, the tank, when dying, is dying to a one shot or mechanic and that means that healing received literally can't be effective in that case.

Compared to Khajiit (The best stam DPS race) Orc isn't that great because, as a DPS, the extra DPS from the Orc passive doesn't even effect skills that are used in end game PVE builds. Khajiit increases the damage of bow abilities, abilities greater than 5 meters, and each tick of every dot by, on average, increasing the chance of those effects to be critical hits and, on top of that, the critical hit meta is very important. The Orc passive, compared to the Khajiit passive, is like going from speed 1 to 80 in 6 seconds - it is jarring imbalance.

What I would like to see is pretty simple. Increased ultimate received instead of healing would be a great boon for Orcs that are tanky and this would be an exciting passive for PVE and PVP. Increased % of weapon damage instead of increased damage done with very specific and limited attacks would be a great boon for DPS in PVE and PVP. Orcs would become a strong tank choice in between Nord and Imperial because they would lack the survivability of those other races, but offer more group utility. Orcs would become a good choice for the DPS role in between Redguard and Khajiit because they would lack the resources of the Redguard and the damage of the Khajiit, but would be able to use their coolest and hardest hitting abilities more often.

I see these above changes as creating a good opportunity for players to think about making a race change to Orc or to start a new Orc toon. Placing Orcs in the middle of already well known and established races, instead of in dead last place, will create many opportunities for players to explore new options. Additionally, I feel that the changes that I mention are in line with the Elder Scrolls world.



Ultimate received has, in the past, been part of this game.



Doesn't that passive just shout out "berserker" class. It would be so cool if the berserker archetype was part of this game via the ultimate regen system.

Come on, this would be too cool to not implement.

2. HA Passives and The Maelstrom Sword

Rapid Mending, Wrath, and the Maelstrom sword all share a similar issue. To echo what I said earlier about Orc racial balance,

Remember, like the Maelstrom Sword, the more effects that something has, because of balance reasons, the more lackluster and situational each effect must be.

All 3 of those tanking tools are just too busy and suffer for it. I know from my own personal experience designing game components that it is hard to make something feel exciting and cool without adding more effects to that thing. For simplicity sake and the sake of making stats valuable, we have to keep focused when we design an effect. Without focus, we end up tacking on a bunch of effects to a component, but then have to dull down each of those individual effects.

I don't put points into wrath, I don't use full charged heavy attacks, I doubt that healing received is helping me much because I pretty much only die to being one-shot and because heals are over-healing to begin with, I will never use the Maelstrom Sword.

3. Master Weapons

A picture is worth 1000 words, so I will save you some reading.



The item may say it is CP160, but nobody would be able to tell that this isn't patch 1.5 with a weapon that increases an attacks damage by a lousy 500 points. Let's at least hope that these things still don't chew through soul gems like groceries.

4. Current Ban Waves

We have to get smart and find out what in the world is going on here. We've got cheaters playing, fair players banned temporarily and permanently, and the persons who seem to be in charge of the current banning system seem to have made some very dubious claims which call into question their and their tools ability to detect real cheaters, not have false-positives, and be fair to everyone. There is some real crooked stuff happening and again, it's time for us to get smart about this subject. There need to be some investigations of what exactly is going on.

5. DLC Direction

I don't really know anybody that is content with the upcoming DLC dungeons. There just isn't much content with those places and the itemization isn't that great either. I'd hate to see this game become rotten at it's core due to a DLC system that is more focused on generating microtransactions instead of full plates of content. The microtransaction system just seems to be taking a real sour and anti-consumer turn because of how it currently stifles player voice via requiring subscriptions for a certain tremendous bonus. I want companies to focus on giving me better products and more of those products with each transaction. I don't want to be given less of a product for the same amount of money that used to get me a hearty amount of product. Don't you want players telling non-players that "Wow the DLC is truly superb, it adds alot to the game and is worth every penny" rather than "You don't really need the DLC, it is short and not really worth it, and the player interest is dying?"

End

That is all for now. I hope that this list makes for some good reading, that my suggestions are helpful to you, and, in some cases, see implementation. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Finn . Thank you for reading.

To Record:

Pierce Armor/Elemental Drain Interactions
Synergy Button Mechanics
Critical Chance Modifier Mechanics
Auto Weapon Sheathe
Loot Radius

IxskullzxI

Fix dragon's blood.

Liofa

Update Battle Roar tooltip .

Personofsecrets

Liofa wrote: »

Update Battle Roar tooltip .

Can you please explain how Battle Roar works?

Liofa

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Liofa wrote: »

Update Battle Roar tooltip .

Can you please explain how Battle Roar works?

There are base numbers for Health and Stamina/Magicka .

Base number of Health : 0.0015
Base number of Stamina/Magicka : 0.00175

Resource gain : Base number of wanted resource * Ultimate cost * Max Stat

For example , my tank build has Potentates set which reduces Ultimate cost by %10 so my Warhorn costs 225 and I have 33600 Max Stamina .

Calculation goes like this :

Stamina Gain from Warhorn usage : 0.00175 * 225 * 33600 = 13230

I can say it seems close . Never tested if it is exactly correct or not but I know it is very close .

Personofsecrets

Liofa wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Liofa wrote: »

Update Battle Roar tooltip .

Can you please explain how Battle Roar works?

There are base numbers for Health and Stamina/Magicka .

Base number of Health : 0.0015
Base number of Stamina/Magicka : 0.00175

Resource gain : Base number of wanted resource * Ultimate cost * Max Stat

For example , my tank build has Potentates set which reduces Ultimate cost by %10 so my Warhorn costs 225 and I have 33600 Max Stamina .

Calculation goes like this :

Stamina Gain from Warhorn usage : 0.00175 * 225 * 33600 = 13230

I can say it seems close . Never tested if it is exactly correct or not but I know it is very close .

Thank you for sharing this.

code65536

Ugh, I hate, hate, hate how the game handles bar-swapping. When gearing up, I've always had to be careful to make sure that no max-health/mag/stam set bonuses exists on a weapon slot. (The shield enchantment is unfortunately unavoidable--I try to avoid enchanting my shields with stam for that reason.)

So for the popular Ebon+Tava+Monster setup, there's only one way to do it: 2p monster armor, 3p Ebon jewelry, 2p Ebon armor, 3p Tava armor, 2p Tava 1HS. Any other setup is broken.

For NB tanks doing Leeching+Bahraha+Monster, it means that the 4p max-stat bonus from Bahraha will fall prey to the bar swap stat loss. (I personally prefer Kag over Leeching, which as a bonus, also lets me do 1p Kag and 1p Bahraha for my 1HS to avoid having any max-stat bonuses on bar-swap pieces.)

And there's the brief dropping of block during bar swaps that you also mentioned, which has killed me a few times (most recently, in vSO: get magicka bomb, do a panic bar swap to dump magicka without first checking to see if the boss is about to hit me hard, get rekt).

But seeing how long bar swapping has been broken, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for them to fix this. Especially since I suspect that fixing it would require that they completely rewrite how bar swapping works.

SRIBES

Upgrade the servers

Personofsecrets

Wow, this PTS is dead.

Lava_Croft

Best course of action in the case of ESO is to just leave it be and focus your attention on a game that's developed by skilled people who have a clue of what they are doing.

Cinbri

Change weapon-swap so when you swaping it if you hold block, you not drop block for short time. Every time swapping bar resulting in CC. Most annoying thing in pvp for tanking builds.

Liofa

Cinbri wrote: »

Change weapon-swap so when you swaping it if you hold block, you not drop block for short time. Every time swapping bar resulting in CC. Most annoying thing in pvp for tanking builds.

I don't think it is logical to change that ^^ You put away your weapon and get another one basically . How can you block while changing weapons It also makes tanking a bit difficult in PvE as well . To be honest , I like it .

bebynnag

re the taunt loss

keeps happening to me too, of course it doesnt help that MagDD insist on using the undaunted taunt as an attack & then rage atthe tank for loosing agro and the healer for not healing them!

Personofsecrets

Liofa wrote: »

Cinbri wrote: »

Change weapon-swap so when you swaping it if you hold block, you not drop block for short time. Every time swapping bar resulting in CC. Most annoying thing in pvp for tanking builds.

I don't think it is logical to change that ^^ You put away your weapon and get another one basically . How can you block while changing weapons It also makes tanking a bit difficult in PvE as well . To be honest , I like it .

@Liofa , honestly, and I see exactly where you are coming from by wanting aspects of the game that are difficult, we could still have skillful tanking without barswap deaths.

I remember, and maybe you remember to, that people used to be upset about the change in the taunt system that removed overtaunting for times when there is only a single tank. That change has been one of the single best changes for tanking in my opinion and I originally thought that it would dumb down the role.

There are no more times when I have to be concerned that a taunt of mine didn't work because of noises happening with strange animations. If I think a problem with the taunt happened, maybe I don't have to be skilled to know how to deal with that problem like before, but now I can just retaunt without fear of triggering overtaunt.

It is so relieving that I can just be a tank rather than laser focus on a single strange mechanic that causes issues. That is why I think that it would be nice to remove the vulnerable frames from bar swap and roll dodge. @Wrobel , maybe there are some skills with bar swapping at the right time, but I just want to tank. I don't want to laser focus on the instance of dying because I pressed my middle mouse button a fraction of time too late. I probably spend 20 percent of my time when tanking trials thinking about bar swap because I want to make 100% sure that I don't die in case there is a fps lag or latency spike.

Again, @Liofa , I see your point and I think it is a good point, but I also hope that my overtaunt analogy convinces you, even just a little bit, of my position.

Liofa

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Liofa wrote: »

Cinbri wrote: »

Change weapon-swap so when you swaping it if you hold block, you not drop block for short time. Every time swapping bar resulting in CC. Most annoying thing in pvp for tanking builds.

I don't think it is logical to change that ^^ You put away your weapon and get another one basically . How can you block while changing weapons It also makes tanking a bit difficult in PvE as well . To be honest , I like it .

@Liofa , honestly, and I see exactly where you are coming from by wanting aspects of the game that are difficult, we could still have skillful tanking without barswap deaths.

I remember, and maybe you remember to, that people used to be upset about the change in the taunt system that removed overtaunting for times when there is only a single tank. That change has been one of the single best changes for tanking in my opinion and I originally thought that it would dumb down the role.

There are no more times when I have to be concerned that a taunt of mine didn't work because of noises happening with strange animations. If I think a problem with the taunt happened, maybe I don't have to be skilled to know how to deal with that problem like before, but now I can just retaunt without fear of triggering overtaunt.

It is so relieving that I can just be a tank rather than laser focus on a single strange mechanic that causes issues. That is why I think that it would be nice to remove the vulnerable frames from bar swap and roll dodge. @Wrobel , maybe there are some skills with bar swapping at the right time, but I just want to tank. I don't want to laser focus on the instance of dying because I pressed my middle mouse button a fraction of time too late. I probably spend 20 percent of my time when tanking trials thinking about bar swap because I want to make 100% sure that I don't die in case there is a fps lag or latency spike.

Again, @Liofa , I see your point and I think it is a good point, but I also hope that my overtaunt analogy convinces you, even just a little bit, of my position.

It just doesn't make sense . That is the thing . You can't continue to block without a shield on your hand . I don't care if they change it or not . But if it was changed , it would just be illogical .

Personofsecrets

If something doesn't make sense, but makes the game more fun, then I'm okay with that.

Personofsecrets

Will get a video up of being stunned without any ability to roll, block, or use abilities tonight.

Armitas

I think that our block is now coming from the magical gold shield emblem that projects in front of us rather than the actual item in our hand. So it might look more coherent to maintain block through the gold magic shield while switching weapons...or at least more coherent than it would be without it. So this way the gold shield persists through the weapon swap while you animate the weapon swap behind the gold shield.

And the weapon swap behind the gold shield emblem need not be incoherent either because you can swap items one hand at a time. So lets say you have a weapon in your left hand and a shield in your right. The right hand holds block while the left hand reaches back and exchanges a sword for a staff and brings the staff forward into a block position as the right hand begins to reach back to deposit the shield. Meanwhile the gold blocking indicator persists through the weapon swap.

Personofsecrets

Does the gold shield go away when bar swapping?

code65536

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Does the gold shield go away when bar swapping?

It disappears and reappears. Easy to miss unless you're looking for it.

Personofsecrets

@ZOS_GinaBruno , I'll still work on getting a video up about synergies. Until then I'd like to share this video that illustrates a current bug which happens when players are affected by a knock back. I've seen many instances of players dying because of this bug in several different parts of the game including vMAW and vMA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=987snMBZGTk

I don't know who at ZOS handles this type of mechanic, but it may be pertinent for @Wrobel and @ZOS_Finn .

zerosingularity

Just a heads up:

The Maelstrom Sword works, last I checked. It's just it is so crap no one can even tell it does (No one uses Low Slash for the damage it does). I only use it because I am too lazy to gold another weapon for more DPS in my hybrid setup. Give me 8 temp alloys and I will decon it ASAP, it's GARBAGE.

The Master Destro Staff is actually good. That ~500 damage buff applies to each tick of the DoT, so it adds a lot more damage than it seems. (This is how it was a few DLC ago, dunno if it got changed or not.)

Some of the Master Weapons need a buff though, especially now that regular enchants got a buff and these did not.

Everything else mentioned are serious concerns, among many. Hope to see some mechanics improvements coming to a DLC near you.

Personofsecrets

Thank you for adding those nuances @zerosingularity

My suspicion about the maelstrom sword comes from the following video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW3ymFXRZ38

Maybe it is just not doing anything on console or maybe something else. It is sort of funny to see it literally not increase damage.

With the information you mentioned about the master staff, then maybe that particular weapon will be a-okay. Do you have any thoughts about the bow, great sword, or daggers?

zerosingularity

Just tested Low Slash, works perfect on PTS. The reason you don't see it in the video is that it buffs the next fully charged heavy attack by ~1k, not the Low Slash damage.

The Master Bow is gonna be OP as is, especially in PvP or highly mobile PvE fights where Scorched Earth is not applicable.

The Greatsword is better than a dead slot, and might be a decent buff to 2-Handed AoE, might even see more 2H/Bow PvE setups. The main enchant needs a buff though, the DoT from Cleave is not influenced by the enchant, only the initial hit.

The Daggers are probably barely better than 2pc Lekis. Sure you get ~500 more damage per Tick on Twin Slashes (so 500 dps?), and slightly more base weapon damage, but the enchantments you can use (rage/poison) might outweigh them. Not sure on this, which is a problem in and of itself. If you can't be sure if it is better, it needs a buff.

On testing on the PTS, the Master Destro Staff no longer buffs the DoT part of Destructive Touch. Basically it is now much weaker than it used to be. Only good to run if you don't have Maelstrom, to prevent a dead slot. The cost reduction is nice, but the skill needs a buff, or the Master Enchant needs to buff the DoT again, since it is not a spammable skill.

code65536

Personofsecrets wrote: »

Thank you for adding those nuances @zerosingularity

My suspicion about the maelstrom sword comes from the following video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW3ymFXRZ38

Maybe it is just not doing anything on console or maybe something else. It is sort of funny to see it literally not increase damage.

With the information you mentioned about the master staff, then maybe that particular weapon will be a-okay. Do you have any thoughts about the bow, great sword, or daggers?

The vMA sword is working as intended (though the intended is rather lackluster, but that's another topic).

The "bug" that you observe is a problem of poor wording--specifically, an ambiguous parsing of the tooltip's text.

The tooltip currently reads, "Your Low Slash grants 1290 additional damage and restores 344 additional Stamina on your next fully charged heavy attack within 5 seconds."

The correct way to interpret that is, "After you use Low Slash, your next fully-charged heavy attack within 5 seconds will deal 1290 additional damage and restore 344 additional stamina."

However, it's very easy to misread that tooltip as "Your Low Slash does 1290 additional damage, and your next fully-charged heavy attack grants 344 additional stamina."

I.e., the enchantment doesn't buff Low Slash itself--both of the stated buffs apply to a FCHA following the Low Slash.

Praeficere

The Maelstrom Sword grants the additional damage on the next heavy attack, not low slash itself

Personofsecrets

Thank you to you three for pointing out my misreading of the maelstrom sword effect. If someone ever would have suggeested to me that the Maelstrom Sword was, in reality, worse than what I thought, then I wouldn't have believed them. It is sort of funny.

Sporvan

My biggest I'd love to see is a change of animations on morphs.

Eg. Lotus Fan should throw actual daggers out, Impale should throw a dagger not just be a stab into the air.

Personofsecrets

@Nifty2g @Gilliamtherogue

Do either of you know about bugs that have to do with taunting and the elemental drain ability?

I tried reproducing a bug where, supposedly, pierce armor causes part of ele drains effect to fall off, but I couldn't.

I tried reproducing a bug where, supposedly, elemental drain would cause inner rage to fall off, but couldn't.

Overall I found no strange things happening which wasn't what I expected because of some rumors that I had seen posted in several guilds.

Personofsecrets

@paulsimonps @zomnomnombie

Would either of you like to add information to this thread? What do you both think about synergy mechanics?

Personofsecrets

@Petros , feel free to discuss any tanking concerns. I hope that you find my post #21 interesting. Sometimes others confuse the tank getting stuck on objects, but in reality the knockback bug is to blame.