Balance direction in Update 13

Mojmir

Maybe they can impose a handicap of 100-200 cps for all of us "older" gamers.

SkylarkX

Lukums1 wrote: »

Radiant Destruction – This one is definitely in the “lower the ceiling” category. It was strong in both PVE and PVP and needed adjustment.

The only one I agree with it was OP in both PVE and PVP, so yes this one did need to change.

For PVP at least I'll just chuck on a fire staff (+8%) and thanks to magicka steal drop lich for julianos (+10-15%). What nerf?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

kojou

STEVIL wrote: »

ztyhurstub17_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] Raising the floor on the bottom damage
[*] Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

I really appreciate that the developer's focus is on these aspects of the game. I think you are on the right direction here, but if I could throw in my 2 cents I think there is a simpler solution here. To put it simply the best way to make DPS more user friendly for new players, just standardize the DoT timings.

I have recently been learning Magicka Dragon Knight and as an example you have these timings to deal with:

Skills Duration
Engulfing Flames 10.0
Eruption 18.0
Burning Embers 10.5
Flames of Oblivion 15.0
Elemental Blockade 8.0
Destructive Clench 8.0
Molten Armaments 39.6

If you use the "LCM" function in Excel (finds the lowest common denominator) for those timings you get 4680. That means you would have to come up with a rotation that has 4680 weaves to have all your DoTs and Molten Armaments up 100% which makes the DPS rotation very complicated.

I would say that most players are like me and basically round off the timings and know that some DoTs will just drop off, and just try to keep the best ones up 100%.

So, if we take a hypothetical situation and standardize the DoT Timings we can make rotations much simpler for new players to figure out. So lets say a weave (medium attack + skill) takes a new player 1.5 seconds and we have 6 DoTs and one buff in our Magi-DK example above that we want to keep up. With a 1.5 second weave 4 skills will take about 6 seconds, so I think standardizing on multiples of 6 makes the most sense. If you standardize the medium DoT skills to 12 seconds and the longer skills to 24 your DPS rotation goes from a crazy rotation where nothing lines up to something like:

Skills Duration
Engulfing Flames 12
Eruption 24
Burning Embers 12
Flames of Oblivion 24
Elemental Blockade 12
Destructive Clench 12
Molten Armaments 24

With timings like this a player can look at the rotation and realize that Eruption, Flames of Oblivion, and Molten Arms get cast once, then Engulfing Flames, Burning Embers, Elemental Blockade, and Destructive Clench get cast twice and the same pattern repeats with a "spammable" to fill out the full 12 second duration.

If you leave the amount of damage for each cast the same then the overall DPS is not increased for the highest tier players, but new players can figure out the rotations much easier and do more DPS sooner.

Obviously there are other considerations for each class, but I would propose that you standardize with short DoT's being 6 seconds for a "Short DoT", 12 Seconds for a "Medium DoT" and 24 seconds for all buffs and long duration DoT's. If you make this change then the least common denominator in a rotation becomes 24 instead of 4680 which to me is a lot easier to manage.

I don't know what level of programming it takes to change the seconds for a duration, but I can't imagine it is as hard as some of the other changes that are being made for "Raising the floor on the bottom damage" for newer and less skilled players.

I will second this idea, if not the specifics.

In many other games when setting things up for new players i slways try and simplify the number sewuences.

A char with mains at 8 and secondaries at 4 is a lot eadier for new and even moderste skill to manage than one with one main at 9 one main at 7, three secondaries at 5 and 3 and 8.

If there were a suite of "std durations categories a lot of things would become more manageable.
Flicker 2s
Brief 4s
Short 8s
Medium 16s
Long 24s
Lasting 36s

Dont expect this patch such could be done but as long term maybe.

Not looking for all dot the same, duration, damage, radius, buff/debuff, secheal, cost all provide variety.

I agree, except I would have 6, 12, and 24 as the lengths and call it a day.

2 seconds is too short IMO, but I would be ok with 4, 8, 16, and 32 if that was the direction they wanted to go.

I wouldn't want them to change anything else about the skills, just make the timings consistent and follow a pattern of halves.

Joy_Division

Derra wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

[*] There will still be people dying to one shots in PvP even if they don't crit because crit isn't an issue in PvP if you L2Impen.

Can we please stop this misinformation?

Crit is one of the best stats in pvp. Impen helps but even when you´re full decked out 3000+ impen someone built for critdmg will still hit you significantly harder with a crit compared to a noncrit.

So they hit you for 1k damage more. That 1k isn't what kills you. Its the fact that they can get 5 4k attacks off at nearly the same time before you can react. Nerfing crit on proc sets won't stop people crying about viper/velidreth/widowmaker and you know it.

Please do not post made up numbers. Post actual results of a build setup for critdmg hitting someone with high impen - and then proceed to evaluate how much dmg increase they got from critting.

Again you´re spreading misinformation by posting made up random numbers without a baseline to compare them to. 1k increase on a 2k basedmg ability? That´s still a 50% increase. Preddy damn good (yes i do follow the same route here - as it proves the point i´m making).

Edit: I will later post a screenshot.

Heavy armor. A real set with Impen. Not Trainee trash.



2511+5110+10066+1078+4802+8645+2719+1886+6729+5802=48270 damage. With 50% Battle Spirit.

I got killed in 2 seconds. Got stunned. CC broke. Died before I could get a skill off. Yes, there are a lot of damage inputs there; still did nothing that "fight" except CC break. ZoS's fix is a joke. They either have no clue what's going on in PvP or do not care. I can't tell which it is. How the heck is anyone expected to run around in Light Armor with 25K health "normal" builds?

NBs wonder why their trial DPS sucks and why Zenimax doesn't boost their skills, it is because of abusive crap like that. In what universe is it even compelling gameplay that a very high health build in heavy armor gets insta-killed?. This isn't Call of Duty. It's a joke.

@Joy_Division in what way is that related to my statement of saying: "Critdmg and crit are good and valuable stats in pvp"?

Like i don´t get what you´re trying to say. Not at all. Your screenshot perfectly illustrates the point i´m making. Which was: Crit and critdmg are really useful stats in pvp despite of impens existance.

Edit: I´m 100% with you and would extend your statement that any form of non telegraphed unavoidable burst capable of instantly killing a target (the more so from invisibility) should not exist in an mmo.

I do not think Crit is what killed me. Rather, it was the other abusive mechanics that ZoS is not addressing. In any event, the changes ZoS plans on making in Update 13 would not have prevented a high health heavy armor impen templar build from dying in 2 seconds.

I don't disagree crit has a place on PvP, but I do disagree with the amount of emphasis that is being placed on it for Update 13 and how lessening its potency is supposed to balance things. It's not. But I dont think @Yolokin_Swagonborn is spreading misinformation as you contend. It may be oversimplified and hyperbole, but I think the essence of his argument is on target and my screenshot suggests he is not wrong..

reclaimervii.sierra117ub17_ESO

"good feedback"

Derra

Joy_Division wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

[*] There will still be people dying to one shots in PvP even if they don't crit because crit isn't an issue in PvP if you L2Impen.

Can we please stop this misinformation?

Crit is one of the best stats in pvp. Impen helps but even when you´re full decked out 3000+ impen someone built for critdmg will still hit you significantly harder with a crit compared to a noncrit.

So they hit you for 1k damage more. That 1k isn't what kills you. Its the fact that they can get 5 4k attacks off at nearly the same time before you can react. Nerfing crit on proc sets won't stop people crying about viper/velidreth/widowmaker and you know it.

Please do not post made up numbers. Post actual results of a build setup for critdmg hitting someone with high impen - and then proceed to evaluate how much dmg increase they got from critting.

Again you´re spreading misinformation by posting made up random numbers without a baseline to compare them to. 1k increase on a 2k basedmg ability? That´s still a 50% increase. Preddy damn good (yes i do follow the same route here - as it proves the point i´m making).

Edit: I will later post a screenshot.

Heavy armor. A real set with Impen. Not Trainee trash.



2511+5110+10066+1078+4802+8645+2719+1886+6729+5802=48270 damage. With 50% Battle Spirit.

I got killed in 2 seconds. Got stunned. CC broke. Died before I could get a skill off. Yes, there are a lot of damage inputs there; still did nothing that "fight" except CC break. ZoS's fix is a joke. They either have no clue what's going on in PvP or do not care. I can't tell which it is. How the heck is anyone expected to run around in Light Armor with 25K health "normal" builds?

NBs wonder why their trial DPS sucks and why Zenimax doesn't boost their skills, it is because of abusive crap like that. In what universe is it even compelling gameplay that a very high health build in heavy armor gets insta-killed?. This isn't Call of Duty. It's a joke.

@Joy_Division in what way is that related to my statement of saying: "Critdmg and crit are good and valuable stats in pvp"?

Like i don´t get what you´re trying to say. Not at all. Your screenshot perfectly illustrates the point i´m making. Which was: Crit and critdmg are really useful stats in pvp despite of impens existance.

Edit: I´m 100% with you and would extend your statement that any form of non telegraphed unavoidable burst capable of instantly killing a target (the more so from invisibility) should not exist in an mmo.

I do not think Crit is what killed me. Rather, it was the other abusive mechanics that ZoS is not addressing. In any event, the changes ZoS plans on making in Update 13 would not have prevented a high health heavy armor impen templar build from dying in 2 seconds.

I don't disagree crit has a place on PvP, but I do disagree with the amount of emphasis that is being placed on it for Update 13 and how lessening its potency is supposed to balance things. It's not. But I dont think @Yolokin_Swagonborn is spreading misinformation as you contend. It may be oversimplified and hyperbole, but I think the essence of his argument is on target and my screenshot suggests he is not wrong..

In essence i agree his statement is not wrong on proccsets. Proccsets and the dmg of them being able to fire on one gcd is going to be too high even without crits.

However critdmg is what makes ganking. Shadow mundus is an essential part of gank builds. Critdmg + crit also is just about the only thing enabling normal nonprocc builds to kill stuff.

I was exclusively commenting on the statement of critdmg and crit being a nonfactor "if you l2impen" in pvp - which, from my personal experience aswell as testing, is 100% dead wrong ever since impen got changed from nullifying all crit into reducing damage.

I´d even go as far as saying the possibility of dieing to a build not utilizing critdmg and crit (while also bypassing proccsets) is basically nonexistant for an experienced player.

altemriel

proc sets - remove stacking of damage of multiple sets
fix cloak (NB)

sebban

ztyhurstub17_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] Raising the floor on the bottom damage
[*] Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

I really appreciate that the developer's focus is on these aspects of the game. I think you are on the right direction here, but if I could throw in my 2 cents I think there is a simpler solution here. To put it simply the best way to make DPS more user friendly for new players, just standardize the DoT timings.

I have recently been learning Magicka Dragon Knight and as an example you have these timings to deal with:

Skills Duration
Engulfing Flames 10.0
Eruption 18.0
Burning Embers 10.5
Flames of Oblivion 15.0
Elemental Blockade 8.0
Destructive Clench 8.0
Molten Armaments 39.6

If you use the "LCM" function in Excel (finds the lowest common denominator) for those timings you get 4680. That means you would have to come up with a rotation that has 4680 weaves to have all your DoTs and Molten Armaments up 100% which makes the DPS rotation very complicated.

I would say that most players are like me and basically round off the timings and know that some DoTs will just drop off, and just try to keep the best ones up 100%.

So, if we take a hypothetical situation and standardize the DoT Timings we can make rotations much simpler for new players to figure out. So lets say a weave (medium attack + skill) takes a new player 1.5 seconds and we have 6 DoTs and one buff in our Magi-DK example above that we want to keep up. With a 1.5 second weave 4 skills will take about 6 seconds, so I think standardizing on multiples of 6 makes the most sense. If you standardize the medium DoT skills to 12 seconds and the longer skills to 24 your DPS rotation goes from a crazy rotation where nothing lines up to something like:

Skills Duration
Engulfing Flames 12
Eruption 24
Burning Embers 12
Flames of Oblivion 24
Elemental Blockade 12
Destructive Clench 12
Molten Armaments 24

With timings like this a player can look at the rotation and realize that Eruption, Flames of Oblivion, and Molten Arms get cast once, then Engulfing Flames, Burning Embers, Elemental Blockade, and Destructive Clench get cast twice and the same pattern repeats with a "spammable" to fill out the full 12 second duration.

If you leave the amount of damage for each cast the same then the overall DPS is not increased for the highest tier players, but new players can figure out the rotations much easier and do more DPS sooner.

Obviously there are other considerations for each class, but I would propose that you standardize with short DoT's being 6 seconds for a "Short DoT", 12 Seconds for a "Medium DoT" and 24 seconds for all buffs and long duration DoT's. If you make this change then the least common denominator in a rotation becomes 24 instead of 4680 which to me is a lot easier to manage.

I don't know what level of programming it takes to change the seconds for a duration, but I can't imagine it is as hard as some of the other changes that are being made for "Raising the floor on the bottom damage" for newer and less skilled players.

I would LOVE a standardization of DOT durations. Keeping track of 6 DOTs, each with different duration, is the main problem I have with mDK atm.

Betheny

Just going to dump an idea in this thread, it's for for balancing armour types to damage and set effects by armour weight:

Just throwing this out there, what if proc sets had different effects depending on the weight of the armour, so that a set with procs on light armour might do damage or make a shield or something but on heavy armour that proc would instead buff tanking capability and not damage, and so on for medium as well?

The ones that come in one weight get only the effects that should go to that weight - if they only drop in Heavy then the effects should be for tanking, not for applying damage. So something like -

Heavy - heal and taunt or damage mitigation (block boost or dodge boost) and taunt
Medium - physical damage or dodge boost
Light - spell damage or shields


Along those lines, effects obviously could be more creative that this, but that would be the general idea.

So that Heavy Armour never also boosts damage.

Jewellery and weapon effects could also be dependent on main type of armour worn. So the effect for a Light Armour user equipped with the same jewellery or weapons would be different to that of a Heavy Armour user (with same jewellery or weapons), with different sets offering choices of boost.

Also where sets come in various armour weights you'd need the armour in same weight to get the set bonus for that weight, like you couldn't get the 5 set bonus for Medium Armour by using only one Medium and four Heavy, or even three Medium and two Heavy, and so on. Would need to be 5 Medium Armour to get the five set bonus for that weight.

@ZOS_RichLambert

STEVIL

ztyhurstub17_ESO wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

ztyhurstub17_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] Raising the floor on the bottom damage
[*] Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

I really appreciate that the developer's focus is on these aspects of the game. I think you are on the right direction here, but if I could throw in my 2 cents I think there is a simpler solution here. To put it simply the best way to make DPS more user friendly for new players, just standardize the DoT timings.

I have recently been learning Magicka Dragon Knight and as an example you have these timings to deal with:

Skills Duration
Engulfing Flames 10.0
Eruption 18.0
Burning Embers 10.5
Flames of Oblivion 15.0
Elemental Blockade 8.0
Destructive Clench 8.0
Molten Armaments 39.6

If you use the "LCM" function in Excel (finds the lowest common denominator) for those timings you get 4680. That means you would have to come up with a rotation that has 4680 weaves to have all your DoTs and Molten Armaments up 100% which makes the DPS rotation very complicated.

I would say that most players are like me and basically round off the timings and know that some DoTs will just drop off, and just try to keep the best ones up 100%.

So, if we take a hypothetical situation and standardize the DoT Timings we can make rotations much simpler for new players to figure out. So lets say a weave (medium attack + skill) takes a new player 1.5 seconds and we have 6 DoTs and one buff in our Magi-DK example above that we want to keep up. With a 1.5 second weave 4 skills will take about 6 seconds, so I think standardizing on multiples of 6 makes the most sense. If you standardize the medium DoT skills to 12 seconds and the longer skills to 24 your DPS rotation goes from a crazy rotation where nothing lines up to something like:

Skills Duration
Engulfing Flames 12
Eruption 24
Burning Embers 12
Flames of Oblivion 24
Elemental Blockade 12
Destructive Clench 12
Molten Armaments 24

With timings like this a player can look at the rotation and realize that Eruption, Flames of Oblivion, and Molten Arms get cast once, then Engulfing Flames, Burning Embers, Elemental Blockade, and Destructive Clench get cast twice and the same pattern repeats with a "spammable" to fill out the full 12 second duration.

If you leave the amount of damage for each cast the same then the overall DPS is not increased for the highest tier players, but new players can figure out the rotations much easier and do more DPS sooner.

Obviously there are other considerations for each class, but I would propose that you standardize with short DoT's being 6 seconds for a "Short DoT", 12 Seconds for a "Medium DoT" and 24 seconds for all buffs and long duration DoT's. If you make this change then the least common denominator in a rotation becomes 24 instead of 4680 which to me is a lot easier to manage.

I don't know what level of programming it takes to change the seconds for a duration, but I can't imagine it is as hard as some of the other changes that are being made for "Raising the floor on the bottom damage" for newer and less skilled players.

I will second this idea, if not the specifics.

In many other games when setting things up for new players i slways try and simplify the number sewuences.

A char with mains at 8 and secondaries at 4 is a lot eadier for new and even moderste skill to manage than one with one main at 9 one main at 7, three secondaries at 5 and 3 and 8.

If there were a suite of "std durations categories a lot of things would become more manageable.
Flicker 2s
Brief 4s
Short 8s
Medium 16s
Long 24s
Lasting 36s

Dont expect this patch such could be done but as long term maybe.

Not looking for all dot the same, duration, damage, radius, buff/debuff, secheal, cost all provide variety.

I agree, except I would have 6, 12, and 24 as the lengths and call it a day.

2 seconds is too short IMO, but I would be ok with 4, 8, 16, and 32 if that was the direction they wanted to go.

I wouldn't want them to change anything else about the skills, just make the timings consistent and follow a pattern of halves.

Well, first, if the durations of skills change then their innards have to be redone too... cant just take a 10s AOE DOT and turn it to 8s and call it a day.

The main reason i wanted to leave 2s in is for some effects with a heavy hit but short duration. likely there would be a longer cooldown. There are some sets now that use this model iirc - but i could see changing that to 4s or to instant and adjusting damage/effect accordingly too.

but yeah really durations of like 4s (wont last thru any fight without reapply), 8s (will only outlast quick trash fight) and then a 24s or 32s for (pre-fight long dur will outlast most non-dungeon/trial fights) could also work.

BlackMadara

The people complaining that lowering the damage ceiling and raising its floor will take the benefit from their practice in the game are rather ridiculous. You still have more experience with rotations. You still have more experiences with actual mechanics. You still have more experience in adapting to situations in PvE and PvP. This experience will still place you many tiers above new players.

Damage in PvE for top players is rather ridiculous. It is to the point that people can skip mechanics for boss fights. This is an issue.

An example is in fengrush's video of his blind run in VMoL. The last boss fight, the raid leader is explaining the mechanics and then states that he doesn't need to explain the last phase because they are "good" at the game. Does this raid group deserve such a reward due to their experience and theory crafting? Hell yes, but being able to ignore a mechanic in supposedly the hardest content in this game is unhealthy no matter how good you are.

Robbmrp

Hello @ZOS_RichLambert and thank you for the information.

Some suggestions to consider for all execute skills. Why not make all of them just that, an execute. Instead of letting players spam them over and over, have the skill only available when the enemy is in execute status(20% health or less) and within range. This would solve all the issues with spammable executes for both PVE and PVP. Using an execute prior to that is just a waste of resources.

As far as the stun removal for Blazing Spear, all stuns should be removed from all skills to make this fair and changed to a disorient(similar to fear) form of CC. This change would also make the game a lot more challenging as there would be no stun to turn another player or NPC into a target dummy. Anyone can hit a rock stuck in place. With a disorient CC like fear, people are moving around without their own control making it harder for them to attack anything as well as be targeted.

Joy_Division

With the changes to the passives in the flame and lightning staffs, I'm not sure ZoS is going to achieve it's objectives of making rotations easier.

Because before I had it pretty easy with a "damage" bar and a "buff" bar. Now my single target skills and AoE skills are best put on different bars, which will require more weapon swaps and proper animation cancels to attain an optimal DPS.

I guess if you are a stam DPS, things are the same. But from what I understand, there isn't many stam DPS in Trial raids nowadays.

Hand_Bacon

So this whole lower the ceiling and raise the floor concept. Does that mean from now on anyone who does well in ESO only does so because of training wheels? Is ESO now officially the home for simpletons and the mouse impaired?

I just don't see the positive in that message.

technohic

Joy_Division wrote: »

With the changes to the passives in the flame and lightning staffs, I'm not sure ZoS is going to achieve it's objectives of making rotations easier.

Because before I had it pretty easy with a "damage" bar and a "buff" bar. Now my single target skills and AoE skills are best put on different bars, which will require more weapon swaps and proper animation cancels to attain an optimal DPS.

I guess if you are a stam DPS, things are the same. But from what I understand, there isn't many stam DPS in Trial raids nowadays.

I know I used to just use 1h and shield to block. Now; I have to watch my stamina then weapon swap to a frost staff. Its super hard. Then when my Magicka is depleted; I have to swap back to 1h and shield.

CyrusArya

Robbmrp wrote: »

Hello @ZOS_RichLambert and thank you for the information.

Some suggestions to consider for all execute skills. Why not make all of them just that, an execute. Instead of letting players spam them over and over, have the skill only available when the enemy is in execute status(20% health or less) and within range. This would solve all the issues with spammable executes for both PVE and PVP. Using an execute prior to that is just a waste of resources.

That suggestion is completely contradictory to how endless fury/mages wrath mechanically functions. The skill acts as a delayed burst where you apply it and aim to drop the enemies health into execute range while it is active- in PvP at least. That mechanic is central to the sorcerer's burst. Radiant destruction also has mechanical reasons due to it being a channel that need it to be cast-able outside execute range to be most effective in certain situations. Bad suggestion.

Your last line in particular implies you have never played a magicka sorc or templar, or played one well at least. For skills like executioner/reverse slice or impale/killers blade it holds true- but builds that run those skills also tend to have much on demand burst damage or very quick skill rotations. Sorcs and templars don't, so their executes are tailored to that fact. I also dislike the idea of the game dictating when a player can or cannot use a regular ability.

VelociousLegend

Rich wrote:

Proc Sets – This change falls directly into the “lower the ceiling” category for both PVP and PVE. We wanted to reduce the overall burst potential without dramatically lowering sustain. There have been a lot of comments on this change, specifically from the PVP side where sets not critting will not help because of the Impenetrable trait - Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.

This is understood, but when most PvP builds are running between 5-7 pcs of inpen then the crit damage difference is nominal. This proc set crit change really only helps builds not running much or any inpen - it doesn't fix the issue. Builds are stacking these proc sets and they each deal good base damage even before critting leading to high burst damage with little counter-play.

Also, it still baffles me that heavy armor was not addressed yet. Tankier + better sustain without sacrificing too much damage. -_-

Robbmrp

CyrusArya wrote: »

Robbmrp wrote: »

Hello @ZOS_RichLambert and thank you for the information.

Some suggestions to consider for all execute skills. Why not make all of them just that, an execute. Instead of letting players spam them over and over, have the skill only available when the enemy is in execute status(20% health or less) and within range. This would solve all the issues with spammable executes for both PVE and PVP. Using an execute prior to that is just a waste of resources.

That suggestion is completely contradictory to how endless fury/mages wrath mechanically functions. The skill acts as a delayed burst where you apply it and aim to drop the enemies health into execute range while it is active- in PvP at least. That mechanic is central to the sorcerer's burst. Radiant destruction also has mechanical reasons due to it being a channel that need it to be cast-able outside execute range to be most effective in certain situations. Bad suggestion.

Your last line in particular implies you have never played a magicka sorc or templar, or played one well at least. For skills like executioner/reverse slice or impale/killers blade it holds true- but builds that run those skills also tend to have much on demand burst damage or very quick skill rotations. Sorcs and templars don't, so their executes are tailored to that fact. I also dislike the idea of the game dictating when a player can or cannot use a regular ability.

Sorry but I've never been a fan of channeled effects, especially as an execute function.

I see your point about the Mages Wrath with it affecting the health though. There has to be a better way of creating an execute ability that people can use as designed.

It takes 0 skill to spam one button over and over giving someone a kill ability which is why I dislike the current state of executes as well as Proc sets. One attack gives the player tons of damage without doing much at all.

TheHsN

hi all,

If you wanna simplify things

For Sorc: Make liquid lighting 12 or 15secs
: Make elemantal blockade 12 or 15 secs believe me it will make the rotation very easy and simple...

for MagNb : make the marciles Resolve procs like cyrstal fragment ....

there are some solves for me

and u dont mess with older and newer pplayers and pvp at all

Father_X_Zombie

This still doesnt justify the curse change, duel wield sorcs are going to die, just revert it or do this to the morph no one uses.

leepalmer95

TheHsN wrote: »

hi all,

If you wanna simplify things

For Sorc: Make liquid lighting 12 or 15secs
: Make elemantal blockade 12 or 15 secs believe me it will make the rotation very easy and simple...

for MagNb : make the marciles Resolve procs like cyrstal fragment ....

there are some solves for me

and u dont mess with older and newer pplayers and pvp at all

That'll increase dps currently, i'm pretty sure are trying to stop the power creep.

They should be anyway.

AzuraKin

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Update 13 has been out on the PTS for almost a week now and there’s been a lot of good feedback and questions posted with regards to the balance changes. I wanted to take a few moments to briefly discuss the overall direction for these changes so you can hopefully start to see why these changes are occurring.

For Update 13, our overall goal was to lessen the gap between the top and bottom. (in terms of overall damage output, coordinated vs. uncoordinated, small and large scale PVE & PVP) This doesn’t mean all classes are perfectly equal in all ways or that we want to remove skill from the game. We want to establish a solid baseline so that we can better tune and tweak balance. For this update we attacked this problem from multiple angles by doing the following:

1. Lowering the ceiling on the top damage
2. Raising the floor on the bottom damage
3. Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

Some of you will probably ask how the above goals translate into the changes we made. Here are some notes on a couple of the more hotly debated ones so you can see how they fit into the bigger picture:

• Proc Sets – This change falls directly into the “lower the ceiling” category for both PVP and PVE. We wanted to reduce the overall burst potential without dramatically lowering sustain. There have been a lot of comments on this change, specifically from the PVP side where sets not critting will not help because of the Impenetrable trait - Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.
• Stun Removal on Blazing Spear – This change falls into the “simplify” category. We increased the duration of the damage on this ability to simplify the rotation. In addition we removed the stun component. Now the morph choices are more damage or more resources and disorient. (CC)
• Radiant Destruction – This one is definitely in the “lower the ceiling” category. It was strong in both PVE and PVP and needed adjustment.
• Haunting Curse – This one falls into the “simplify” category. The goal was to free up globals for more abilities to be cast with this change. (i.e. – every 10.5 seconds you get to use 3 more abilities) @Alpheu5 has a pretty great image that illustrates this change in this thread.

I didn't touch on every change or class, but I hope that sheds some light into how and why we've made some of the changes we've made. We have a lot more balance changes planned, but due to how our build cycle works, most of them won't make the next PTS build - they should hopefully make PTS3 though.

It should also be noted that what is on PTS now is our first pass at these changes. We’re evaluating all of them and will make adjustments based on both feedback and data collected, so please continue to test them on PTS and give feedback.

-rich

how about remove the animation cancelling people do to cast multiple skills per second, hit with fully charged 2nd heavy attack + wrecking blow at the same moment, ect. that is the most game breaking thing in the game.

AzuraKin

Neoauspex wrote: »

Could some of the PTS testers comment on whether the crit changes to proc sets have accomplished these goals?

in pve it will lower damage cap, in pvp, no. in pvp only people getting hit from crit procs for more then noncrit are scrubs who dont wear impen and thus anyone who complains about damage in pvp should first check to see if they have the appropriate impen required for pvp (1.8k without transmutation or cp)

VelociousLegend

Merciless being changed to operate like sorc frags would be a great change! I always disliked the way the skill felt during my rotation.

The other downside of the skill is that it gives a redundant raid buff that is already applied to the group. Works well for solo and PvP content however.

kojou

STEVIL wrote: »

ztyhurstub17_ESO wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

ztyhurstub17_ESO wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] Raising the floor on the bottom damage
[*] Simplifying some of the more intense rotations to make them a bit easier for players of all skill levels

I really appreciate that the developer's focus is on these aspects of the game. I think you are on the right direction here, but if I could throw in my 2 cents I think there is a simpler solution here. To put it simply the best way to make DPS more user friendly for new players, just standardize the DoT timings.

I have recently been learning Magicka Dragon Knight and as an example you have these timings to deal with:

Skills Duration
Engulfing Flames 10.0
Eruption 18.0
Burning Embers 10.5
Flames of Oblivion 15.0
Elemental Blockade 8.0
Destructive Clench 8.0
Molten Armaments 39.6

If you use the "LCM" function in Excel (finds the lowest common denominator) for those timings you get 4680. That means you would have to come up with a rotation that has 4680 weaves to have all your DoTs and Molten Armaments up 100% which makes the DPS rotation very complicated.

I would say that most players are like me and basically round off the timings and know that some DoTs will just drop off, and just try to keep the best ones up 100%.

So, if we take a hypothetical situation and standardize the DoT Timings we can make rotations much simpler for new players to figure out. So lets say a weave (medium attack + skill) takes a new player 1.5 seconds and we have 6 DoTs and one buff in our Magi-DK example above that we want to keep up. With a 1.5 second weave 4 skills will take about 6 seconds, so I think standardizing on multiples of 6 makes the most sense. If you standardize the medium DoT skills to 12 seconds and the longer skills to 24 your DPS rotation goes from a crazy rotation where nothing lines up to something like:

Skills Duration
Engulfing Flames 12
Eruption 24
Burning Embers 12
Flames of Oblivion 24
Elemental Blockade 12
Destructive Clench 12
Molten Armaments 24

With timings like this a player can look at the rotation and realize that Eruption, Flames of Oblivion, and Molten Arms get cast once, then Engulfing Flames, Burning Embers, Elemental Blockade, and Destructive Clench get cast twice and the same pattern repeats with a "spammable" to fill out the full 12 second duration.

If you leave the amount of damage for each cast the same then the overall DPS is not increased for the highest tier players, but new players can figure out the rotations much easier and do more DPS sooner.

Obviously there are other considerations for each class, but I would propose that you standardize with short DoT's being 6 seconds for a "Short DoT", 12 Seconds for a "Medium DoT" and 24 seconds for all buffs and long duration DoT's. If you make this change then the least common denominator in a rotation becomes 24 instead of 4680 which to me is a lot easier to manage.

I don't know what level of programming it takes to change the seconds for a duration, but I can't imagine it is as hard as some of the other changes that are being made for "Raising the floor on the bottom damage" for newer and less skilled players.

I will second this idea, if not the specifics.

In many other games when setting things up for new players i slways try and simplify the number sewuences.

A char with mains at 8 and secondaries at 4 is a lot eadier for new and even moderste skill to manage than one with one main at 9 one main at 7, three secondaries at 5 and 3 and 8.

If there were a suite of "std durations categories a lot of things would become more manageable.
Flicker 2s
Brief 4s
Short 8s
Medium 16s
Long 24s
Lasting 36s

Dont expect this patch such could be done but as long term maybe.

Not looking for all dot the same, duration, damage, radius, buff/debuff, secheal, cost all provide variety.

I agree, except I would have 6, 12, and 24 as the lengths and call it a day.

2 seconds is too short IMO, but I would be ok with 4, 8, 16, and 32 if that was the direction they wanted to go.

I wouldn't want them to change anything else about the skills, just make the timings consistent and follow a pattern of halves.

Well, first, if the durations of skills change then their innards have to be redone too... cant just take a 10s AOE DOT and turn it to 8s and call it a day.

The main reason i wanted to leave 2s in is for some effects with a heavy hit but short duration. likely there would be a longer cooldown. There are some sets now that use this model iirc - but i could see changing that to 4s or to instant and adjusting damage/effect accordingly too.

but yeah really durations of like 4s (wont last thru any fight without reapply), 8s (will only outlast quick trash fight) and then a 24s or 32s for (pre-fight long dur will outlast most non-dungeon/trial fights) could also work.

I agree that you can't decrease the time of a DoT and leave the damage alone, that would essentially constitute a damage buff and would have to be considered carefully.

If you increase the duration and leave the damage alone, then you are actually decreasing DPS for that cast, but I think it will be an overall increase to DPS since the cast times and rotations are easier to manage with a duration that makes sense.

My biggest problem with a 2 second DoT is for PVP it will create a situation where you can burst much harder. Think about the days when Snipe was more powerful and you could cast it and while it was in the air land a heavy attack and a poison injection. Longer DoTs put pressure, but won't be as high of a risk to create insta-kill burst combinations.

Also, I don't think all classes have to have the same standard DoT duration as long as they follow a pattern of halves. For example, Sorcerers could be 8 and 16 and Templars could be 8, 16, and 32 and Nightblades could be 4 and 8 depending on the level of burst vs. sustain that makes sense for the class.

Part of the reason I like DPS on a Nightblade is that both Blockade and Cripple run for 8 seconds. For most fights it is a very simple rotation. The problem with Nightblade is there aren't very many usable DoTs to choose from for a ranged class, and most hard core trials groups are not going to give a melee spot to a Nightblade, but that is another discussion...

Anyway, this is all hypothetical and I doubt that the designers/developers would even consider it, but I can still hope...

Dev

Joy_Division wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

[*] There will still be people dying to one shots in PvP even if they don't crit because crit isn't an issue in PvP if you L2Impen.

Can we please stop this misinformation?

Crit is one of the best stats in pvp. Impen helps but even when you´re full decked out 3000+ impen someone built for critdmg will still hit you significantly harder with a crit compared to a noncrit.

So they hit you for 1k damage more. That 1k isn't what kills you. Its the fact that they can get 5 4k attacks off at nearly the same time before you can react. Nerfing crit on proc sets won't stop people crying about viper/velidreth/widowmaker and you know it.

Please do not post made up numbers. Post actual results of a build setup for critdmg hitting someone with high impen - and then proceed to evaluate how much dmg increase they got from critting.

Again you´re spreading misinformation by posting made up random numbers without a baseline to compare them to. 1k increase on a 2k basedmg ability? That´s still a 50% increase. Preddy damn good (yes i do follow the same route here - as it proves the point i´m making).

Edit: I will later post a screenshot.

Heavy armor. A real set with Impen. Not Trainee trash.



2511+5110+10066+1078+4802+8645+2719+1886+6729+5802=48270 damage. With 50% Battle Spirit.

I got killed in 2 seconds. Got stunned. CC broke. Died before I could get a skill off. Yes, there are a lot of damage inputs there; still did nothing that "fight" except CC break. ZoS's fix is a joke. They either have no clue what's going on in PvP or do not care. I can't tell which it is. How the heck is anyone expected to run around in Light Armor with 25K health "normal" builds?

NBs wonder why their trial DPS sucks and why Zenimax doesn't boost their skills, it is because of abusive crap like that. In what universe is it even compelling gameplay that a very high health build in heavy armor gets insta-killed?. This isn't Call of Duty. It's a joke.

There was 6 hits that were not proc damage, and total for above 35k (5110+10066+4802+2719+6729+5802). There is not enough data to know if the attacker used potions/buffs, but we should probably assume some buffs based on this attack looks prepared versus a random encounter (IE: The attacker probably had a few seconds to prepare whereas you didnt).

That class is doing exactly what it was designed to do. NB as a role is not designed to stand toe to toe, so if you nerf its spike damage, it really makes the class too weak to be worth logging in as. You would have to nerf his damage by 50% for you to have survived.

I dont use my nb anymore, because it just sucks in pve in comparison to my templar or sorc. Not enough damage, utility and self-heals to solo anything challenging.self-sustain is a joke. Its a broken class as is, and everyone wants it to be weaker in the one task it was designed to specialize in.

Considering that NB class is the thief/assassin class, the player had prepared the attack, and you were caught off guard, how long should you have lived for: 14 hits, 30?

BlackMadara

Joy_Division wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

[*] There will still be people dying to one shots in PvP even if they don't crit because crit isn't an issue in PvP if you L2Impen.

Can we please stop this misinformation?

Crit is one of the best stats in pvp. Impen helps but even when you´re full decked out 3000+ impen someone built for critdmg will still hit you significantly harder with a crit compared to a noncrit.

So they hit you for 1k damage more. That 1k isn't what kills you. Its the fact that they can get 5 4k attacks off at nearly the same time before you can react. Nerfing crit on proc sets won't stop people crying about viper/velidreth/widowmaker and you know it.

Please do not post made up numbers. Post actual results of a build setup for critdmg hitting someone with high impen - and then proceed to evaluate how much dmg increase they got from critting.

Again you´re spreading misinformation by posting made up random numbers without a baseline to compare them to. 1k increase on a 2k basedmg ability? That´s still a 50% increase. Preddy damn good (yes i do follow the same route here - as it proves the point i´m making).

Edit: I will later post a screenshot.

Heavy armor. A real set with Impen. Not Trainee trash.



2511+5110+10066+1078+4802+8645+2719+1886+6729+5802=48270 damage. With 50% Battle Spirit.

I got killed in 2 seconds. Got stunned. CC broke. Died before I could get a skill off. Yes, there are a lot of damage inputs there; still did nothing that "fight" except CC break. ZoS's fix is a joke. They either have no clue what's going on in PvP or do not care. I can't tell which it is. How the heck is anyone expected to run around in Light Armor with 25K health "normal" builds?

NBs wonder why their trial DPS sucks and why Zenimax doesn't boost their skills, it is because of abusive crap like that. In what universe is it even compelling gameplay that a very high health build in heavy armor gets insta-killed?. This isn't Call of Duty. It's a joke.

Not saying that this isn't completely ridiculous, but technically it took him 7-10 seconds to kill you and you had 3-4 seconds to react (depending on lag. He buffed up in stealth, prepared a heavy, gap closed, casted ult, then casted his execute twice. Your time to react started at his gap close.

This next bit isn't really for you, but more for the people that don't like the crit nerf on procs.

How much impen do you have? If you have 2k impen (about 30% reduced crit damage) and assuming he is running a 1.72 crit modifier(shadow mundus), his crits still hit you for 40% more damage. That means that his Veli proc would do 6175 damage (if my understanding that crit resist reduction in damage isn't multiplicative but additive) instead of 8645 damage. That's 2500 less damage.

All of this still doesn't really excuse that a 45k health character died that fast. Just goes to show the damage potential in this game. Its unhealthy.

Sureshawt

@ZOS_RichLambert

Thanks for communicating your direction and vision for the game. I know it has to be a tough balancing act to keep it fun and competitive for new and experienced players. I applaud the effort and hope the changes achieve those goals.

However, I'm a 50 year old MMO player going all the way back to Ultima Online and I take a bit of umbrage at your comment about needing the game to be simplified.

My reflexes may be a bit slower but my experience, judgement and judicious use of skills make up for the slower reflexes and still allow me to compete and have a ton of fun playing ESO.

I'm mostly concerned about the stacking of PROC set damage without a global CD. I'm not convinced the change to the crit damage factor will make much difference but will see how it goes.

Even at the age of 50 I'm not so old that I need my gear to do my fighting for me.

Also I will never feel good about a fight I win because of lucky damage off of stacked proc sets. Can you explain to me where any skill whatsoever is required?

SkylarkX

If this thread has taught me anything, it's that old people are good at feeling offended.

magorim

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] Proc Sets – This change falls directly into the “lower the ceiling” category for both PVP and PVE. We wanted to reduce the overall burst potential without dramatically lowering sustain. There have been a lot of comments on this change, specifically from the PVP side where sets not critting will not help because of the Impenetrable trait - Impen does not reduce the chance of being crit - it reduces the damage of the crit that hits you.

Hi!

I got killed by procsets. Again. Like everyday. Like a lot of players. But I'm kinda done at this point. Especially since we know that you basicly don't change anything. Yeah they won't crit but hey they still do damage right?

Well and that damage, Rich. That damage is wrong. It's wrong how high it is. It's wrong how you apply it. It's wrong that you can even stack it. It's just ... wrong. And crits are not the problem (they make it worse, tho).

It's wrong how high it is:
3.5k heavy attack, 6.1k seleneproc, 5.4k dawnbreaker in less than one second according to Recount and not one hit was a crit. It was the damage I did to a player in Azura and I'm not specced for high damage (I was testing it after getting a shoulder two days ago, never used procsets before). There are far better examples with a lot higher damage. But it still shows that the damage of the proc is huge. Hell, it did even more damage than my ultimate, in a very short timeframe (less than one second according to Recount).

It's wrong how you apply it:
You can light attack and proc high damage. It costs nothing. Do I really have to point out how broken that actually is? If you want to counter it with a heal for example you would have to use a skill that costs magicka or stamina. How is that balanced? And the thing is. You won't fight just one player. And players won't just light attack you. Some are even creative. They craft alchemist, equip a lightning staff and heavy attack you. Proccing Skoria left and right. Jesusbeam. I won't start with that one. But jesusbeam and skoria? Every Xv1 group will love you (that's how you win in Cyrodiil after all, right? Hi DE! Hi DG!).
Oh and if you want to be really skilled (evil imho), equip ressource poisens and lightning heavy attack outnumbered players.

It's wrong that you can stack it:
Well, we talked about high damage, how it basicly costs no ressources and doesn't require any player skill. Guess what. You can stack procsets/damage. And at this point I won't give any examples. Just visit Cyrodiil and experience it yourself. It's sad and far from fun.


TL;DR
Procsets are poop. On top of other kinda smaller poop in PvP. Especially combined with that kinda smaller poop while it's not zergy and not laggy at all. So please, Rich. Please do something or I'll leave and quit the game (that I'll quit should be the ultimate argument here, well, seriously tho, rethink/redesign/rebalance procsets it can't stay the way it is).