Balance direction in Update 13

bronski

to all the 30/35 year old saying they are old, can you please go suck a bag of...

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Gamers who need things "simplified" shouldn't be playing games!

So because i'm an older gamer and slower... I shouldn't be playing games? That's a pretty narrow view don't you think?

wanted to say that the idea i cant remember to keep up curse every 3.5 seconds or spear every 6 cause im over 40 is pretty narrow and offensive too, but my false teeth fell off and i'm having trouble bending my back enough to pick them up....

Dracane

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

So I suppose we can expect light armor buffs, so that it is more viable in pvp and actually makes up for the squishiness ?
Either way, armor types need adjustment, but others have explained this already.

You should better not try out medium armor if you think that you are squishy with a shield on a 50-60k max magicka build...
I know that you are a very, very good player and probably the best petsorc (or maybe even the best sorc) in the world but all I see from your posts is that you want your build to be buffed more and more and more. I've played all classes (mag and stam) on PTS and petsorc is one of the most broken builds that I have ever played so far. AoE is insane (destro ult + pets), you are extremely tanky because 50k+ max magicka boosts your shield into oblivion and you can now block with a frost staff on top that and you are very lethal in duels too. My medium armor nb is completely *** compared to that and so are many other (mag and stam) builds. I know that it can be frustrating to fight against heavy armor Redguards but it's the same on almost every medium armor build for example.
I don't believe that it is in your interest that petsorc becomes fotm (they are actually on the best way to become fotm) and that everyone starts playing one (I do actually hate when my class becomes fotm).

@Ragnaroek93

No, I know that medium armor suffers just the same. I also said, that they need to buff both.
Light armor relies on perfect shield up time, medium armor relies on mobility and staying evasive.

I don't say this for myself, as I can manage the squishiness fairly well. But this is only due to me being experienced totally focused on the gameplay. Many don't play this way and they stand no chance when they are on light armor, they get eaten up by everyone

And you're right, I want petsorc to stay niche, I always wanted it to be hard to play. And I know that frost staff will allow for completely broken builds.

tennotsukai87

Why not change Daedric Prey to the new curse? It really saddens me you guys are not listening to what most players are asking - don't change our 3.5 second Curse.

Fudly_budly

SO a ray of sunshine... a glimmer of hope that maybe, possibly... A Bosmer, which racial passives suggest, will actually be able to kill something with a bow. Can the bow weapon damage at least be on par with melee weapons? why are bows, which world history proves over and over to be one of the deadliest weapons ever fielded, so pitiful in ESO? Hey, didn't Henry V win a brilliant victory against daunting odds at Agincourt with the longbow?

Soris

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

[*] 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)

I think this is not a simplification but flat out nerfing the ability. Spear dot itself wasn't a good dmg source but a good source to proc the burning light passive.
The stun on the other hand, was crucial in PvP and it was serving as a "home defence" tool when you cast it on yourself to gain a split second of fresh air when the enemy vomiting all his hate on you.
Without this stun magplars have to use the javelin to do the same defensive move. Why are you forcing us to use one extra skill?
Now i can hear "use the focused charge" Well, Focused Charge doesn't working in melee range. It is hard to use as defensive tool since you have to gain some distance when enemy keep hugging to you.

loyalhabsfan

Fudly_budly wrote: »

SO a ray of sunshine... a glimmer of hope that maybe, possibly... A Bosmer, which racial passives suggest, will actually be able to kill something with a bow. Can the bow weapon damage at least be on par with melee weapons? why are bows, which world history proves over and over to be one of the deadliest weapons ever fielded, so pitiful in ESO? Hey, didn't Henry V win a brilliant victory against daunting odds at Agincourt with the longbow?

I think you're using bows wrong, man. Their damage is very high.

Edziu

Koolio wrote: »

So we just worked for years to get stronger only to have you lower our damage because a new player wouldn't be as strong. Great. I wonder how long I can go on knowing that if I put in the time to get stronger you'll just nerf me because someone just bought the game. Very discouraged to continue.

I donth think its going to nerf top players because of of new player who isnt strong

look again which skills, classes got some more visible nerf
mag/stam dk with ulti, stam sorc hurricane, magplar radiant, all those classes now are on top of dps, while they are able to reach 60k dps then rest classes are doing up to 50k, magblade maybe 45k

I think those some nerfs are to a bit balance dps between classes, not veteran players to begginers

at all change with strife and sorc curse is a big mistake but at all also not that much nerfing dps as I see comments, at all most magblades dont using strife to dps :v

Izaki

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

IzakiBrotheSs wrote: »

@ZOS_RichLambert Hey thanks for clearing this up! So far I undetstand most changes and can see why it was done in the way it was done.

However, I'm still wondering about the severe nerf of stamina maximum damage. I can understand the Hurricane change and the Standard of Might change (which also affects magicka DKs obviously). But wasn't the Rearming Trap damage reduction a little too much? I definitely see why it needed it, but I don't know if a decrease of damage by almost a third is a healthy change. After all, in PvE magicka builds have much more AoE potential than stamina. However, since Dark Brotherhood stamina excelled in single target damage. Now as it currently is on PTS, magicka builds are more than capable of pulling higher numbers than stamina, even in single target. In fact, they mostly outperform stamina. The destruction staff buffs are great! But will there be a benefit in bringing a stamina build into a Hard Mode trial? Now that they don't even provide a higher "burn", there really isn't, as magicka has more AoE, more survivability and doesn't require "babysitting" with shards, repentance or support sets.

So I'm asking why did you guys take it out on stamina so much?

What? Stamina builds have more aoe potential than magicka builds. The difference was so great that they had to introduce the Destro ulti to bring magicka AOE back in line with stamina AOE.

Oh yeah? With what skills? Endless Hail, Steel Tornado and Deadly Cloak? Caltrops don't stack. Stam sorcs also have Hurricane. Dawnbreaker? Rend is absolute crap in AoE. I guess that Elemental Blockade, Eruption, Spears, Liquid Lightning, Twisting Path, Lightning Heavy attack, Force Pulse AoE component, Sweeps AoE component, Shooting Star, etc. are really not as strong as the 3 or 4 AoE skills that stamina has. Magicka has always had more AoE potential, stamina had more single target. And now magicka has the destro ultimate too.

GreenSoup2HoT

@IzakiBrotheSs You forgot to mention Magicka Det, SAP essence and Talon's.

Izaki

#Buff PvE Stam Builds

Rex-Umbra

No mention of why strife wss nerfed...

Fudly_budly

loyalhabsfan wrote: »

Fudly_budly wrote: »

SO a ray of sunshine... a glimmer of hope that maybe, possibly... A Bosmer, which racial passives suggest, will actually be able to kill something with a bow. Can the bow weapon damage at least be on par with melee weapons? why are bows, which world history proves over and over to be one of the deadliest weapons ever fielded, so pitiful in ESO? Hey, didn't Henry V win a brilliant victory against daunting odds at Agincourt with the longbow?

I think you're using bows wrong, man. Their damage is very high.

Probably am. LOL. My best damage is from stealth using snipe. I hit for about 20k. Then of course the entire mob swarms me, chases me, ignores other players until I'm dead.

xRIVALENx

Thanks Asmael for the excellent post!

Aquanova

I tried the PTS on all 8 of my max level characters and so far I don't mind the direction. The nerfs and buffs seem to be well thought out for what your trying to achieve and I'm not trolling here, I really mean that!

I don't think everything balanced as much as we would all like it but I do think this is the right direction.

As an aside, ZOS i trust your ideas of balance WAY WAY more than any player on these forums.

UppGRAYxDD

Armitas wrote: »

Thanks Mr Lambert.

I wanted to see what your goals were for the frost staff and blocking/tanking. It's kind of a cool idea and opens up a lot of neat potentials (I'm sure some bad potentials as well) but I couldn't quite tell what you were going for with it or what the intent was behind it. What are you shooting for with this addition.

Intended to pave the way for the Warden Classes arrival hopefull next patch! Changes to frost staff....hmmmm what class has been in the game which was frost based.

Betheny

UppGRAYxDD wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

Thanks Mr Lambert.

I wanted to see what your goals were for the frost staff and blocking/tanking. It's kind of a cool idea and opens up a lot of neat potentials (I'm sure some bad potentials as well) but I couldn't quite tell what you were going for with it or what the intent was behind it. What are you shooting for with this addition.

Intended to pave the way for the Warden Classes arrival hopefull next patch! Changes to frost staff....hmmmm what class has been in the game which was frost based.

Poor warden, destined to be set-nerfed (or is that simplified) thanks to being built around a frost staff.

UppGRAYxDD

Betheny wrote: »

UppGRAYxDD wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

Thanks Mr Lambert.

I wanted to see what your goals were for the frost staff and blocking/tanking. It's kind of a cool idea and opens up a lot of neat potentials (I'm sure some bad potentials as well) but I couldn't quite tell what you were going for with it or what the intent was behind it. What are you shooting for with this addition.

Intended to pave the way for the Warden Classes arrival hopefull next patch! Changes to frost staff....hmmmm what class has been in the game which was frost based.

Poor warden, destined to be set-nerfed (or is that simplified) thanks to being built around a frost staff.

lmao......so nerf is now recognized by zos as "simplified".... good to know

technohic

I had been gone from ESO for a while and I have to say, this post late on a Friday and even posts from Gina saying they are still working on an issue but do not have a fix yet is really refreshing to me. Another MMO I play on breaks does drop and leave and go missing for several days or weeks, and will never reassure they are still working on something because they say they don't post because they don't have an update. I appreciate just the sign of life, even if it's not exactly what I want to hear.


That said; I feel you are missing part of the issue of the proc sets in PVP. It is not just the damage. Its the fact that there are multiple and instant with no direct way to defend and at no cost to the wearer other than just having gear equipped. This is forcing people to a heavy armor only meta and heavy armor itself is a bit over tuned yet necessary.

Also, block turtling has become a thing again. I do it even with just 200 CP. Adding a magical version is only going to make that worse.

lygerseye

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

Gamers who need things "simplified" shouldn't be playing games!

So because i'm an older gamer and slower... I shouldn't be playing games? That's a pretty narrow view don't you think?

@ZOS_RichLambert... Really? No one said anything about older gamers. Only you. And as an older gamer (older than you), you're really reaching here. I game because it's a challenge. Watching the younger players melt in front of me because they couldn't keep up with me fills me with pride and a sense of accomplishment.

As an "older person", you should appreciate wanting people to listen to you because of your experience... Well, this even-older-than-you person is asking the same. VC is fine the way it is. As it has been suggested 20+ times before me, apply this change to Dawdric Prey instead, and make both PVE & PVP players happy.

And if I wanted simple, I'd stick to checkers on the front porch with Ma.

TreeHugger1

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

Hello Mr.Lambert

I really hope that in the next pts builds you will reduce the gap between light,medium and heavy armor and won't allow to stack 3 proc sets.
However there are some "minor" changes that I want to address:
1.In the current pts build the scamp stuns only after 8 seconds,although you can time the stun,the enemy can easily avoid it(8 seconds..)and then you will have to wait additional 8 seconds to stun him...There are many more disadvantage,you cant immediately stun players who burst you and it is more hard for you to time a burst if the enemy knows the scamp's mechanic and avoids it.
I think the solution is that the first/second pulse of the scamp will stun the enemy.
2.Snares(30%,40%,50,60%,70% and even 75%) and roots are out of control,it is impossible to kite and LoS especially as a magica player when players perma root and snare you,fights should be mobile.
3.Pets,I really appreciate your intentions and acts to buff them though there are still many issues with them.
cp points don't affect them,they walk through aoe,mines,trap beast,they don't break free from stuns,can be snared and rooted forever,therefore any decent player can avoid their damage.
Unfortunately I don't have enough experience with pets,yet I wrote it because I think pets deserve more attention and a closer look.

STEVIL

Betheny wrote: »

Minalan wrote: »

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

Gamers who need things "simplified" shouldn't be playing games!

So because i'm an older gamer and slower... I shouldn't be playing games? That's a pretty narrow view don't you think?

You're not that old yet mate, a more complex rotation is just a matter of practice. A LOT of it, just to get the muscle memory down. The "over 40" crowd in my guild do just fine, no reflex problems or slowness. They do say their fingers hurt a little after hours of PVP play, but it's totally worth it.

Besides, I plan on playing video games until they stick me in the ground dead. It's awesome that some of you older guys are still playing.

PS: If you think a 3.5 second curse is too short, how about a 6 second shield?

Hey that's a really good point - people who need help with their response time or whatever are going to find the six second shield a major problem.

@ZOS_RichLambert

uhh... how in the world do you see raising VC to 6s "for older gamers" or whatever at all not exactly in sync with 6s shields?

Seems to me to show a consistent notion - 6s is quickest rotation they want.

Not saying i agree with it - but 6s VC and 6s shields and old fogies lines up together consistently design-wise in a rotation.

STEVIL

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

@ZOS_RichLambert


The proposed change to Velicious curse seems to only benefit those players who are engaging in endgame structured PvE, i.e players fighting bosses with rotations in fights that last upwards of two minutes. At the same time, the proposed change greatly reduces the effectiveness and utility of the curse skill in shorter fights against trash mobs, overland enemies, and enemy players in PvP.

In the thread created by @Alpheu5, the DPS gain for his highly situational and theoretical rotation was only 771DPS gain for a 24 second parse. In a longer 2+ minute fight, this (again theoretically) would result in an increase of 3k+ DPS at the cost of greatly reducing the utility and effectiveness of the skill for pretty much every other application.

I know that your team tries very hard to balance abilities across a variety of playstyles (as you said coordinated vs. uncoordinated, small and large scale PVE & PVP), so please consider how changing this particular morph of Curse will effect the other ways sorcerers use curse in the game.

• New players. When you first unlock curse, a 6 second wait to use the ability seems like a lifetime. The shortened time morph becomes the obvious choice as overland and quest fights are much shorter and its much more satisfying to have the ability do damage sooner.
• Questing, roaming, exploring overworld PvE. Again, overland fights are shorter, I may want to switch targets and focus a different threat. Waiting 12 seconds before I can use the skill again is very clunky.
• PvP - Offense: Many others in this thread have explained this already. 12 seconds is a lifetime in PvP and the skill will get purged, mitigated or otherwise ignored. This change greatly reduces a sorcerers ability to pressure a very tanky or very elusive target. This change means Sorcerer loses a very valuable tool and one of the few effective sorcerer class-based DPS skills in PvP. Sorcerers are already tied to the desto-staff. This would make it worse.
• PvP Utility - Outside of a lucky streak, Sorcerers in PvP lack a good counter to cloak spamming enemies. Curse is a great counter to stealth at the moment but at 6 seconds, a stealthed enemy will be halfway across the map before curse reveals them. This currently functions as good counterplay to stealth and should stay that way.
• Killing that pesky skeever I accidentally aggro'd on my way to a crafting station: Why would I ever use an ability that took 6 seconds to be effective when the fight will be over much sooner than that? The proposed changes make this skill clunky and impractical for anything but long boss fights.

Solution:
There is an easy solution to this issue that will fulfill ALL of your stated goals and keep Velocious curse as an effective skill for ALL types of playstyles:

Add the second "haunting" effect to the "Daedric Prey" Morph and leave Velocious Curse the way it is. The other morph is rarely used so this will give people more reason to use it and at least offer people a choice.

Please consider this option as it is a win-win for everyone. It fulfills your goals without making the skill less effective for the people that enjoy it exactly the way it is.

interestingly i agree with most everything you said except your solution.

My proposed solution for HC would be to add to the 12 plus dbl whammy a DOT or debuff that runs thruout - that way the "beginner" facing short combats would see instant gains from using the skill and a 6s wham and 12s wham if the target survived. (possibly remove the aoe, making it a pure single target attack)

One thing i think the curse scheme teaches new players is target selection - dont put the curse on the target you plan to kill first if you are gonna kill them in under 6s or 4s. So it teaches curse one guy kill the other.

That all said - adding the 12s whammy to pet-curse (which needs help) isnt a bad idea at all - esp since it lengthens the duration and that means longer period of pet damage.

So, net result, there are a lot of ways to do this and we both agree that the current HC 12 dbl whammy is lacking.

Quantum_V

@ZOS_RichLambert

Hello! Thank you for talking to the community, makes it really refreshing. I'm excited about the PTS3 changes you talked about, we already have some improvements on PTS - and of course, some things didn't go as expected.

I'm a mDK, don't really play anything else, so I will stand my ground on this one and let other, more specialized and knowledgeable players talk on behalf of their classes... but as far as mDK goes...

We appreciate the changes done to flame whip damage and the so waited flame dragon leap, these are steps is the right direction, in my humble opinion.

On the other hand, I'd like to see more insight on the cDB changes, it's fine to make the skill unique, but it needs some more help and rework in PvP. A lot of different solutions are being approached on several forum posts, some asking for a HoT added to the skill, maybe adding a base healing value + a percentage heal, make it scale from max magicka, make it neglect a certain percentage on how it's affected by battle spirit and a couple of others.

Following this perspective, most mDKs are not too enthusiastic with the current changes, and I bet most of us would like to hear some feedback from ZoS as far as the thought process goes for the current change and we would also greatly appreciate any information on there having a possibility for us to see a change. We have high hopes on the improvement of this skill, we'll love to know if this hope is in vain or not.

Thank you for your hard work and keeping communications open with the community, we would certainly enjoy hearing more from you guys!

-Quantum

Blackfyre20

Want to raise the floor for new/older/slower players and those who don't have time to invest to perfect their rotations? Lose the incredibly long gear grind. I do not understand how this comes up over and over and then to help new players you decide to nerf skills rather than making end game gear with valuable traits more attainable. What is your infatuation with RNG with enormous loot tables?

WillhelmBlack

Sounds like a plan to get players away from the zergs. Won't work though @ZOS_RichLambert.

Could you talk about the 3 most random, absurd changes you made this PTS?

Staff Tanking a.k.a the return of perma block

Templar's Magicka steal, best class on resources gets now infinite sustain with less effort

and also

Coagulating Blood, the heal you will never need in any situation?

The 3 things you said won't effect Pvp balance, like literally at all. Radiant still hits way OTT like it's range, other morph of Blazing Spear actually drops block so better for PvP and Curse wasn't that a deadly skill in itself but for whatever reason you decided to mess that up so Sorcs can no longer pull off the trademark Sorc rotation. The real problem, the insta-gib, the skill that is always in your recap after getting zerged in PvP is actually their passives combined with their execute.

manny254

Please just add the cc back to shards. You can keep other changes to make it more simple for pve, but templar really struggles for cc's.

Saying choose luminous is not a good answer. Luminous is a disorient so if anything else hits the target they will get free cc immunity. That does not serve the purpose that blazing had fallen into in pvp. Blazing tbh was not even a great stun, but templar has the weakest stuns in the game. It is really just the most practical option for open world pvp.

Javelin can be reflected and dodged. Toppling has been one of the wonkiest gapclosers in the game since launch, and it requires a minimum distance. As I said before blazing was never a amazing stun either, but it was the most practical for open world pvp.

Qbiken

Rotations are a L2P issue that needs practice end of story.

Inferno3 wrote: »

I can understand why you would want to try and make the game more inclusive from a business point of view. I would assume the majority of the income form the crown store comes from people who wouldn't be considered to be 'the best' or even care about end game content and you need to cater to those who provide the paycheck. I get it, it makes sense if that's the case. But if the trend is tending towards making the game too easy... well you're going to lose those of us that actually work on improving ourselves. Those of us that have spent hours/days/weeks/months grinding the best gear for our builds, learning rotations and theory-crafting new builds after we've finished with those. And i get that this may not be an issue for you as long as the bank is happy. But if no one ever completed vMoL HM then were does that leave the trial? Left to those who spent weeks learning the mechanics? But they're gone as all they have to do is push a few buttons every few seconds instead of actually doing something that requires skill.
I guess what I'm trying to say, is that there always needs to be a skill gap between those who picked up the game for Christmas and those who have been here since beta/launch, and getting rid of this is only going to *** people off, not to mention make the game stale and boring.

I don't want to end this on a negative, so ill say the work you guys do is excellent and i cannot complain about the vast world that you have created.

^This

Shad0wfire99

So, you don't want bad players to feel as bad about not learning their rotations, so you nerfed the players that did? Yeah, genius move, there, Rich.

Caff32

kwisatz wrote: »

Caff32 wrote: »

Betheny wrote: »

It's actually quite offensive come to think of it that @ZOS_RichLambert seems to think "older gamers" need things simplified...maybe their fingers don't mash buttons *quite* as fast, but their minds definitely can work out a build and rotation to play with just the same.

Simplifying things simply removes choice and build diversity.

I'm almost 40 and I'll put my DPS up against anybody. My reflexes are as sharp as ever, thank you very much. Age has nothing to do with it.

Now get off my **** lawn!

"Almost 40" is not precisely what we could call an "older player". There is plenty of gran'pas and gran'mas running out there (50+, 60+, 70+)

I was using his example of an older gamer, not my own, but while what you say is true, on the balance, I think 40+ is an older gamer.

Regardless of your definition of "older gamer", what would really help ALL games is fixing the damn lag, not a simpler rotation.

Qbiken

I still don´t see how it is a problem how more experienced players do more dps than new ones. If you a new player dedicate yourself to the game you can also achieve great numbers. I´m not saying the chances will be that noticable, but the general direction of these kind of changes isn´t good. Making the cap between seasoned players and new players smaller by "brining down" the better ones isn´t the way to go ( at least not in the long run).