Normal & Morrowind PTS Feedback

Alcast

I want Morrowind to be successful, as it would help the game boost its popularity immensly and it would be great to get more people on the board. If you are part of the players that test on the Normal & Morrowind PTS please make sure to report bugs via the ingame tool and via the forum. It is very important that most crucial bugs get resolved before the release of Morrowind.

I also hope that ZOS @ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel @ZOS_BrianWheeler will take part in the PTS discussion more than previously. Because most of the times we the players have no clue what is being worked on and what kind of direction ZOS is going to take on balance changes. Yes the PTS notes improved but the process is slow and by the time the patch notes are released another 1-2 weeks will turn around till new changes can be implemented.

The warden should also be fun for new players and vets and I hope the class can be utilized in all kind of settings both for Stamina & Magicka. My goal is to make stamina setups (all 5 classes) more comeptitive in PvE (while at the same time not make them OPaf in pvp obviously). I really hope ZOS is at least listening to some of the old school stamina vets and change some stuff around. It would also be nice from ZOS @Wrobel when people make some suggestions WHY you think it is a good idea or NOT. Because most of the times we do not get any explanation whatsoever why good suggestions are turned down. I do not want another Elder Staves Online Morrowind (PvE wise).

Cheers
Alcast

tinythinker

With a limited beta they will have less data than normal, so I don't see Morrowind being any less buggy than any other big patch. I used to send in tons of bug reports, but when I do log on to play now, I just skip or work around the things that don't work.

You are right that it's a big PR opportunity, and ZOS knows this, but I am assuming they will have the same if not greater limitations in getting it all polished on time as the DLC. They have a hard release date so the expansion will go live so long as it's mostly playable. Think back to PC launch for reference.

Anyway, good luck to the closed beta testers.

pretzl

tinythinker wrote: »

With a limited beta they will have less data than normal, so I don't see Morrowind being any less buggy than any other big patch. I used to send in tons of bug reports, but when I do log on to play now, I just skip or work around the things that don't work.

You are right that it's a big PR opportunity, and ZOS knows this, but I am assuming they will have the same if not greater limitations in getting it all polished on time as the DLC. They have a hard release date so the expansion will go live so long as it's mostly playable. Think back to PC launch for reference.

Anyway, good luck to the closed beta testers.

Althought I somewhat agree with you, I also think that this closed beta going out to the people that have previously been active on PTS will only make those people even more active. It should be an incentive in itself that these select people have been chosen and thus an extra motivation to test and report issues. Hopefully this selection process also means that ZOS will listen more to these players than previously.
Only time will tell I guess.

Stamden

Yes if anything I just wish there was more communication with the developers. It's usually us giving them tons of feedback with no kind of response. Then the patch comes out and you wonder "Have they been listening to what any of us have been saying?".

With such little interaction from the developers, it really feels like we waste our time testing the PTS.

pretzl

Neighbor wrote: »

Yes if anything I just wish there was more communication with the developers. It's usually us giving them tons of feedback with no kind of response. Then the patch comes out and you wonder "Have they been listening to what any of us have been saying?".

With such little interaction from the developers, it really feels like we waste our time testing the PTS.

^this.
Would be nice if they make a complation thread of all the issues they've gotten reported (or the majority of them, filtering out unserious ones etc.) and write a short comment on it explaining what they know and when we can expect a fix. Just something short. Then, other players can perhaps supplement their findings to the same thread and thus devs can find more info on the same issues more quickly. Albeit, everyone should be reporting bugs and issues they find, but atleast it opens for a more distinct line of communication.

Oompuh

If halls of fabrication allows Xbox players to get to the first boss without 8 people disconnecting, I'll take it.

silky_soft

With the closed beta, I expect them to be replying to reports just like they would in their office to each other or how they did at when they invited players. Otherwise what's the point.

Sigma957

I'd expect the devs to be very active on the private closed beta forum, more so these open forums.

Carde

Sigma957 wrote: »

I'd expect the devs to be very active on the private closed beta forum, more so these open forums.

They always were in the original closed beta.

Silinde

Being that Morrowind, in my opinion, is probably the most significant update/expansion thus far, I would expect them to be pretty active in CB forum - could be wrong but if I were a dev I'd want this release to go as smoothly as possible.

Shadzilla

Everyone that does any sort of competitive PVE is well aware stamina dps have been rare since the 1 Tamriel patch late last year. From trials anyway. Stam sorc still had vDSA and vMA until homestead. Now we are back to Magicka ruling all. The only reason stamina were used in thieves guild and dark brotherhood last year, was the single target damage. This is now gone, considering mag sorc/dk currently do more SINGLE TARGET damage than all stam toons. Along with having access to shields that can double their health at the simple click of a button. Stam toons also pull around 70% of the aoe dmg that mag pulls in most trash packs, rip destro ult. The fact that stam dps do less dmg in single target and aoe, but are forced to be melee with no viable shield is insane... Mag do more dmg single target, from ranged... with shields? LOL. Another massive issue is if you do not have bis vma weapons as a stam dps don't even try to compete... The reliability on those weapons to do anything close to the dmg mag does is crazy. Meanwhile, you can wear purple poorly traited bsw/llambis with 3 infal/moon + crafted staves and still outperform bis all gold gear stam in every way possible.

Recap:

Thieves guild and dark brotherhood : Stam dps due to MASSIVE single target advantage

1 Tamriel : All trials = Mag dps. Stam single target not nearly as OP as it was. The survivability of shields (15-19k fake health) and massive aoe dmg compared to stam is undeniable.
vDSA + vMA = Stam sorcs (hurricane + crit surge ftw)

Homestead: Anything pve related = Mag dps. Now have more single target than stam, while at range and having shields. Aoe also still massive dmg compared to stam.

LIGHT ARMOR = 2200 spell crit and 4900 spell penetration. Wearing only 5 pieces of light, gaining the undaunted bonuses from having 1 medium 1 heavy.

MEDIUM ARMOR = 2300 weapon crit and 12% weapon damage. Wearing 7 medium pieces, gaining no undaunted bonus.

Keep in mind penetration is by far the BIGGEST META thing in end game pve. 12% weapon damage does nothing compared to shredding armor resistances by 4900.

So stamina has a tiny crit advantage, with no undaunted bonuses resulting in much lower stat pools. No penetration bonus, vs a massive 4900 pen bonus light is getting... When pen is like the most important thing in end game pve content.

Now of course there are going to be people posting stuff like hey wait wait! There was a stam sorc in this #2 world score AA run check it out bla bla bla. Thats great. The sheer fact is stamina dps is gone. 95% of high score competitive pve runs have mag only dps. The 2 MASSIVE reasons are very clear, shields and aoe dmg. Mag can survive so much more that stam toons can from shields, which is essential for score runs. Vitality bonuses are a must. The fact that stam toons can only pull about 70% of the damage mag toons can in aoe trash packs is ridiculous. Single target damage is actually pretty close. No insanely large gap like the aoe advantage mag has. In all honesty though, 90% of all pve content is aoe in this game. I am well aware that balancing is very hard due to pvp... I HAVE SOLUTIONS.

How to fix?

1. Give stam toons a viable shield for pve. Whats the biggest issue, pvp right? AIGHT... buff bone shield, but have 1 morph only working in pve environment. Example having battle spirit nerf it big time.
2. Stam needs to be at least around the same ballpark for aoe dmg as mag is. Right now stam isn't even in the same city as mag. Endless hail radius/dmg increased? Blade cloak actually doing damage, instead of a tiny tick every 3 seconds? Change the 2nd morph of lacerate that literally .01% of the population uses... Thrive in chaos? That morph is so unused... Could easily change it to an ability closer to destro ult? Massive aoe dmg.
3. Single target? It's pretty close tbh, undoing the trap nerf and possibly buffing rending slashes or poison injection a bit wouldn't hurt.
4. Change the medium armor passive agility to 4900 penetration, instead of 12% weapon damage.
5. Possibly make certain mobs with very large spell resistances? Along with other mobs with very large physical resistances? Having all mobs at 18.2k resistances is just lazy. That way if there are massive differences in damage due to horrible balancing attempts, there would still be a reason to have some stamina around. I mean honestly stamina have only been in competitive trials for 2 patches out of the last 3 years. There should be certain things that magicka do really well at, along with certain things stamina excel at. This would give much more complexity and strategy for top tier leaderboard scores, in my opinion.

I have spoken with a handful of the testers that went out to zos a month or so ago. Most of the top tier pve guys did in fact let zos know about how rare/extinct stamina dps are for pve content. Zos knows, they have heard. Whether they listen, that is another story. Inviting a bunch of top tier players from all over tamriel to help with testing was one of the best things Zos could do. I realllllllly hope they listen to those people with massive amounts of experience, and have #1 leaderboard scores every patch. Morrowind is a massive launch for acquiring new people to the game. We should really consider letting them choose between stamina and magicka. All the community asks for is balance, neither one should have the huge advantages/disadvantages that we have seen the last few years. Its time to stop putting more tiaras and eyelashes in the crown store for a bit, and balance this games pve content!

Apparently the solution regarding stamina being extinct from PVE was to buff caltrops. Great, single target damage will go up by 2-3k, and I'm sure it will double stam's current AOE/cleave damage (sarcasm).