Official Discussion Thread for "ESO Live: April 28 @ 3:00pm EDT"

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official discussion thread for the blog article ESO Live: April 28 @ 3:00pm EDT. We'll be starting the show with a discussion on some of the latest gameplay changes currently on the PTS, led by Creative Director Rich Lambert. We'll also wrap up our showcase of the Warden presenting the last two skill lines with Lead Combat Designer Eric Wrobel.

If you have questions for Rich and Eric about the recent gameplay changes, please post them in this thread and we'll do our best to answer your questions and concerns. Please keep these questions constructive. Thanks!

DinOwned

ESO Live Question: why were there drastic changes to CP, class abilities/passives, and gear sets all at once rather than starting with CP and seeing what happens to the game? Then from there re-evaluate class abilities/passives, etc.

timidobserver

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Question for Rich and/or Eric:

Regardless of whether they were justified or necessary, you must admit that Templar will take some significant nerfs in this update. Are there any plans to balance out those nerfs with any additional improvements to the class?

lonewolf26

ESO Live questions. With a focus on trials...

With the severe nerfs to sustain on PTS it's become impractical to hold a rotation for very long and specing into regen/cost reduction severely cripples your ability to do damage. With a dot/heavy attack build you can spec more into damage and out-perform regen/cost reduction rotations and still have resources for defense. What are your plans to raise the floor for skill rotation dps builds to compete with the heavy attack/dot builds in trial settings?

Even with a full complement of regen/cost reduction you'll still have to heavy attack to maintain, especially when you're battle rezzed and on potion/shard cooldowns. Do you plan on making heavy attacking more fun, because it's tedious and boring?

rhapsodious

Hey guys:

I'd like to know what your vision for the Nightblade class is in PVE. To say we could use some love in PVE is an understatement, and the changes to Siphoning Strikes are gonna hurt, a lot. I really love playing on my Nightblade, she's my main with nearly 24k achievement points. But every patch I feel more and more inferior to the other classes, all while hearing NB OP!!! NERF!!! because ganking exists. I guess I'd just like to know how you envision the class playing in PVE, because I can't see it. Thanks for your time if you can answer this.

Love,

A small Argonian Nightblade just trying to do her best

lonewolf26

Will we see a lore-friendly explanation for the recent damage and sustain nerfs? Has everyone had exposure to the Knahaten flu? Maybe a severe case of the Wrobels?

Wicked_Wolf

Not so much a question but a request for maybe a discussion about the decision to continue trying to balance PvE and PvP together, rather than separating it and having skills, items, gear etc behave differently. For PvE players it can be frustrating to adjust their builds, sometimes drastically, numerous times with the knowledge that in many cases it's for a game mode they don't participate in. Of course, I also think this applies vice versa and PvP players may feel the same way. While the initial work to do so may be incredibly complex and difficult, wouldn't balance on a going forward basis be easier on both the devs and players? I don't ask as an accusation but as someone who's genuinely curious since I have no knowledge how theis type of development works, beyond my experiences with separate pvp/PvE in other MMO's. Thanks in advance for any insight!

PS: Can I have a combat wolf yet????

SleepyTroll

Here's my question.

I do not really play any stamina builds other then a gankblade that I haven't played in months, so I don't even know if this was a good change or not but the below is a great example of my question.
How exactly do you guys do all of this at one time, and know if it was a good change or not?
Stamina abilities are now universally 15% cheaper than their Magicka counterparts, originally being 20% cheaper. (Love the wording.)
Wind Walker: This passive ability now reduces the cost of your Stamina abilities by 1/2% per piece of Medium Armor, down from 2/3%.
Constitution: Reduced the Magicka and Stamina restored by this passive ability by approximately 42%.
Redguard Adrenaline Rush: This passive ability now restores Stamina based on your character level instead of your Max Stamina.(Its a nerf)
reduced the fallowing to 15%: Hardy, Elemental Defender, Quick Recovery, Siphoner, Mooncalf, Arcanist, Health, Tenacity, Tumbling, Blessed, Elemental Expert, Mighty
Replace Magician passive to Siphoner.
Remove Warlord passive
Bone Pirate Tatters: Reduced the Stamina Recovery granted by this item set by 50% (150 Stamina Recovery at Gold CP160, down from 300).
for the pve off tanks who use it: Reduced the cool down for being charged Stamina or Magicka to block an attack to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds.
Finally to do this:
Vigor: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 30%.
With the dev comment: Vigor was too cheap for an area of effect healing ability, so we’ve increased its cost so there is more of an impact to keeping the heal over time buff active.
Now I'm sure before all of those changes were made vigor may have been OP or maybe not, Im not here to say that.
I'm just wondering with the many of other examples inside the patch notes how do you test all of this and make all of these changes at the same exact time (or expect us to do it for you) within 5 weeks?

But really you don't even need to look at vigor in the list just look at every single one after all the others changes are applied. How do you do it? why do you do it? Is there not a better way? Why do this many changes every 6 months when we could do minor changes/ small tweaks every couple weeks? Why use a sledge hammer when a scalpel may have been sufficient? Why couldnt the cp changes have been dropped on us during homestead and then we could have seen if the rest of the nerfs were needed? Didnt you guys have "thereocrafters" come down to the studio to help with this?
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
@ZOS_BrianWheeler

P.S. Why is Stygian still medium even after this? Stygian: This item set no longer increases your Spell Damage and Max Magicka by 20% while sneaking or invisible; instead, it increases your damage done with Magicka abilities by 20% while sneaking or invisible.

CavalryPK

Question to Rich.

Hey Man can you please for the love of God tell us if you going to make changes to Merciless Resolve/Grim Focus or not ?

I would rather know you are not going to touch it vs getting surprised with a change.

Thanks,

Norn

I have a very simple and short question.

What's the reasoning behind these major balance patches that brings numerous nerfs to certain aspects of the game rather than spreading these nerfs to multiple different patches over time. While the first approach creates a chaos within the community; second one allows you developers, to make incremental changes and therefore control outside variables in check to get a healthy feedback, as well as allowing community to evolve and adapt with each patch.

Cinbri

Can we get as it was last pts - sneek pics of changes?

grim_tactics

Can you go into detail on when the deadline is for you all to submit the most recent patch from PTS for it to be approved on console without pushing the launch date?

If not - will console get a more recent patch or launch with 3.0.0 with a more substantial update down the road?

I'm sure console wants to know which PTS patch we will get.

Integral1900

Any chance of a transmog system? Maybe a master Crafter could make something and then bind it to a style, that item could then be used or sold to other players and applied the same way you would a repair kit. I would love to have a reason to use dropped sets but most of them are just not styles that work well together visually, at the moment I have to stick to crafted simply because I'm willing to accept a decrease in power in exchange for a character I like the look of

Vanthras79

Questions for the Creative Director and the Lead Combat Designer?! I just have to ask two questions at this point!

1. With the new warden class there is now frost/fire/lightning spells added to the overall variety of different class abilities. Are you guys going to be adding only new classes from here on out, and forgetting spell crafting, or are new classes AND spell crafting still on their respective way? Many of use want to use any of the schools of magic (Alteration/Destruction/Illusion/Conjuration/Restoration/etc) on any of the classes so far--so we, the players, don't have to feel limited with what we can do as it applies just to the classes we chose to play. This would add much needed ability diversity to liven up the game more on custom builds.

2. Speaking of custom builds, is jewelry crafting still on the chalkboard? This, in my opinion, is one of those ideas that can only help the player "play the way they want" to play. I hate having to wear some kind of armor because I want the 5-set bonus, but find out it's in a style that does not fit my character's background. (i.e. Bosmer style on a Breton)--Unless a transmog system is in the works?

Thanks for your time!

Cnedra

Hello! I've been on PTS, and it's very gorgeous. It's a very well done job. I also considered Vet MoL one of your best end game content to date, very fun. However, considering the rate at which you put out these end game content, leaves me worried. Why does it take so long? Several Guilds of end game raiders have left because the time from Vmol to the new trial took too long. Will it take another year for more trials after this expansion?

Vanthras79

I see that some of the winter's embrace line skills scale off of max health. Are you guys trying to find interesting ways to tackle the issue of players maxing in stamina or magicka for their attributes?

Vaoh

- What is the general goal of the changes to sustain on PTS? Is it simply to lower sustain across the board (which is great), or to encourage PvE builds to Heavy Attack weave for DPS (which is not so great) since this seems to be the current effect?

- What is the reasoning behind having the synergies of Spear Shards and Necrotic Orb share a cooldown with these changes to sustain in place? It is no longer possible to maintain decent sustain without sacrificing a significant amount of damage, and the loss of this synergy hurts the uniqueness of Templars a lot.

- What was the reasoning behind removing Stamina return to allies from Repentance, rather than reducing it? It is a rather large nerf to this skill considering what else Templars have dealt with this patch.

- Any plans currently to reintroduce Major Mending to the Templar class? A reduction to its uptime in battle is certainly necessary but completely removing it seems a bit much.

- Siphoning Stikes seems to be providing too little resources considering it costs resources to cast still as well. Any plans in place to re-examine some of the more prominent class nerfs on PTS?

menedhyn

With apologies if this has been asked and answered before, but are we ever likely to see unarmed combat make an appearance, or even some way to incorporate a melee-based character and 'have a reasonable chance of survival' at higher levels (read: not be woefully handicapped)? I know in theory I can avoid using magicka skills, but the game does lean very heavily towards magicka use in some form. It's kind of unavoidable.

FlyLionel

• Will you be looking back into the Willow's path set? With the upcoming resources changes the 5 piece would need to be able to stack onto other recovery (Being craftable for everyone to access making it universally good). More options than black rose/seducer/bone pirate etc.
  • Are Nightblades' siphoning skill finalized? The community feels that it is no where near useful.
  • What is happening about Templars' major mending? Is this concluded that minor mending will be absolutely it?

Ashtaris

I remember a previous ESO Live where you stated that you were going to slow down on some of the major balance changes and let people adjust. And here we are with this update that has some of the most major wide sweeping changes to the classes since the game was released. So why are you doing this? Please make smaller changes so we can adjust and you have a better chance to evaluate the feeback.

Also, when are you going to show the Nightblade class some love? Seems like every recent update we have received nothing but nerfs to the point that the class is the least desirable in trials and other raid groups. And with the upcoming changes to sustain, that class will almost be totally trashed.

dpencil1

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert

1. Rich, please clarify your overall design goal for class balance. Is it intended that some classes perform better at certain rolls than others, or that all classes should be able to perform equally in any roll?

2. Rich, are heavy attacks an important feature to your vision for ESO combat? If so, what is your response to players who say that heavy attacks make combat feel sluggish?

3. Rich, with the changes to sustain, it seems that group synergies also took a hit. Shouldn't these synergies be more incentivized to reward group coordination? If not, please explain why.

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO

Question: How would the recent drastic nefs to sustain be compensated in veteran Trials? Not that many people were completing them, and now a lot less will.

Reorx_Holybeard

Why were 2 of the Templar's unique support abilities (Repentance and Shards) changed so drastically? Is this a general move to make ESO classes less unique and more similar to each other for balance purposes? Can you suggest ways to adjust Repentance/Shards such that they are still useful and unique Templar abilities but still fit within your vision for changes to global sustain?

DrSweetazz

will you be addressing the trial that has been broken for 2 months on console? You installed a Tracker that should have been in the game from the start and asked us for feedback and then went dark. Your feedback is in this thread: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/323934/vet-maw-of-lorkhaj-broken-on-xbox-one-again#latest

Where do you guys stand on this? Have you passed our feedback on?

Cinbri

1. Can your change Shards synnergy back to what it was in 3.0.0(max depleted resorce) to keep it unique with new Orbs synnergy?
2. Does anything will be done regarding Luminous Shards to breaking immideately on any damage and granting CC immunity?
3. As dueler/small-scaler I really concerned if you plan to make more changes for Total Dark to make it viable once again, or making it return to most successfull time of reflecting everything while being breakable ?

Strider_Roshin

Considering the fact that the Warden's Betty gives more stamina than Siphoning Strikes within the same duration; are you considering on making Siphoning Strikes a free cast as well, and leaving the major difference between the two abilities as one gives major brutality, and the other gives health?

Because Siphoning Strikes is useless in its current state.

Zabernat

Wicked_Wolf wrote: »

Not so much a question but a request for maybe a discussion about the decision to continue trying to balance PvE and PvP together, rather than separating it and having skills, items, gear etc behave differently. For PvE players it can be frustrating to adjust their builds, sometimes drastically, numerous times with the knowledge that in many cases it's for a game mode they don't participate in. Of course, I also think this applies vice versa and PvP players may feel the same way. While the initial work to do so may be incredibly complex and difficult, wouldn't balance on a going forward basis be easier on both the devs and players? I don't ask as an accusation but as someone who's genuinely curious since I have no knowledge how this type of development works, beyond my experiences with separate pvp/PvE in other MMO's. Thanks in advance for any insight!

PS: Can I have a combat wolf yet????

First of all: this guy should absolutely be given a pack of combat wolves.

Second: I think this is an extremely important question that has sadly been ignored for too long. Many players like myself have been working towards the most difficult end-game content for years now because of continual "balance changes" that are meant for PvP but hurt builds and strategies used constantly in PvE. Most times when this is brought up (as I tried to in a thread not so long ago) people are out furiously typing things like "bruh I have 2 million perfect maelstrom completions, like get good" or "nerf [insert class name here] it's so broken I can never play because you won't take this class out of the game!!"
Most people don't actually think like that though, and many have put months into understanding things that were changed so completely the players don't understand them anymore (champion points are a good example).

This isn't whining about the game being "too hard" it's frustration with an altering playing field that makes things that should be straightforward make no sense after someone takes a weekend off from gaming.

olsborg

Any plans to adjust sorcerors dark deal/dark exchange and further adjust leeching strikes for nbs? (also please give minor mending to stamblades)

silky_soft

Sweet baby jesus, hurricane wroble will be on. You'll have to disable the chat box. Looking forwards to all the new memes that come out of it.

silky_soft

Strider_Roshin wrote: »

Considering the fact that the Warden's Betty gives more stamina than Siphoning Strikes within the same duration; are you considering on making Siphoning Strikes a free cast as well, and leaving the major difference between the two abilities as one gives major brutality, and the other gives health?

Because Siphoning Strikes is useless in its current state.

Exactly, what are you aiming for? Parity or p2w? HP is nothing in pvp since you half it. Maybe increase resource gain when heavy attack, free skill cost chance like frags?

altemriel

1. What about the promised grim focus buff?

2. When will you copy our life characters to PTS (yes, I have the invitation)?

3. Are you planning on adding a Cyro campaing with PVE (just like in the Tree Fates trailer)?

4. Why all classes are getting nerfed in June, except of sorc?

5. Are you considering making 2 handed weapons count as 2 pieces to set bonuses?

6. When will you add storage and increase all the caps for housing????