Dear Dev Team, this is how you troubleshoot sustain changes.

Jamascus

November 14th, 2016
Announce on all media platforms that you're implementing sustain changes for testing on the PTS. Include disclaimer that you realize this will take a long time and the game will be broken for a while yet but please bear with us. They are as follows.

December 5th, 2016
remove spell/stam. cost reduction from cp passives

January 2nd, 2017
gather all data from cp removal testing
reinstate cp passives to test server
implement 3.0 changes to armor sustain
analyze data from cp removal testing

February 6th, 2017
gather all data from armor sustain change testing
rollback armor sustain changes to test server
implement 3.02 changes to spear shards and necrotic orb sustain changes
analyze data from armor sustain changes

March 6th, 2017
gather all data from spear shard and necro. orb sustain changes
rollback spear shards and necro orb changes
implement some kind of change to repentance only not the current one it's crap, implement some kind of change to leeching/siphoning strikes only not the current one, it's crap
analyze data from spear shards/necro. orb changes

April 3rd, 2017
gather and analyze all data from repentance/leeching/siphoning changes

April 17th, 2017
Share analysis of all data with community, gather feed back and devise proper plan for sustain changes

May 1, 2017
Implement the proper plan to the test server for final testing

June 6th, 2017
Release Morrowind patch and include sustain changes. Also, give Templar back major mending since you gave it to Warden.

@ZOS_RichLambert stated on ESO Live last week that having multiple sets of data to track all at once increases exponentially the chance for the dev team to make a mistake even though you went ahead and did exactly that with the 3.0 patch on the PTS. The above reduces that burden significantly.

Waffennacht

Lmfao

Wait..

Or was 2027 a typo?

Jamascus

Waffennacht wrote: »

Lmfao

Wait..

Or was 2027 a typo?

Sorry, that was a typo. Some changes to sustain are needed, just not all the changes and certainly not all at once.

sirston

there dev team is naive and unskilled my suggestion is to maybe pull a clean house and shut down for a month

Jamascus

sirston wrote: »

there dev team is naive and unskilled my suggestion is to maybe pull a clean house and shut down for a month

Yeah, they ask for constructive criticism but it's questionable if they understand what we're saying when we offer it.

idk

That just seems like a trouble some path.

I have a better idea. Put all the changes on the PTS and have people test it. Get feedback. Review data. Adjust changes as seems appropriate. Best idea yet.

This does not mean adjustments will be to my liking, and probably not.

But piece meal changes and forcing us to adjust our build, farm/craft new gear and rework our builds every month is a horrible idea.

Jamascus

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

That just seems like a trouble some path.

I have a better idea. Put all the changes on the PTS and have people test it. Get feedback. Review data. Adjust changes as seems appropriate. Best idea yet.

This does not mean adjustments will be to my liking, and probably not.

But piece meal changes and forcing us to adjust our build, farm/craft new gear and rework our builds every month is a horrible idea.

My op states to put it on the test server, never make it to live until after all that testing was done.

AlienatedGoat

Jamascus wrote: »

but please bear with us.

I agree with OP on all points.

Koensol

In my opinion this 'hard data' is being overrated by developers. Sure you've got to have some basis for your changes, but to rely solely on this data and neglect common sense, is just wrong to me. If they play the game themselves (lets just assume they do) than how hard is it to see which skills are overperforming or what is breaking the current game? Do you really need to wait for all this data to spell it our for you? Do you really nees data to tell you that destro ult is OP? Do you really need data to tell you that nightblades are underperforming in competitive PvP and PvE? I just don't get this. Why not just implement smaller changes and let people give you feedback on the results? I honestly think this overly clinchy attitude towards hard data is making this way more complicated than it needs to be.

SleepyTroll

Koensol wrote: »

In my opinion this 'hard data' is being overrated by developers. Sure you've got to have some basis for your changes, but to rely solely on this data and neglect common sense, is just wrong to me. If they play the game themselves (lets just assume they do) than how hard is it to see which skills are overperforming or what is breaking the current game? Do you really need to wait for all this data to spell it our for you? Do you really nees data to tell you that destro ult is OP? Do you really need data to tell you that nightblades are underperforming in competitive PvP and PvE? I just don't get this. Why not just implement smaller changes and let people give you feedback on the results? I honestly think this overly clinchy attitude towards hard data is making this way more complicated than it needs to be.

Its like when most everyone who stepped foot in pvp was telling ZOS heavy armor was over performing and ZOS basically just went "Our hard data shows that the armor weights are equally represented in pvp."

Or like when everyone was talking about keep flipping and ZOS goes "Our hard data shows the average player earns less then 20k ap in pvp."

Huyen

Jamascus wrote: »

sirston wrote: »

there dev team is naive and unskilled my suggestion is to maybe pull a clean house and shut down for a month

Yeah, they ask for constructive criticism but it's questionable if they understand what we're saying when we offer it.

Most criticism on the forums is just "WTF? Change it back asap or I'll quit!". And I understand the devs arent impressed by that kind of feedback, when nobody is actually telling them what a better solution would be.

Koensol

SleepyTroll wrote: »

Koensol wrote: »

In my opinion this 'hard data' is being overrated by developers. Sure you've got to have some basis for your changes, but to rely solely on this data and neglect common sense, is just wrong to me. If they play the game themselves (lets just assume they do) than how hard is it to see which skills are overperforming or what is breaking the current game? Do you really need to wait for all this data to spell it our for you? Do you really nees data to tell you that destro ult is OP? Do you really need data to tell you that nightblades are underperforming in competitive PvP and PvE? I just don't get this. Why not just implement smaller changes and let people give you feedback on the results? I honestly think this overly clinchy attitude towards hard data is making this way more complicated than it needs to be.

Its like when most everyone who stepped foot in pvp was telling ZOS heavy armor was over performing and ZOS basically just went "Our hard data shows that the armor weights are equally represented in pvp."

Or like when everyone was talking about keep flipping and ZOS goes "Our hard data shows the average player earns less then 20k ap in pvp."

Yes, this is exactly what I mean. Focussing on data, handling it like the holy grail, and turning the other cheek on reality. It's really painful to read those dev comments.

jircris11

the issue about most of the people here who are calling the devs unskilled is this. Most of them have no experience as to what it means to be a dev. Its not all rainbows and butterflies. Half the time its pulling long hours away from home to implement something that was ordered by the higher ups. The devs here are far from unskilled, they are simply tackling an issue that EVERY mmo out there has issues with. Balanced classes has been a constant struggle for mmos from ultima online to current. So please before you go and claim they are unskilled or do not listen, put your self in their shoes. How would you handle the constant feed back from people some saying its fine others claiming its bad and even some who could care less. In reality gamers as the community have no clue what they want. Some want easy mode, others want darksouls level of challenge.

Jamascus

SleepyTroll wrote: »

Koensol wrote: »

In my opinion this 'hard data' is being overrated by developers. Sure you've got to have some basis for your changes, but to rely solely on this data and neglect common sense, is just wrong to me. If they play the game themselves (lets just assume they do) than how hard is it to see which skills are overperforming or what is breaking the current game? Do you really need to wait for all this data to spell it our for you? Do you really nees data to tell you that destro ult is OP? Do you really need data to tell you that nightblades are underperforming in competitive PvP and PvE? I just don't get this. Why not just implement smaller changes and let people give you feedback on the results? I honestly think this overly clinchy attitude towards hard data is making this way more complicated than it needs to be.

Its like when most everyone who stepped foot in pvp was telling ZOS heavy armor was over performing and ZOS basically just went "Our hard data shows that the armor weights are equally represented in pvp."

Or like when everyone was talking about keep flipping and ZOS goes "Our hard data shows the average player earns less then 20k ap in pvp."

They thought overperforming meant more than half of all pvp'ers were wearing heavy armor, so @ZOS_RichLambert posted a graph showing how many people were wearing which types of armor. He completely misunderstood that black rose was buffing the constitution passive way too much, but they're nerfing that now so they've caught on, finally.

Fleshreaper

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

That just seems like a trouble some path.

I have a better idea. Put all the changes on the PTS and have people test it. Get feedback. Review data. Adjust changes as seems appropriate. Best idea yet.

This does not mean adjustments will be to my liking, and probably not.

But piece meal changes and forcing us to adjust our build, farm/craft new gear and rework our builds every month is a horrible idea.

The problem with that is that people are going to complain because their class is not the by god be all class that it use to be. If they are still top class but they have to work for the win, they will complain. ZoS has the hard numbers, not just player feed back.