New AoE mechanics confusion after U17

Quaffio

"Area of Effect abilities now deal full damage to all targets hit, instead of having a damage penalty after hitting 7 or more targets. Secondary effects from those Area of Effect abilities (snares, stuns, etc.) are still capped at 6 targets."

"We want to encourage more tactical group play where players are encouraged to spread out instead of stacking in a tight ball. We’re still evaluating this aspect of AoE caps, and will make adjustments in the future as necessary."

As shown above is the wording from Update 17 about the new AoE mechanics. Now if AoE is working as intended from what is said, if my AoE does 2k damage per second, then that means it should do 2k damage to every single target in the radius of the AoE per second(not counting for individual target resistances), even if there is 20+ targets to hit. However this is not the case as I have witnessed in Cyro. Bombers do considerably less damage with their bomb attacks now after Update 17 and that should not be the case as stated in the patch notes. Bombers should be doing significantly more damage now than before as their damage no longer falls off after more than 7 targets being hit. I have been bombed and only taken ~500 damage a tick from the destro ult from players that I have faced previously before U17 and they used to blast me for over ~3k a tick while hitting at least 10 people. Things aren't adding up...

Is this a bug or am I completely misreading the patch notes? Cause if I am, then the patch notes should be changed as they clearly state that there is no longer any loss of damage for hitting more than 7 targets now...but there clearly is damage loss after 7 or more targets...

Shadowshire

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Wrobel

From the Patch Notes v. 3.3.5 Dragon Bones (Update 17)

Area of Effect abilities now deal full damage to all targets hit, instead of having a damage penalty after hitting 7 or more targets. Secondary effects from those Area of Effect abilities (snares, stuns, etc.) are still capped at 6 targets.

Tooltips for some AoE abilities imply that the stated damage amount is applied to each (whether every) target inside the AoE. However, if I recall correctly, most tooltips do not state that. Instead, the wording implies that the stated damage amount is divided among each (whether every) target inside the AoE. Also, I cannot recall any AoE tooltip that discloses a "cap" in the number of targets for any "special effect" which the ability inflicts.

Please note that many AoE abilities also effect Damage-over-Time (DoT). Sometimes it appears that a NPC which was not initially inside an AoE when it took effect is not damaged after entering the AoE subsequently. Usually they are damaged only if the NPC stops moving inside the AoE, and don't suffer any if they simply move through it.

As to "Ultimate" abilities, frankly, many do not have nearly as much value in PvE Boss fights as a player might expect from the word "ultimate". That said, the main benefit of an Ultimate AoE is that it is less likely that the target (Boss) will move far enough away from the location where they were (when the player pressed the keybind for the AoE) to a point where they won't be affected by the attack. Nonetheless, it happens, whether primarily because of high network latency.

Regardless, the possibility that the target will evade the AoE is one reason that characters (of experienced players) will use an AoE Ultimate at almost the same time. Given the vagaries of the Heads Up Display graphics, any two AoE attacks effected "simultaneously" are not likely to have the same center-point. With two or three Ultimates executing in short order in the same vicinity of the Boss, at least one of them is likely to have a significant effect.

It's nice to have an authoratative disclosure as to how this aspect of AoE abilities works. And maybe the tooltips for many AoE abilities have been re-written to be more explicit. But I have my doubts that the described behavior is actually implemented for each and every AoE ability in the Skills tree, or on armor set procs, etc.

Developer Comment:
Spoiler
We want to encourage more tactical group play where players are encouraged to spread out instead of stacking in a tight ball. We’re still evaluating this aspect of AoE caps, and will make adjustments in the future as necessary.

That remark apparently applies to PvP fights. With regard to "stacking" in PvE, we want to encourage ZOS to revisit the design and implementation of each and every 4-Player dungeon, if not also the Trials, at least.

One common "feature" is that the area in which player characters can stand and/or move about is signifcantly restricted for no apparent reason -- other than to place an unwarranted handicap on the player's use of the movement and skills acquired by the character in the fundamental design of the game. Of course, the area of a fight in a tunnel or a corridor is implicitly constrained. But what justification is there for a Boss fight to be limited to a significantly small space, such as a platform or some fragment of solid rock floating in a sea of magma -- especially one covered by a hostile AoE and/or adds?

Aside from known bugs, there is at least one Boss fight in each dungeon which has some feature, such as picking a lock, that is so limited in some way that it becomes futile for a player to attempt to use it. Another feature is an AoE that begins in a small area but spreads faster than a player character can run away from it, as well as AoE abilities which increase to cover all of the area from which a player character can launch an attack. Including features like these in the design of a fight simply spoils the play of the game for at least one member of the party every time.

The worst "feature" of all -- which seems to be an expression of the designer's sadistic sexual fetish -- is not permitting a player charcter to defend against, or to counter-attack, one or more NPCs which slowly but surely kill the player's character. This frequently happens to "criminals" who are attacked by one or more "guards" at any particular time and place (such as during a quest), but it also happens in several 4-player dungeon boss fights, too.

If the best a designer can do is limit or cripple the ability of the player / character to use the ways and means which the game design provides for a player-character to fight or to avoid damage, then ZOS needs to re-think the meaning of "challenge".

Sixty5

Here is the simple explanation.

AOE damaging abilities will deal full damage to all enemies within the AOE

Howeverthey will only apply additional effects (stun, defile etc) to the first 6 they hit.

If you are seeing low damage out of a destro ult, then it is probably because the player using it deals no damage anyway.