[Class Reps] Meeting Notes - June 7

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO

Masel92 wrote: »

GandTheImpaler wrote: »

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO wrote: »

I did not see any mention of pets negatively impacting mechanics in trials. There are a lot of trial boss fights where pets are not recommended.

This causes negative attitude of other players towards pet sorcerers and pushes them away from their preferred play-style.

Trial fights should be changes so that pets don't affect any of the mechanics. Please have that looked into as well.

We did touch base on those in the same section we talked about pets in pvp. The fact they take players buffs, are weird to control, etc. We talked about both ends of the game for those

In fact, the devs asked for a list of trials and mechanics where pets were undesirable to have a look at them.

Thank you I hope you mentioned especially vAS+2 as we see only nightblades there and form time to time a non-pet sorc. Also vAA last boss but I think as you are class reps you already knew that.

At some point I loved playing a pet sorc but I was forced to learn and play a nightblade due to those painful mechanics (not that much the fact that pets eat buffs). Im not saying that nightblade is bad (its a cool class) but I feel that some of us pet sorc players were sort of forced to move out of playing our favorite play-style. We sohuld not be forced to play a non-pet sorc or a nightblade because of mechanics. Pets should not be a factor in this.

Voxicity

LOL sorc isn't mobile?

Must be playing a different game

Derra

@Joy_Division

the issue with darkdeal is in my opinion that it can work within 15 to 20% of the classes theoretical top performance. However if you approach high end trials darkdeal is an ability that´s not going to see use (correct me if i´m wrong here).

The issue with the ability is:
It´s not a normal gcd ability - it has 1.2s casttime + another 0.2s animation free time for casttime skills
This means it will disrupt your rotation inevitably - lowering dps.
It does return a fair amount of resources - but still not enough compared to say siphoning attacks especially when considering that sorcerers magica drain/s is about 20% higher than nbs for most pve parses i´ve seen for summerset.
Dark deal restores less resources with higher casttime - and due to higher costs would have to be used more often. All of that while sorc dps is lower than NBs to begin with (meaning more darkdeal casts would increase dps disparity further).

Last but not least the resource to darkdeal is stamina which does not come easy for magica chars as mismanagement generally means death - contrary to stamina chars and magica where running oom generally just means that.
Not being able to dodge/ccbreak/block when needed will get you killed which makes using stamina for sustain very undesireable imo.

Masel

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

GandTheImpaler wrote: »

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO wrote: »

I did not see any mention of pets negatively impacting mechanics in trials. There are a lot of trial boss fights where pets are not recommended.

This causes negative attitude of other players towards pet sorcerers and pushes them away from their preferred play-style.

Trial fights should be changes so that pets don't affect any of the mechanics. Please have that looked into as well.

We did touch base on those in the same section we talked about pets in pvp. The fact they take players buffs, are weird to control, etc. We talked about both ends of the game for those

In fact, the devs asked for a list of trials and mechanics where pets were undesirable to have a look at them.

Thank you I hope you mentioned especially vAS+2 as we see only nightblades there and form time to time a non-pet sorc. Also vAA last boss but I think as you are class reps you already knew that.

At some point I loved playing a pet sorc but I was forced to learn and play a nightblade due to those painful mechanics (not that much the fact that pets eat buffs). Im not saying that nightblade is bad (its a cool class) but I feel that some of us pet sorc players were sort of forced to move out of playing out favorite play-style. We sohuld not be forced to play a non-pet sorc or a nightblade because of mechanics. Pets should not be a factor in this.

I feel you, and many others do as well. This touches sorcs and wardens, and the list is publicly accessible to everyone on the warden discord, @stileanima posted it early on there.

Liofa

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO wrote: »

I did not see any mention of pets negatively impacting mechanics in trials. There are a lot of trial boss fights where pets are not recommended.

This causes negative attitude of other players towards pet sorcerers and pushes them away from their preferred play-style.

Trial fights should be changes so that pets don't affect any of the mechanics. Please have that looked into as well.

We gave this list to Devs during the meeting. @stileanima made this especially for Warden Bear but it is basically same thing for all pets including the ones that proc from item sets.

1. The Mage's "Chain Lighthing" (the Bear attracts this mechanic and can easily kill nearby teammates)
2. The Serpent's "World Shaper" (the Bear will die to this if it gets hit, and while you can control it so it moves from it, doing so is a massive DPS loss)
3. Llothis' "Defiling Blast" (if the Bear is hit by 2 or more ticks of this, it will die)
4. Llothis' ground AOE (if the Bear stands in this for any extended period, it will die)
5. Olms' "Storm the Heavens" (the Bear attracts this mechanic and, if mobile while doing so, can kill other teammates that it runs over)
6. Any boss mechanics that stun, knock back, etc., such as the Assembly General's stomp, the Hunter Killers tail swipes, the Pinnacle Factotum's shock AOE. The Bear will become stunned by these and other attacks, resulting in a DPS loss.

Anne_Firehawk

Kinda surprised with the feedback on all classes and agree with most of it, good job.

Osubaker33

I am very impressed. Great great job all around!!!!

Masel

Voxicity wrote: »

LOL sorc isn't mobile?

Must be playing a different game

Sorc is less mobile due to the prevalence of snares, roots and ccs in pvp and they have to use expensive purge to remove them. Streak often feels less useful than not using it.

This is not my opinion, this is what players told us. People need to learn that this list is a summary of the feedback we received, not our own personal opinion.

Grumble_and_Grunt

Bfish22090 wrote: »

solid list

I concur. The Wrobel counter points have made me chuckle though.

Osubaker33

The only topic I didn't see discussed was the viability of pure bow/bow builds.

One solution I think would be very easy to implement would simply be to allow hawk eye to stack to 10 instead of just 5

Joy_Division

Derra wrote: »

@Joy_Division

the issue with darkdeal is in my opinion that it can work within 15 to 20% of the classes theoretical top performance. However if you approach high end trials darkdeal is an ability that´s not going to see use (correct me if i´m wrong here).

The issue with the ability is:
It´s not a normal gcd ability - it has 1.2s casttime + another 0.2s animation free time for casttime skills
This means it will disrupt your rotation inevitably - lowering dps.
It does return a fair amount of resources - but still not enough compared to say siphoning attacks especially when considering that sorcerers magica drain/s is about 20% higher than nbs for most pve parses i´ve seen for summerset.
Dark deal restores less resources with higher casttime - and due to higher costs would have to be used more often. All of that while sorc dps is lower than NBs to begin with (meaning more darkdeal casts would increase dps disparity further).

Last but not least the resource to darkdeal is stamina which does not come easy for magica chars as mismanagement generally means death - contrary to stamina chars and magica where running oom generally just means that.
Not being able to dodge/ccbreak/block when needed will get you killed which makes using stamina for sustain very undesireable imo.

@Derra

OK, the very fact you have to caveat "correct me if I'm wrong" means you don't know for sure ... which is exactly what Wrobel's perspective was when he asked the question. you and others are being way too harsh.

Dark exchange is a good ability. It is for sustain. It would be irresponsible for a game designer to simply accept your or any other contention that this good ability that so many sorcerers use for PvP is all of sudden not any good for PVE - especially when people have used it to good effect in PvE: I've seen a good parse with Dark Deal sustaing a force pulse rotation after Morrowind nerfs (they drop frags) and dark exchange was one reason, among others, how for years sorcerers were considered easy mode for vet vMA farms was because they could slap this on their overload bar and trivialize sustain in a way a DK or templar could never do. You of all people should be sensitive to the perception that sorcerers are "easy mode" and now you want ZOS to not ask hard questions as to why sorcerers need further buff? That's ass backwards. It sounds like sorcerers don't want to slot Dark Deal rather than doing so would be determinant. The burden should be on sorcerers to prove why this skill we know is good and we know sorcs use in other setting is somehow not viable for this setting. That question Wrobel forwarded has to be asked and answered. It does.

In spite of all that, though our discussion we came to a tentative conclusion that you yourself agree with "it's good in theory, but not practical in that instance for reasons." And now you are disheartened? Why am I even doing this? Is this not precisely what the rep process is for? Should I just go home because the devs ask legitimate hard questions to compel me to explain my rationale beyond "buff please"?

Edit: See https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5209938/#Comment_5209938 for clarification

Raraaku

Thanks for everything Class Reps, y'all are doing a lot of work without getting paid for the love of the game and that's impressive. It's also nice to have some form of direct communication between the player base and the Dev team, it makes me feel like they are actively interested in their player base and their concerns. This is definitely a big step in the right direction.

Saw some great ideas/issues being talked about and others I felt weren't, but hey it's only one meeting and it's a vast amount of content to cover; and of course, you can't always get what you want.

I'm assuming we will continue using the class feedback threads to continue the discussion?

olivesforge

greenmachine wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*] Sustain in PvE is a pain point. Dark Deal is hard to fit on a sorcerer bar for to remain competitive DPS

• Wrobel questioned “Is lack of bar space because Sorcerer has too many good abilities?”

I've got a bad feeling about this

As a Templar, this seems familiar, and you should be terrified.

Overall, though it's a damn fine list, and hopefully will lead to some useful reworks. If we get a PvP focused QoL DLC in the next few quarters (and it would surprise me not to), there will be precedent for ZOS listening to player input as well. Many of these fixes are easier than the PvP ones, as they aren't engine-related/similarly fundamental problems.

Here's hoping the devs take some of this to heart. In any event, a good job done by all.

Liofa

Raraaku wrote: »

Thanks for everything Class Reps, y'all are doing a lot of work without getting paid for the love of the game and that's impressive. It's also nice to have some form of direct communication between the player base and the Dev team, it makes me feel like they are actively interested in their player base and their concerns. This is definitely a big step in the right direction.

Saw some great ideas/issues being talked about and others I felt weren't, but hey it's only one meeting and it's a vast amount of content to cover; and of course, you can't always get what you want.

I'm assuming we will continue using the class feedback threads to continue the discussion?

Thank you ^^ Yes, you can continue to use Class Feedback threads. Discord servers, in-game whispers/mails and feedback form are also your options and all are being read by Class Reps.

TheNightflame

fingers crossed that the right changes get made in the right ways!

Ectheliontnacil

Some good suggestions, not going to lie though, I'm a bit disappointed by the nightblade feedback.

I don't like the middle ground approach to cloak...I just do not see how that can be implemented. What are they talking about here? A 50% chance of cloaking?
I just have a bad feeling about this.

Why should the stun be removed from incap? Why not remove defile? The stun is vital for nightblades to land a burst combo, the defile however is a buff to an ability that doesn't need it. Especially with 2-3 nightblades on you, the defile has a very high uptime, here the ability becomes truly ridiculous.

More out of cloak defense options? Ugh what will they do to cloak???

I know cloak is annoying but it is the core defense mechanic of the class and I think it really defines the nb playstyle. Without the option to kite with shadow image and to become invisible, the nightblade class would lose much of its appeal to me. In 1v1 situations using cloak as a defense is widely considered cowardly and feels very unsatisfying. And if you're not using cloak, a lot of builds have arguably stronger defences.
If cloak is severely nerfed, magblades will need an additional shield and snare immunity so they can reliably use shadow image.

Cloak is overperforming on stamblades, but you should take a look at stamblades separately and not destroy the magicka class in the process of balancing stamina. Stamblades can pretty much pull of any playstyle on a top tier level so by all means nerf them, but don't nerf cloak!

Derra

Joy_Division wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

@Joy_Division

the issue with darkdeal is in my opinion that it can work within 15 to 20% of the classes theoretical top performance. However if you approach high end trials darkdeal is an ability that´s not going to see use (correct me if i´m wrong here).

The issue with the ability is:
It´s not a normal gcd ability - it has 1.2s casttime + another 0.2s animation free time for casttime skills
This means it will disrupt your rotation inevitably - lowering dps.
It does return a fair amount of resources - but still not enough compared to say siphoning attacks especially when considering that sorcerers magica drain/s is about 20% higher than nbs for most pve parses i´ve seen for summerset.
Dark deal restores less resources with higher casttime - and due to higher costs would have to be used more often. All of that while sorc dps is lower than NBs to begin with (meaning more darkdeal casts would increase dps disparity further).

Last but not least the resource to darkdeal is stamina which does not come easy for magica chars as mismanagement generally means death - contrary to stamina chars and magica where running oom generally just means that.
Not being able to dodge/ccbreak/block when needed will get you killed which makes using stamina for sustain very undesireable imo.

@Derra

OK, the very fact you have to caveat "correct me if I'm wrong" means you don't know for sure ... which is exactly what Wrobel's perspective was when he asked the question. you and others are being way too harsh.

Dark exchange is a good ability. It is for sustain. It would be irresponsible for a game designer to simply accept your or any other contention that this good ability that so many sorcerers use for PvP is all of sudden not any good for PVE - especially when people have used it to good effect in PvE: I've seen a good parse with Dark Deal sustaing a force pulse rotation after Morrowind nerfs (they drop frags) and dark exchange was one reason, among others, how for years sorcerers were considered easy mode for vet vMA farms was because they could slap this on their overload bar and trivialize sustain in a way a DK or templar could never do. You of all people should be sensitive to the perception that sorcerers are "easy mode" and now you want ZOS to not ask hard questions as to why sorcerers need further buff? That's ass backwards. It sounds like sorcerers don't want to slot Dark Deal rather than doing so would be determinant. The burden should be on sorcerers to prove why this skill we know is good and we know sorcs use in other setting is somehow not viable for this setting. That question Wrobel forwarded has to be asked and answered. It does.

In spite of all that, though our discussion we came to a tentative conclusion that you yourself agree with "it's good in theory, but not practical in that instance for reasons." And now you are disheartened? Why am I even doing this? Is this not precisely what the rep process is for? Should I just go home because the devs ask legitimate hard questions to compel me to explain my rationale beyond "buff please"?

Correct me if i´m wrong here is purely for the fact that i can´t know everything. I don´t know of anyone who utilized it and haven´t managed to do it myself for high end raiding.

Good isn´t good enough in this case. It needs to be top tier competetive - which is exactly the issue with it imo.

The conclusion didn´t come across for me the way you word it now - so maybe i misunderstood that from the initial post. If that´s what was the essence i´m not disheartened anymore because then i agree : P

BigBadVolk

It looks really promising, only thing which bugs my ears/nose is the mobility par where sorcs are mentioned, and I agree that for them snares are painfull but tbh snares are painfull to all mag classes except two hander magblades, but I rarely see them nowadays
Cant wait for similar posts, and I really hope it will have positive outcome

Argonianwerecroc212

More strictly cosmetic wereforms would be nice could just be a crown store activate also replace dire wolves with little Grey werewolves for pack leader

Anhedonie

Alright, I like where this is going.

Ankael07

Sorc has too many good skills to slot something else? CF nerf v.2 incoming

Voxicity wrote: »

LOL sorc isn't mobile?

Must be playing a different game

You probably play without any snares which is basically playing a different game at this point

JinMori

I wholeheartedly disagree with mag dk not wanted in melee, this class is strong, this is a a ltp problem, but most of the things suggested are good.
Let;'s hope we will see some good things.

Mojmir

Im baffled they needed "class experts" to tell them whats been said for at least a year or two. Remember to put covers on your TPC reports.

Aznox

Nice work by the reps on werewolf, i would just like to remind that heavy attack weaving is broken on werewolf since Summerset and that abilities used during heavy attack windup will cancel it instead of queuing.

Aedaryl

I'm playing pet sorc in PvP (openworld, duels and battleground).

I want to clarify why pets are not used and hated.

First, DON'T buff pets damage, or they will be OP. DON'T make them 1 bar related or they will be OP.

Pets are not used/hated because they are unreliable.

In PvP there is few important rules to follow for being able to 1vX/ smallscale with a sorc.

- Sorc open playstyle is divided into 2 parts :

1) Spreading & Kitting : Sorc will streak away and kite people until they are out of ennemy attack range (kitting with rocks/landscape) or until ennemies are in a reasonable number to kill them.

Problem : When you streak away, pets don't follow => Unreliable
When you kite into rocks/landscape, pets will not follow => Unreliable

2) Fighting : You are in a good position to kill ennemies and actually truely fight.

Problem : You can't take adventage of landscape cuz pet will be stuck and you will need 3s to recast your main damage skill and your main heal. => Unreliable.

---
In group : pets will die to any ennemy siege/destro or to any coordinated AoE ultimate (downbreaker/leap) : When you are the most pressured, your heal is behind a 1.5s cooldown. You can't heal you and when u survive coordinated ultimate, ur often in execute range, meaning you will be reverse slice/fury/jesus beam to dealth without being able to heal you (OR an ally).
---

For battleground :

Each time to need to jump from A (upstair) to B (downstair), pets will be stuck/away : count the number of time you jump in a BG and feel sad about pet sorc life.

You can't kite in battlegroung with pets => Unreliable

As well as you can't follow people kitting when you have pets => unreliable.

---

The 2 sorcs strengh aren't possible to use proprely for pet sorc :

You don't really benefit from range adventage since ur pets need to be close the ennemy, and you will not be able to chase someone or to fight someone taking adventage of landscape because pets will either be stuck or won't follow.

You don't really benefit from streak kitting "hit and go" playstyle cuz pets doesn't follow.

There is one simple and easy (and lazy) solution to all pets problem

When you ask to pets to come back with the command (Y+right click), pets should PORT to you.

It solve all the problems of "pets being stuck" "pets not following" "pets refuse to move" "where are my pets ?".

NB : The command NEED to be added on console, actually pvp pet sorc doesn't exist there because you can't controll the pet at all.

ak_pvp

I'm guessing the nox breath thing is in the wrong order. Good for PvE, not PvP.

Overall. Happy. Nbs, wardens temps and DK got the heavy pain points talked about. Sorc was a little general with pets/space issues mainly, would have focused on heavy reliance on shields which are highly overpowered in a 1v1, but get dramatically weaker outnumbered and in no CP. This should instead be mobility based defense, mines, streak, boundless, etc.

Kinda disappointed they didn't talk about the awful state of DK "defense." Aka, block for everyone (+ a situational 5% mitigation) and wings which is near to trash as possible and the worst out of the 5 class active defenses, (ward, cloak, shimmering, purge) and laughable especially compared to the extreme mitigation of cloak, or the super strong secondary effect of shimmering for a cheap cost. (not to mention how much ignores it, effects, certain abilities etc)

2s immunity won't save it.

Neoauspex

Strong work, thank you to everyone involved with this.

Gprime31

Time to start window shopping for a new MMO.
Can’t see this ending well

Quantum_V

ak_pvp wrote: »

I'm guessing the nox breath thing is in the wrong order. Good for PvE, not PvP.

Kinda disappointed they didn't talk about the awful state of DK "defense." Aka, block for everyone (+ a situational 5% mitigation) and wings which is near to trash as possible and the worst out of the 5 class active defenses, (ward, cloak, shimmering, purge) and laughable especially compared to the extreme mitigation of cloak, or the super strong secondary effect of shimmering for a cheap cost. (not to mention how much ignores it, effects, certain abilities etc)

2s immunity won't save it.

Hey dude! Appreciate your concerns.

We were instructed to focus on painpoints and not on their solutions during this meeting. We did talk about wings and its deficieny though. It’s difficult to summarize everything we talked about – hence this list.

We did have a relatively short amount of time to talk about determined classes – we tried restricting it to 10min per class – so we didn’t get the chance to cover everything. While blocking wasn’t directly addressed, changes to coag blood, wings, and passives could provide useful to help DKs stand their ground, so DKs defence wasn’t utterly overlooked.

With that said, we still keep in touch with ZoS frenquently and I’ll make sure to address as many issues as I can without compromising the argumentative value of these issues. If we had too many points to debate on our first meeting in a short amount of time, we wouldn’t be able to tackle the main issues with enough depth. Hopefully you understand where I’m coming from!

Your feedback is greatly appreciated, keep it up!

technohic

Gprime31 wrote: »

Time to start window shopping for a new MMO.
Can’t see this ending well

Why so negative? The devs apparently didnt know these pain points and now they do. You can chose to be disappointed in that or you can chose to be happy that they finally do and a dialogue has been started. Im sure we wont ever get exactly what we want and even some things we really don't; but we are in a better spot today than a week ago.