Combat Designers Need More Presence in the Forums

Buddy_Cactus

VaranisArano wrote: »

I suspect there's also a disconnect between players and the combat team.

Players seem to struggle with the idea that the combat team might implement things that players don't like.

The Great Sustain Nerfs of Morrowind were an example. Most players did not like it, the devs did it anyway. Why?

Because the game needed an overall DPS nerf or else ZOS was going to have to design harder content and the gulf between new players and top tier end game was going to get bigger. End game players found ZOS' hardest content to be easy peasy lemon squeezy and the, wondered why we got a huge DPS nerf.

We're in the same boat now. ZOS recently buffed light attack DPS. We knew we were due for a DPS nerf soon. ZOS just chose to take aim at MA and LA survivability by taking out passive dodge and damage shields.

The Devs on the combat team have different priorities than players. They have to consider how current DPS impacts furture game content and they do make changes to nerf players if the power creep gets too high.

Light attack damage needs to be nerfed and heavy attack damage buffed, like what they did with overload for example.

Rukia541

How hard is it to nerf shields without adding a cast time? Dumbest move possible, in an action combat MMO lmao... makes no sense.

DeadlyRecluse

I don't think people who work on the technical side of game development should spend much, if any, time reading the forums. It's literally not their job.

Universe

The Devs are "on the forum" but they are mostly "lurking in the shadows" and read feedback without replying.
A prime example is @ZOS_Wrobel (according to his profile he did login at this hour).

red_emu

It's a pretty simple change they want:

Light Armor / Medium Armor = PvE only

Heavy Armor = PvP only.

Class diversity = 0

Turelus

DeadlyRecluse wrote: »

I don't think people who work on the technical side of game development should spend much, if any, time reading the forums. It's literally not their job.

Technical maybe not, but design teams yes. At least the design leads should be keeping an eye on things, which as someone stated above they do, they just don't actively reply much.

It's why I still stand by blogs are a nice way to get information from devs because they can say what they want and read feedback but it doesn't have to be a back and forth where more replies are expected.

Jeremy

aeowulf wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

I suspect there's also a disconnect between players and the combat team.

Players seem to struggle with the idea that the combat team might implement things that players don't like.

The Great Sustain Nerfs of Morrowind were an example. Most players did not like it, the devs did it anyway. Why?

Because the game needed an overall DPS nerf or else ZOS was going to have to design harder content and the gulf between new players and top tier end game was going to get bigger. End game players found ZOS' hardest content to be easy peasy lemon squeezy and the, wondered why we got a huge DPS nerf.

We're in the same boat now. ZOS recently buffed light attack DPS. We knew we were due for a DPS nerf soon. ZOS just chose to take aim at MA and LA survivability by taking out passive dodge and damage shields.

The Devs on the combat team have different priorities than players. They have to consider how current DPS impacts furture game content and they do make changes to nerf players if the power creep gets too high.

Might sound like a silly question, but if the game needed a DPS nerf, why didn't they nerf DPS?

Because that makes too much sense.

Mayrael

Turelus wrote: »

We've been pushing for better forums presence since launch but it's sadly never happened.

We've had some moments when it's perked up, Wheeler has been good in the past with a number of PvP threads. I would wonder though how things would go if Wrobel or a member of his team did come on the forums though, look how much abuse people already get and they're not the people who proposed the changes.

We have the class reps program now which is a better connection, but I think if we ever want the dream of full developer/community interaction ZOS needs to give developers the means to go say what they need and we as a community need to learn to be critical without toxicity.

This can be achieved only when you gather people that play more or less every class in the game or the ones that had shown us some unbiased attitude. Only people who see wide spectrum of balance are able to be impartial. I do respect experienced players but they have shown us many times that being very good doesn't mean being fair, many times they simply wanted more power for them selves...

But yeah would be nice if combat team would show more interest in what community wants, let them do the talking on twitch. Let them defend changes they make during a discussion with us. We prepare a set of questions for them, they just read them and explain their reasoning behind the changes.