[Class Reps] Meeting Notes - September 25

Dracane

40% of max health is an even greater nerf than a cast time. With a casttime, at least shields keep their potency. But 40% of your health ? That's 6k in pve and I am not sure if the amount of shield is even halfed in pvp.

It's a disaster, you really destroyed ESO for so many.

Vahrokh

ccmedaddy wrote: »

coplannb16_ESO wrote: »

Harness spam is the only thing that keeps me alive in vMA to kill the CGs in round 9. I dont think I can live thru a flamebreath now in light armor without block now.

You can simply walk around it and avoid the flame damage FYI. That's how I survive it on stam.

In the meanwhile of your walking around, the boss is spamming skulls at you. You know your shields are worth nothing so you dodge... and all you hear is the familiar "click click" of no stamina.

Ress pending.

Gnozo

I think shields are in need to really be balanced seperately from pve/pvp.

I personally would suggest to reduce overall shield size by 50% but remove the reduction from battlespirit. This would be the easiest and, in my opinion, balanced option.

Shields in pve are 50% weaker and this pve nerf wouldnt effeckt pvp. PvP shields also take a hit cause they have Resistences now and can recieve a critical strike. This is more then enough for a nerf.

Dagoth_Rac

aeowulf wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Hey @ZOS_Wrobel - Tell me how shields that are 40% of max health will help when your content has damage that looks like this?


This, BTW, is Veteran Blackrose Prison on the PTS. The damage in this death recap came from mobs--not bosses. And these hits are standard attacks, not special abilities or mechanics. Three hits, each over 8K, in the span of 1.1s. Are you still going to claim that shields are OP in PvE?

Surely this would indicate an issue where new content is not being designed around how ZoS want us to play? (Choosing between damage or survivability)

I am reminded of all the resource-draining mechanics in Vet Halls of Fabrication. Designed to combat a high sustain meta ... that was nerfed into the ground as part of the Morrowind Chapter that vHOF was part of. Looks like vBRP is designed around a high survivability meta ... that is about to be nerfed into the ground as part of the DLC that vBRP will be part of. It is like the Dungeon Design Team are always fighting the last war...

Hymzir

So they caved in on the cast time after all and went with a different nerf.

Honestly though, not sure which is the bigger nerf, and which will have a wider impact.

I was okay with the cast time nerf, but as I stated earlier, didn't think it was the best option. Not sure if, at the end of the day, this one is any better though.

The biggest benefit of this approach is, that people will react with less furore to this way of doing things, since it will let people keep their shield spamming play style. However, tying shield strength to max health will seriously weaken them on most builds. Which is fine by me, I stack more health on my sorcs than is usual anyway.

The key issue with shields was, that you could just stack max magicka and nothing else. It gave you defense and offense, and in sorcs case, mobility as well. Now you need to stack some health too, or go heavy armor and rely on resistances to buff your shields.

So, am fine with this move too.

But even so... Can't help but feel that this is even more of a bandaid solution to the problem, and makes me ask, why tie it to max magicka with a health based cap? Why not tie shield strength directly to max Health, as has been suggested for years by the community? Wouldn't that be a more elegant and simpler solution?

Siohwenoeht

Vahrokh wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

ruikkarikun wrote: »

And about 40% HP shield cap, maybe you can increase it a little bit too...

5% more than what Templars currently get in PvP and 10% more in pve lol

In no game Templars are a shield based class. Mages are.

I'm sorry, but my Templar dd use harness all the time... And in eso, the game we're commenting on, any mag class has access to shields or really any class at all with the psijic skill line.

Emma_Overload

Hymzir wrote: »

So they caved in on the cast time after all and went with a different nerf.

Honestly though, not sure which is the bigger nerf, and which will have a wider impact.

I was okay with the cast time nerf, but as I stated earlier, didn't think it was the best option. Not sure if, at the end of the day, this one is any better though.

The biggest benefit of this approach is, that people will react with less furore to this way of doing things, since it will let people keep their shield spamming play style. However, tying shield strength to max health will seriously weaken them on most builds. Which is fine by me, I stack more health on my sorcs than is usual anyway.

The key issue with shields was, that you could just stack max magicka and nothing else. It gave you defense and offense, and in sorcs case, mobility as well. Now you need to stack some health too, or go heavy armor and rely on resistances to buff your shields.

So, am fine with this move too.

But even so... Can't help but feel that this is even more of a bandaid solution to the problem, and makes me ask, why tie it to max magicka with a health based cap? Why not tie shield strength directly to max Health, as has been suggested for years by the community? Wouldn't that be a more elegant and simpler solution?

Yeah, people are just going to min-max their Magicka until their Ward is exactly 40% of their Health anyway, so why not just fix the value at 40% of Health to begin with?

MLGProPlayer

In terms of damage output, at least when it comes to a target dummy parse, we did acknowledge the classes are relatively close to each other

Magden is parsing like 15% behind all the other magicka classes on the PTS...

Carbonised

Forward Momentum is so completely overtuned that it's hillarious it has gone under the radar so long.
33 seconds of a major buff, AND healing ticks over time, AND instant snare and root removal on casting AND complete snare and root immunity for 8 seconds. What in the acfual F?
It's long overdue to reign in this completely overperforming buff that enables every heavy armor stam user to be completely impervious to all kinds of CC that doesn't involve a direct stun. Deal with it.

Removing casting time from shields was evident, and I'm glad it happened. 40% health cap seems on the very low side. If you want a cap, it should at least be 60-70% or so, to make shields viable. Personally I'd make a total shield cap at maybe 70-80% health, for ALL your shields, meaning that casting 1 shield is still viable and not overpowered, but stacking 2 or more shields will provide little benefit, and bring you to the cap quickly. It's not using 1 shield that's an issue, it's stacing harness & hardened, or other shields as well. Don't over nerf single shields, deal with shield stacking instead.

And this just shows once again that unless you implement SOFT CAPS again, you'll always be dealing with a balancing nightmare. Solution to stacking shields? Soft caps. Solution to stacking weapon damage for stam? Soft caps. Solution to stacking movement and mobility in pvp? Soft caps. You even acknowledged this when you implemented soft caps in the CP system to prevent too much power creep and min/maxing. Just face the facts, balancing the game with soft caps to stat stacking is a million times easier than trying to balance a game with no caps.
This recent "cap on shield strength" just shows evidently that caps are needed to reign in stat stacking.
Oh, and if this rather stupid 40% limit idea does go live, you need to completely rework Dampen Magic and Hardened Ward. No one's going to choose morphs that do absolutely nothing since you're already at a shield cap.

Waseem

for the people unhappy about shield having 40% of players HP.
ZOS has clearly stated that if you want a glass cannon build, you must have to take the bad that comes with it.
Doing hard content like a trial with 11k HP passively and relying on food and CP to get to 17k HP has to be punishable, which I strongly agree upon, be it magicka or stamina based class.

my recommendation is you put some points into HP to get to 20-22K marks,
If Elder Scrolls Online was designed in a matter that you should not put any points in Health, then there would be no possibility to add any points into the Health of the character in the first place.

Reminder: ZOS has the capability of making each character do 200K DPS and having 50K HP passively, but nobody will enjoy the game by then, absolute maximization of Damage output has to be punishable regardless of your thoughts.

ESO's PVE content is more than doable even if you do 70% of your current DPS, so balancing your character on doing 85% of current glass cannon DPS in order to reserve survivability is the way to go as it seems .

Tip for all DDs below "successful superstar" title, having 100k DPS and dying in extremely worst than having 70K DPS and surviving the whole fight by far for these points:
1) a dead DD does 0 DPS -
2) resurrecting a dead DD requires someone else to stop outputting damage aswell
3) not all resurrecting attempts go through, some people even die due to the fact of ignoring mechanics and focusing on the resurrection of a team-mate
4) I see new content being more punishing for dying in a trial - raid leaders have to take note if they are leading new players and advancing, its quite clear how dying is punishable for the whole team overall, advising 3,000 more points in HP does not make you a noob leader who advises teammates of less DPS, it makes you a leader who advises finishing the content succesfully.
5) not a single boss fight in the game is as smooth as DPSing a dummy (its surprising that many players do not realize that yet)

Artemiisia

Juhasow wrote: »

I would preffer Air Overload over Air Atronach on stamsorc.

both would be great, since most people dont use the other morph of the two

Vahrokh

Ok, dear ZOS.

Since I have completed most of the hm trials content since 2014, including speed runs I believe I can give you some hints with a bit of authority.

- Progression guild leaders don't give a damn about your "trade DPS for survivability" ideas. They ask for 40k DPS minimum to join their guild today, they'll ask for 40k DPS minimum after Update 20.

- Your gaming engine does not manage to register all the incoming damage in real time and even when it does, it does not give an usable feedback. A zero-warning "red circle" appears, taking 8k health in 1 second, but in the mean time 3 random adds (at the opposite side of the room where tank is) have just hit you for 6k damage each. You have just roll-dodged out of the red circle, now you are a sitting duck with no stamina to the incoming 6k x 3damage.
The "damage recaps" posted in this thread are just a little taste of how much concentrated damage we get.

This - and not shields or vigor - are the problem for healers. As of now, an healer is just better to spam HoTs like a robot because there's no way an human can skillfully pick people at low health, when they die in 2 seconds tops.

Shields were the bandaid to your content broken damage overtuning.

Stamina players had no bandaid, that's why you can make them deal 3 times more damage than today, and even then the trial leaders SHALL only take "40k DPS minimum, that does not die".

You have removed the bandaid but your overtuned content is still there.

The result? Classes who don't need shields to survive will become prevalent, some stamina shall still be banned from trials, healers SHALL still be blamed because people die.

Now healers will feel even more useless, because there's nothing to do when DPS people die faster than you can react.

Looking forward to my awesome performance if I'll need to use Plague Doctor and Iceheart sets for vAS + 2 and vCR + 3!

At the same time, dear ZOS, please explain me why you create zero health sets like Ilambris, Zaan (considered best in slot) - and basically 80% of light armor sets, if you wanted us to choose between DPS and survivability.

Hey, it's OK you have done a 180° turn on your strategies: from content that needs never-ending huge DPS + survivability to a more conservative gameplay.

But you cannot take the shortcut on us. You have to tone and tune down your content and create balanced DPS sets if you want us to play your new way.

TiZzA93

@MLGProPlayer EXACTLY and wardens HIGHEST parse is lower by 10-15k and thats using bear on static dummy WHICH no-one will use in trials anyway

Jaimeh

If they will still go through the Overload third bar change then it's only logical to adress the need to double bar skills. Overload was unique to sorcs because the need to double bar class skills is also unique. If ther remove it, they are essentially gutting sorcs without giving them something to compensate for the double bar requirement still being present.

Also, did you question this statement in the meeting: ' The gist of ZOS’s explanation to us what that they wanted to even the survivability between Stamina and Magicka'? If ZOS wants to even these two specs in terms of survival, then they should even them in terms of damage too. The pay-off from playing stamina in meele range was doing more damage, while a magicka playstyle was safer but did less damage as a result. If they change this, then survivability is not the onlt factor they should consider, but overall damage as well.

Krymzonbladez

Waseem wrote: »

for the people unhappy about shield having 40% of players HP.
ZOS has clearly stated that if you want a glass cannon build, you must have to take the bad that comes with it.
Doing hard content like a trial with 11k HP passively and relying on food and CP to get to 17k HP has to be punishable, which I strongly agree upon, be it magicka or stamina based class.

It's not wanting a glass cannon building, it's Needing one to get through their content from the get go, and not to ignore mechanics but to actually follow mechanics you need a certain amount of dps. You also need to eb able to survive long enough to actually dps.

fierackas

Forget the shields, save the Bear

Namarkas

Nightblade tanking was centered on Tavas and that is going away. In general, it’s probably a good thing not to have classes depend on a single set of gear, but update 20 is not offering an attractive alternative for nightblades. ZOS indicated they are aware NB tanking sustain is dependent on light attacking (not easy) and avoiding certain hits (now not possible).

Ok, so I haven't played nb tank in ages, but can please somebody explain in how nb sustain is dependant on dodging? Because if it only "sustains" you by avoiding the need to block, well that is not really sustain to begin with, no?

The bolded part especially baffles me. Imho a 25% AOE damage reduction is far more useful than an uncontrolable 15% rng dodge chance. Sure the dodge might have it's place in some scenario, but 25% AOE seems just so much more consistent overall.

Arciris

Thank you so much Class Reps, excellent work.
Thank you so much ZOS for being willing to listen to your player base concerns.

Now about Player Speed

Please, please make any adjustment needed via Battle Spirit.

PvE wise, Swift has brought a lot of fresh air to activities like:

- gathering surveys or nodes,
- leveling guild skill lines (both mage and psijiic guild),
- sky shard hunting on alts,
- playing the "fetch me this" kind of quests
- doing writs in towns,
- treasure map hunting
- removed the need to be a vampire (or switching gear constantly) for DB and Thieves guilds quests and heists.
- moving around your house (where you cannot mount) when you're decorating it

Please note that a lot of players already invested at least 150 Transmute stones in "Swifting " their Jewelry.
Transmute stones are not exactly the easiest thing to come by for a casual PvE player, so it is in fact a big investment.

A speed cap via Battle Spirit will solve all PvP issues with speed without hindering your PvE players.

I can't even fathom myself going back to snail speed, it would be like loosing my craftbag or my assistants.
Swift is that big of a QoL improvement, especially when, like me, most of your playtime s dedicated to the above activities

edit for typos

Bigevilpeter

Stamina DDs have simillar dps on dummies, in real situations they have to move away for many mechanics killing their dps while magicka characters can resume dps normally. Stamina characters need to have enough defence to whithstand high damage and stay in melee range during tough mechanics

RaddlemanNumber7

I'd just like to say a big thank you to the Reps for a job very well done. Sincerely.

Swen_von_Walhallion

Minno wrote: »

ruikkarikun wrote: »

And about 40% HP shield cap, maybe you can increase it a little bit too...

5% more than what Templars currently get in PvP and 10% more in pve lol

Well in PvE its 34/36% of max healt with one mob around you, and you get 4/6% of shild for each mob in range then its not problem get 50%+ of max HP but only helpfull for tanks and near no1 play tankplar ue lack of CC and sustain

coplannb16_ESO

ccmedaddy wrote: »

coplannb16_ESO wrote: »

Harness spam is the only thing that keeps me alive in vMA to kill the CGs in round 9. I dont think I can live thru a flamebreath now in light armor without block now.

You can simply walk around it and avoid the flame damage FYI. That's how I survive it on stam.

nope, doesnt work for me and never did. might be some lag involved on mine or your part, but its not reliable, and as a Vamp that fire hurts...

coplannb16_ESO

LadyLethalla wrote: »

ccmedaddy wrote: »

You can simply walk around it and avoid the flame damage FYI. That's how I survive it on stam.

Uhhh... I always kite Crem Guards and even if my mag toon isn't IN his conal I'm still taking fire damage until the blasted thing dies.

kiting does not work on DK, we are a melee class

Alpheu5

Will the costs of shields go down to account for the lowered potency? My Empowered Ward in PvE is already 100%+ of my health without even trying. And with that, will Hardened Ward get a rework considering the buff to it will make it entirely useless?

Xsorus

Here is my guess on what will happen with the changes

1. They will nerf things that have a direct effect on making Nightblades more overpowered then they already are in PvP

2. They will somehow nerf things that end up making Ball Groups even more overpowered compared to everyone else.

Vahrokh

Shall Witchmother Potent Brew and Citrus Fillet be reworked for this new gameplay?

I mean, those foods were the only way for resource starved classes like sorcs to actually play a non pet build.

They have to play without pets because you, ZOS, never made pets good enough for end game (they die, they cause wipes etc. etc.).

Those players already had to sacrifice survivability for barely acceptable regen.

They have to use those foods because you, ZOS, nerfed their regen so much they can't even do a 6M dummy parse.

Now they have to double sacrifice survivability for barely acceptable regen.

hakan

Good change.

but i dont understand why players expect to survive just with shields against more than one enemy player? so you just stack shields and survive against multiple enemies with ease and think it is normal? if you are not fully defensive, you shouldnt be able to do that.

also they said in pts notes, shields will be crittable right? did they revert it?

Amdar_Godkiller

So medium armor gets massively nerfed and you don't even discuss the fact that the medium armor skill is now COMPLETELY USELESS!?

GIVE SHIELDS A 2 SECOND INTERRUPTIBLE CAST TIME OR BUFF SHUFFLE!!! THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!!

BigBadVolk

MAKE FIRE STAVES AND ICE STAVES HEAVIES TO MAGICKA FLAME/FROST THROWERS

Universe

It is great that ZOS has decided to revert the damage shields cast time, but implementing a damage shields cap of 40% of the max health is essentially making the damage shields too weak.
Magicka Sorcerers and other magicka classes/builds who use 5 pieces Light armor can't have high health without sacrificing a lot of damage.
The average sorcerer in PVP has 21K-22K health, sometimes a bit more.
So 22K health is 8.8K damage shield cap ? 4.4K damage shield in PVP ?(battle spirit) ?
Is this a joke ?

This change is very bad and I do hope that you could find a better way to make it more balanced.
A possible way to make it more balanced is reducing each damage shield strength by 10%-15%.
10%-15% reduction to each damage shield's strength may suffice.
There isn't any serious issue with the current damage shields on live and there is no reason to implement a huge damage shields nerf.

I don't understand why you only deal with the damage shields while the Nightblades left untouched for ages...
The Nightblade is the top dps in both PVP and PVE with infinite sustain and godly survivability.
Please reduce the overall sustain and/or damage of the Nightblades.
Also, there is a need to adjust the Nightblade's cloak, they spam cloak far too often without receiving any penalty.
I have suggested countless times, but you choose to ignore this:
Cloak should receive the Streak and dodge roll treatment, casting again within 4 seconds should increase it's cost significantly.
I suggest the following:
Current(example):
Shadowy Disguise: Cost: [4050 / 3960 / 3870 / 3780] Magicka.
Cloak yourself in shadow to become invisible for 2.5 seconds. Your next direct damage attack used within 3 seconds will always be a Critical Strike.

New(example):
Shadowy Disguise: Cost: [4050 / 3960 / 3870 / 3780] Magicka.
Cloak yourself in shadow to become invisible for 2.5 seconds. Your next direct damage attack used within 3 seconds will always be a Critical Strike.
Casting again within 4 seconds costs 50% more Magicka.

*The 50% cost increase can be changed to 30%-40% if you believe 50% is too much of a penalty.
But it should remain significant so cloak won't be spammed too much.