How do patch notes make you feel about upcoming updates?

Valykc

This is how I look at them. I get excited hoping for fun interesting things to be added or improved. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn’t. People referring to this as ”Nerfmire”, which I think is a bit of exaggerating. Yes, there were a lot of nerfs, speed being the most obvious. I can agree with those changes, possibly even the new shield changes. But there’s things that need to be addressed each patch that never happen.

First and foremost, performance. Especially in Cyrodiil. I don’t know how much we have to beg to get them to do something about this but it’s really a thorn in the side of a great gameplay experience.

Second, ball groups. Most of the nerfs they implement only strengthen the use of ball groups which hurt performance. Are they effective sure, but they are effective because they don’t really give any tools to properly deal with them that could potentially break up that meta. Sets like vicious death were a great addition but we could use more. Ones that focus on damage per enemies in “X” radius. Also dynamic ult gen, this would be such as awesome game mechanic. It was awesome in the past, it just needs to find a good balance between power to a small group or solo player and TOO much power to a small group or solo player. However, I still feel like if you’re outnumbered in PvP ZOS thinks you shouldn’t be able to survive, even if you are skilled. I understand their logic and like I said, it’s hard to give power to an individual without giving them too much that will find a way to be abused by solo players or ball groups alike.

Third, unused skill morphs and skill lines such as undaunted. There a multiple skills in undaunted that are hardly used and cool use some fun unique elements brought to them to make them useful. The alternative morph to steel tornado, I don’t think I see anyone ever use this, make it cool, give it something that makes it worth slotting over the increased range of steel tornado. Then you have to choose between range and something else. Major endurance is simply not enough to make it worth while, in my opinion. Skills like ring of preservation (or whatever it’s called in the fighters guild skill line) it’s a great concept but the cost seems a little too high for sacrificing a slot on your bar for it. I could really see this being useful for Tanks but that Stam is needed for blocking and would be a huge resource drop to try to keep this up. There’s quite a few that could be adjusted to give interesting choices to the player, will there still be a meta of morph choices? Probably but it would still be a good idea to look at some of these skills and their status in the current state of the game.

Blanket nerfs, this needs to stop. The resource changes in Morrowind were enough to start a riot in the community. They completely cutted sustain, which yes, needed adjustment, but they should have started small and worked their way up. Things like CP were warrant for change but changes to some of the class sustain was very impactful and caused a number of players to quit. Yes, we adapted over time but ZOS also had to implement changes later on to improve sustain after Morrowind. Now this patch we have multiple speed nerfs, which I said before needed adjusting, but does a blanket nerf to major expedition the best choice. In my opinion they should have started with swift, speed pots, and possibly lowered the speed cap, then test it. Maybe I’m wrong though. They also need to include the class reps in on their intended future changes because as far as I heard, they didn’t know most of these changes were coming. I know ZOS has a hard time balancing, I’ll give them some credit. Especially when the forums are littered with nerf this, buff that threads hourly. I’m sure it makes it very hard to keep up sometimes.

Lastly, champion points. I like the idea of this. It’s very interesting and ties into lore. Yet, it leaves much to be desired. They implemented that to give players a sense of progression after reaching level cap. Yes, it does give us the sense of power gain but the system is flawed. If you have to implement no-cap campaigns and bgs then that should be an eye opener that there could be a potential issue. Veteran PvP players seem to prefer non-cp over cp while PvE players need CP to have enough sustain, survivability, and damage to handle some of the HM content implemented. What I would prefer is bring back vet ranks but give them different skill points when you level up. These points could be used to modify certain aspects of your character to make you more powerful, create build diversity, and make the player have something to look forward to while progressing past cap. What I’m referring to is a system similar to BDO where you can add modifiers to skills or choose to spend them in attributes of your character. For example, let’s say you have a skill point, you might want to put more into damage on your PvE toon so you might modify Poison Injection to do X% more damage to boss monsters, or if you PvP you might choose to modify dizzying swing to speed up the attack animation by X%, if your a tank you might choose to spend a point into Magicka recovery to help your options, this might give you like 150 extra Magicka recovery. If you are a crafter you might choose to modify a skill like boundless storm to reduce the cost of sprint by X%. Obviously, this is an extremely rough explanation of what I’m talking about but I enjoyed that aspect of BDO. Will this have the ability to make certain builds overpowered, yeah maybe, which is why they shouldn’t overload you with these points like they do with CP. They should be awarded every few levels, let’s say 5 for sake of the argument. Then maybe only allow a certain amount of damage modifiers, attribute modifiers, defensive modifiers, and sustain modifiers allowed per build. This would be to prevent people from putting all points into pure spell damage or make all their skills hit like trucks. You have to choose between properly placing these modifiers so if you have (let’s say the damage modifiers on skills is capped at 3) a modifier on poison inject to increase damage on bosses, modifier on rending slashes to increase the duration of the dot by 2 seconds, and a modifier on surprise attack that adds x% extra damage on crits, then if you want to modify endless hail to boost Duration or radius or whatever the multiple options would be, then you’d have to drop the modifier off one of the other three skills. These modifiers should also not provide ANY minor or major buffs at all. Instead they should do things like mentioned above, boost durations, boost single target damage to bosses, shorten cast time, add damage to crits, and they should all be done in very small percentages or flat values so they only increase power slightly rather than significantly.

Sorry for the wall of text, that’s just my two cents.

-False

katorga

Mist wins in every situation where mobility is necessary. Each and every single one.

Truth. The irony is that I'll probably use MORE shields on my stam characters. I can only imagine the the upcoming wails about op heavy armor, high damage bleed builds stacking instant cast, proc'd, uncapped shields with 30-50% damage mitigation and hots.

Zer0oo

Leave the shield, speed, nb and dk wip changes on the pts and just let the rest go live. Those changes should really be reworked and make a otherwise good patch trash.

• The shield changes feel like a absolute lazy change that will create way more problems than it can possible solve.
• The speed changes are way over the top. Yes it needs some nerf and or adjustments but the way it is done right now is just a absolute nuke to speed.
• DO NOT NERF a class just because it is the only one left to feel fun and rewarding to play. It is just lazy solution that this class was the fotm in the past patches. Bring other classes on the lvl of this class instead of nerfing it. The class has good sustain if you are good on light attack weaving(siphon) and even rewards you more by big bonus damage(Assassin will) and is mobile. Also the off-healing while doing damage was the nb trademark. Now mag templer will have the highest off healing, self-healing and possible the highest damage of all mag classes.
• I was laughing so much after reading that they change the proc of both mag dk and nb. They should also cost something since buffing sorc sustain is not an option.

Numerikuu

Ever since Morrowind? At first it was utter disbelief. Now? Despair. Dread. Any slither of hype I once had for Murkmire and beyond is long gone. My friends are leaving left and right. Some haven't returned since Morrowind. Those that hung on out of hope have now given up.

Mostly, I just feel sad. Sad for the writers, the concept artists and designers, the musicians and voice actors. All their hard work completely overshadowed by such utterly awful, dreadful changes to the games combat and mechanics.

Crixus8000

Making me very bored of the game, they are just making it worse imo from a pvp perspective.

The speed changes (mainly speed pot nerf) make 1vx/solo play near impossible. You can't survive against multiple players while moving like a snail, stand your ground isn't possible.

People complain about the heavy meta yet speed nerfs mean most stam builds won't be outrunning anything so they will probably switch to heavy to be able to survive longer and they nerfed magicka to force them into heavy too. And heavy isn't even the issue, it's just the problems with medium and light, buff them, stop nerfing.

Also they add another xv1 set, because sloads was great right ? And why not completely negate someones entire healing while they slowly try to walk away from a ball group because of the speed nerfs.

But even after all these nerfs and things I hate I just know more nerfs are to come...

_Ahala_

Zos went overboard with the mobility nerfs... so the correct word is dred not hype

Mannix1958

Tasear wrote: »

Do you get hyped?

I always like new content. I like the idea of another slot. When I go to the PTS I am mostly testing the changes as I have always enjoyed the zones, dungeons, quests, story lines...etc

Combat changes have me pondering whether to keep subbing or not. I have been here since release and love the game. I even defended the changes with Morrowind as needed and mostly balanced across the classes. There is good and bad in the mix. I keep going to the PTS and trying the changes. Templars get addressed in a mostly favorable fashion. Many other classes have a blend of good & bad. I understand a need to address the speed issue just not sure I like the current fix. Many of the changes to the Sorc class are playable but not enjoyable in my opinion. I have 2 that will need to be really revamped in play style. Weak shields, loss of the 3rd bar, pets no longer holding aggro, redesign of overload...It feels not only less than it was but seems to be stripped of reasons to play the class. I have 15 toons so there are plenty of reasons to still play but there are also a growing number of reasons why not to. So I'm still judging how I feel about the release but my anticipation which is normally peaking is instead tinged with a hint of dread.

Ashtaris

Tasear wrote: »

What would you think if combat changes didn't come together with new content but instead say a different time?

It would probably be best for the game overall. They could just focus on the fun new content and QOL changes for the quarterly DLC downloads, and then come out with the combat updates in between those. Also, I would ask that they post what kind of changes they are proposing before they put them on the PTS so the community has some time to respond.

method__01

waiting till November 14

Camb0Sl1ce

Almost afraid to read them, i really dont even look forward to the content anymore.

OtarTheMad

I will try to take the changes in stride honestly. None of these changes will kill the game, it just seems like it will. Warden changes were both good and bad, not giving something frost damage after the Arctic Blast change was bad. Sorc changes need to be tested (for me) to judge how I feel. Shield changes are interesting, so are pets. Overload change is unpopular but not a killer. Speed changes were foreseen but not the path I thought they'd go. I thought they'd change what the jewelry trait Swift meant and keep the other stuff unchanged.

What usually kills a patch or update for me is the community sadly. Players are catering to the meta too much, insta-kicking players from groups before they even do the dungeons because they weren't meta class or meta race or build. I always look at new changes/patches the same way and that's "If I just picked up this game and this patch was my first time playing it, how would I feel about the builds/races/classes". Usually I conclude I would feel just fine. We have a massive amount of sets and build combos in the game, most of which can easily pull 18k-30k or higher dps or heal a group and keep them from dying or tank bosses and dungeons and stay alive but sometimes if you don't run the right race or build or class then you'll get insta-kicked from groups despite how good you are. It happens too often and it's sad.

WrathOfInnos

I really don’t like updates where it feels like more was taken away than given. Murkmire is looking like it’s headed this direction, but we’ll have to wait and see over the next few weeks of PTS.

From a Magicka DPS perspective the shield changes hurt. The magblade off-healing removal hurts. The Warden bear nerf is just unnecessary. Removing Minor Toughness is also an annoying change. The removal of healing from healing ward is just salt in the wound.

For gear, Spell Strategist looks promising, although situational. The Magicka version of Bone Pirate will be ok, but requires using Witchmother’s since bistat food and Clickwork Citrus won’t activate it, so probably a net loss. Everything else is pretty lackluster. None of the Blackrose weapons are worth using, which takes a lot of the fun out of new content. A lot of us were hoping to see stat bonuses added back to other arena weapons, but there has been no word of this.

The expected sustain improvements are mostly absent, with Nightblade and DK sustain actually getting worse. Elemental weapon also got a cost increase. Only Warden saw any real sustain buffs, and they were knocked down in other ways. Mobility was also reduced globally, and moving slower does not increase my enjoyment.

I can see why this DLC is being given away for free, because it’s the first one in a long time I don’t think I would spend money on. And I don’t mean that as bashing the design, the zone looks great, I’m sure the storyline is good, but it just doesn’t offer any character progression for me personally.

MehrunesFlagon

Cinbri wrote: »

Best update since Morrowind (if bg q will be actually working for high mmr chars).
And legions of forum warriors addicted to their broken stuff crying that it end of the world won't change it.

wtf are you smoking?morrowind was terrible.

NyassaV

Gill was nice enough to take the time to explain things with numbers and it makes sense but sadly that doesn't change the fact that a lot of what was fun is being changed.

Vahrokh

StamWhipCultist wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

Do you get hyped?

I exclusively play 5 magsorcs.

Do I need to explain more?

but why, lol

One for soloing outdoor, one for trials with pets, one for trials without pets, one for PvP, one was meant to be healer.

Guess what, in one single sweep they managed to render all of them useless, including the healer!

Vahrokh

Daus wrote: »

The game is going in the right direction.

Omnia

Let's be real - the actual gameplay, (buffs/nerfs etc) doesn't REALLY matter to ZoS.
The hodge-podge 'lets fix what's not broken' and 'ignore the actual broken things' is proof enough.

This game has devolved into Fashion Scrolls Online. The motif and armor bloat are proof of that. If the sets are even any good, is another topic all together.

The mounts, fashion/cosmetics and housing are all anyone can really put time (or money) into anymore and maybe an occasional storyline. At least you can still make that Sorc look pretty.

Patch Notes? Who even cares anymore....

RaddlemanNumber7

I'm looking forward to exploring Murkmire, but once I've got the 11 vouchers I still need to get the Gladiator costume I plan to quit playing Cyrodiil. Changes with Wolfhunter made things bad enough, but these changes are going to make it worse. I don't think it will be fun for me to play AvAvA anymore.

I spend most of my time in Cyrodiil playing a stealthy NB bowman. It's a glass cannon build, it has to be to have any noticeable effect on all the tanky builds there are around. My only real defence is stealth. The problem is that stealth users have lost almost all their counter play against other stealth users. Most means of detection now break the user out of stealth. Only detection pots are safe to use, but they only have a short up time and prevent the use of other potions. Making effective ranged bow attacks is a relatively slow business, and reveals your presence. This makes you a target for any enemy stealth users in the vicinity. Since update 19 I am being farmed very effectively by melee-attack gank builds who can now get close without much fear of being detected. Once I break stealth to make a bow attack I am dead. There is no counter play for me as the victim of melee attack gankers who can kill a glass cannon build like mine and get back into stealth inside the lag time. The only effective counter when witnessing such an attack on an ally is to immediately use Piercing Mark, but the change to Piercing Mark will make that counter-play useless. 5 seconds is too short for people to respond effectively. The attacker can escape, and once their victim has been rezzed and rejoins the fight they can just come back and do you again.

The only option is to become a ganker hunter myself, but hanging around in stealth, constantly dropping detect potions, and then getting instantly killed almost every time I break stealth is not my idea of fun. For one thing, it will not allow me to support other players in my alliance with bow fire.

What_In_Tarnation

Only expected it will just be another dlc zone like CwC but with muds and lizards.. so not that hyped but still fine. I can only say so far the only thing I really like it is the magicka version of bone pirate set.

kaithuzar

I have to wonder if “paid testers”, would have been better than this “industry change to community free testing”, that seemed to happen with ESO’s launch.

#Grandma’sBoy

SergeantPink

Im always ready and excited for change! #obama

Strider__Roshin

Feanor wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

The game is going in the right direction.

That’s a pretty exclusive opinion you have there I guess. There always will be winners and losers of changes, but Update 20 looks a bit extreme so far.

I'm not happy with every change, but I think the direction is overall good. I think people focus too much on the bad, and not account for the overall picture.

BrightOblivion

Grim. Skeptical. Frustrated. Wary and almost afraid of their design decisions in the future.

I was on the fence about the arena, but generally looking forward to the zone portion of the DLC. It's a new zone to explore, there are new quests to do and new characters to interact with, and I love that aspect, as my main having completed every currently available quest in Tamriel can attest.

But then the August rep notes hit, with the shield comment out of left field, seemingly catching even the reps off guard, and I started to become uncertain. Then the first PTS notes came, along with their accompanying green writing, and uncertainty turned into full on dread and frustration. But at least there was a tiny shred of hope because, hey, 4 weeks of PTS to go. Things change, right?

But now we're at the halfway point between "Patch hits PTS" and "Patch hits live" (I have not once in the past year and a half seen anything later than x.x.4 land on the PTS, no matter how much anyone told them it needed more time to cook), and the glimmer of hope's fast fading. I'm now at the stage where it becomes a question of how awful things will be when combat gets locked into its new state of being for the next three months. Because they only make combat changes with DLC releases.

For the sake of argument, let's say they did what you suggest and staggered the update and combat changes. Let's say they do six weeks on the update and six weeks on the combat changes, starting with the Q1 2019 DLC, which will be a dungeon pack. Let's say Player A tries the dungeons, likes them, and buys the DLC. Then, six weeks later, the combat changes come in, similar to what we got this patch- heavy-handed changes by pulling all the levers at once, not actually addressing what was really the problem, and not offering much of an alternative to speak of- and Player A is no longer able to complete those dungeons on the class he enjoys, at least not on anything higher than normal, and that's the state of things for the next three months. He's now out the money he spent on the dungeon DLC, which he can no longer play at the level he wanted to play, and is likely not hyped at all for the next round of Update-then-Balance-Change.

@Tasear
The issues as I see them (take it with a grain of salt, perhaps) are thus: too few people (what I've heard from those who have been to ZOS is that the "Combat Team" consists of 3 people, including Wrobel) with not enough knowledge of all the classes in all the roles in all the specs (say, PvE pet-based Magsorc DPS or Nightblade Tank) trying to do too much in too short a window with too long a time in between (we have to do everything *now* or it's going to be stuck like this for three months), with the net result that the changes are overly drastic, seem disjointed from the actual problem, and lock us in a new state of imbalance for the next quarter.

They partially addressed the first part by involving you class reps, but need to utilize y'all more fully, rather than just going "Tell me what the rabble on the forums is complaining about and we'll decide to come up with 'solutions' that may solve the problem or completely ignore it." I'm not saying they need to run everything by you first, but y'all seem to know more than they do a lot of the time. That's expected. There are more of you, with wider backgrounds and, likely, more time to play the game. Even then, y'all are constantly soliciting and filtering feedback from us, so they're getting all this information in a digestable form that they may or may not completely ignore.

For the second part, the current thought rolling around in my head is to keep DLC where it is, but have more gradual combat changes every six weeks (one on patch, one off). That way, maybe they're not trying to do so much so quickly, can tune something and watch how it turns out, and, if/when they screw something up, there's less time before it changes.

One of my biggest issues with the current balance methods is that, in addition to feeling ham-fisted and out-of-touch, these BIG, SWEEPING CHANGES that go live are going to be the new normal for the next quarter with only the vague suggestion that maybe, just maybe, sorcs' offense/sustain/bar bloat might get a look at at least three months from now. Just uncoupling the combat changes from the DLC, putting them on the PTS and sending them live six weeks later doesn't seem like it would change anything but the date those bad changes go live.

Nolic1

Tasear wrote: »

Do you get hyped?

Was at the Idea of going to Murkmire.

Tasear wrote: »

What would you think if combat changes didn't come together with new content but instead say a different time?

Ether way is fine but I like it all in one place and no I was not happy with some changes but need to test sorc shields with the new changes but with them not working right now will wait.

Tasear wrote: »

The question is how patch notes affect people's hype over new content coming.

Its kinda right there every update there are ones people like and do not like even after my most recent post about Templar tanks I know nothing will change there and I have to adjust my playstyle again to fit in which is what kills players is always having to change there playstyle. Giving classes tools that help but at the cost in return is not always good.

As for the content it looks great and has a unique feel to it which helps but does not add content thats any more difficult than whats already there. I get why but I just don't feel it. Blackrose prison is needed and the item sets have a place like all the others but this idea that new sets offer new builds is true but in effect won't happen do to the strict meta's for end game PvE and PvP. Heck the idea of all classes being any role is there but no one allows it do to meta play and what you find when searching out info on end game and I mean no offence by this but its true. Looking for builds will lead to mostly meta builds or old builds that work well but not in the meta and like all good games most of the time meta play ruins the game for many.

ME a content creator am almost at a loss when you see so much negative from patch notes and I do feel some of the Templar ones and warden arctic blast were nerfs to playstyles in the worse way. It took away content for me to release builds for those who use those playstyles and mine as well.

So yeah this update fix some things and hurt other things but this always happens and will learn to manage around them till something better offers new build play.

visionality

WillParkinson wrote: »

Nope. They're trashing the game, as far as I'm concerned. After two years, I've found an upcoming expansion I just don't care about. I've dropped my sub from six month to monthly to see how this all shakes out, but right now I'm not confident.

Did exactly the same. Will take a break from the game next patch unless ZOS takes a huge step away from its current super-toxic nerfiverse, but chances for that are - as we all know - close to zero. Actually, ZOS' behaviour disgusts me so much that even now, I'm already playing decisively less and turning towards other games.

If I could choose between "no new content and no new nerf" and "new content, but also new nerf" I would definitely opt for the first. So if I feel anything about the next DLC, its utter anti-hype. The longer it stays away, the better.

BrightOblivion

NyassaV wrote: »

Gill was nice enough to take the time to explain things with numbers and it makes sense but sadly that doesn't change the fact that a lot of what was fun is being changed.

@NyassaV
Where'd this explanation happen? I haven't seen anything like that.

NyassaV

BrightOblivion wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

Gill was nice enough to take the time to explain things with numbers and it makes sense but sadly that doesn't change the fact that a lot of what was fun is being changed.

@NyassaV
Where'd this explanation happen? I haven't seen anything like that.

Among a specific few. Doesn't really matter or change anything.

Go look at the numbers yourself. It all makes sense but that doesn't mean I have to like it

Strider__Roshin

NyassaV wrote: »

BrightOblivion wrote: »

NyassaV wrote: »

Gill was nice enough to take the time to explain things with numbers and it makes sense but sadly that doesn't change the fact that a lot of what was fun is being changed.

@NyassaV
Where'd this explanation happen? I haven't seen anything like that.

Among a specific few. Doesn't really matter or change anything.

Go look at the numbers yourself. It all makes sense but that doesn't mean I have to like it

May I ask what "numbers" are you referring to?

ruikkarikun

@Tasear
Because of those nerfs I don't want to play even now ON LIVE SERVER. Tried even to find new game, and at the ende I don't know what to do. But definately I have only negative emotions now.

Nox_Noir

Really not looking forward to this patch. Even though there are a lot of nice changes, they are completely drowned by the few really really horrible changes like sorc and movemement speed. So many of my builds are getting destroyed. Entire playstyles like tava tanks and schwifty speed builds are just getting deleted, and we are left clunky slow and more prone to snares which I hate.
I'm most likely gonna unsub after the current patch ends and check out fallout 76.