Combat Update in U21 - A New Approach

Yamenstein

Princess_Ciri wrote: »

The most important thing is that if racial passives are largely reworked to the point where a race is no longer BiS (redguard, high elf, dark elf etc) that we are allowed to race change for free. A lot of players pick races based on what is most optimal, and it will really suck if I have to pay for race changes bc of this.

Race would still be a cosmetic. Doesn't make sense if every day you change your mind and want to be a different race.

Don't really care if they make race change tokens different or not, though I would understand why the tokens would still be sold in the crown store.


Personally I hope they either add a star sign system to change things up (and get rid of the current racial combat passives, add new racial passives that are just cosmetic or generally non-combat related) or if not that then make it so you can pick and choose racial passives, they wouldn't be racial though in either of those situations so it would need to be named something else.

Lord_Eomer

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hello all, and Happy New Year!

Clearly many of you are chomping at the bit to learn more details about the U21 changes. As mentioned in the Class Rep Meeting Notes, our intent is to provide a more in-depth preview of the racial passive adjustments prior to publishing the patch notes for PTS 1. You can expect that preview in the next couple weeks. The rest of the changes will be detailed in the patch notes.

As for the long-term plan for Combat, that effort is still in progress and we don't have an ETA right now. As I mentioned before, this is a non-trivial effort and we still have updates to deliver in U21 and beyond.

Thanks for your patience. It's going to be an exciting year!

@ZOS_RobGarrett , @ZOS_GinaBruno

Will we see Racial changes preview couple of days before PTS or stop waiting for racial preview?

Moonsorrow

Anyone knows when we get to know more about the racial passive changes? Next week pts has them? Or have i missed some info on details about the preview?

Want to make a new character.. but kinda waiting to know more about this first.

JazzyNova

Moonsorrow wrote: »

Anyone knows when we get to know more about the racial passive changes? Next week pts has them? Or have i missed some info on details about the preview?

Want to make a new character.. but kinda waiting to know more about this first.

PTS, this coming Monday, Jan. 21st.

BollaZee

My feedback: What would really change combat for many people is removal of weapon bar swap. Keep weapon swap for the weapon abilities / stats / bonus but remove the bar swap, add 5 more skill slots to the current bar and map them to 6 to 0. This will change will remove all issues for players. The servers never have low latency and the biggest downfall of that is weaponswap.

Feric51

BollaZee wrote: »

My feedback: What would really change combat for many people is removal of weapon bar swap. Keep weapon swap for the weapon abilities / stats / bonus but remove the bar swap, add 5 more skill slots to the current bar and map them to 6 to 0. This will change will remove all issues for players. The servers never have low latency and the biggest downfall of that is weaponswap.

2/3 of the playerbase uses console controllers with no numbers.

The skill bar restrictions were not arbitrary, they were designed specifically to accommodate the amount of available buttons on console controllers.

Emmagoldman

Im excited!

This is what zos needed and after the last patch, it sounds like you took a moment to work on lingering complaints.

Awesome that you are looking at past sets! When making new sets, I love when the add something unique or allow for niche builds and playstyle. So many sets are just utter trash and it will be exciting to see what happens

Xogath

BollaZee wrote: »

My feedback: What would really change combat for many people is removal of weapon bar swap. Keep weapon swap for the weapon abilities / stats / bonus but remove the bar swap, add 5 more skill slots to the current bar and map them to 6 to 0. This will change will remove all issues for players. The servers never have low latency and the biggest downfall of that is weaponswap.

Yeah, no.

The reason for the amount of latency is simply due to one fact: "mega"server.

If the game had numerous dedicated servers scattered throughout various countries, latency would be perfectly tolerable. Even if they used sharding technology to "bring players together" while still being on separate servers, the situation would be much better than it is now.

Thankfully, though, ESO happens to be one of the VERY few (I mean like one out of three) games that I've seen (and played, obviously) that seem to handle the whole "mega"server thing fairly well, and isn't really that bad to play with even 120ms latency. While I would love to see my latency stay down in to the 60ms range or less, it would take a monumental effort on ZOS' part to make that happen. (And a lot of money, but I digress.)

However.. in your defense, I believe that would be the very best thing for the game right now. Why? As the game gets more and more popular, the server(s) hosting it are obviously going to be stressed even further.. and, at some point, they're going to have no choice but to upgrade hardware, optimize code, and/or bring in more servers simply to handle the traffic. When that point comes, you can expect severe amounts of latency, even after weekly maintenance, numerous hours of downtime, some things in the game not working, etc.

I don't know why a lot of people seem to think this way, but you simply cannot code your way around network traffic; it cannot be done. Perhaps it can be "optimized" to an extent, but not entirely worked around.

Now, Cyrodiil.. there is absolutely no reason that my latency should immediately jump from around 90ms (game world) to well over 200ms simply by joining Cyrodiil and entering the zone. The incredible latency there is why I won't go back until I level another character that happens to need Vigor and Caltrops. I sincerely hope that with Elsweyr, with the separation of Cyrodiil and the Imperial City (they will be separate "campaigns" you and queue for/join) will improve network stability as a result, because PvP in this game is actually pretty fun.. but I won't participate as long as my latency triples simply by entering the zone.

That said, though.. I'm also hoping for general engine/performance improvements with the new chapter as well. I'd love to finally see this game with the DX12 API.

RaddlemanNumber7

here’s a peek at the goals driving the team’s effort:
When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role.
The b]combat power/b] provided by each race should be more equalized.
Players should feel a stronger sense of power progression through racial passives as they level up.
The unique feeling and flavor each race provides should be retained and enhanced where possible, and remain faithful to established lore.

So, now we've seen the Racial Passive changes, what happened to your team's goals?

If you want to play stealth Khajiit is the only option. There was a choice between two races with Bosmer, now there's only one.

Bosmer and Dumner had their unique feeling and flavour deleted. Bosmer lore is full of stuff about them being stealthy. Argonian poison resistance is referenced in in-game dialogue.

I hope you will reconsider these changes to racial passives so that they do meet your team's stated goals.

technohic

"We want to do smaller combat changes "
*guts racial combat passives"

BollaZee

Feric51 wrote: »

BollaZee wrote: »

My feedback: What would really change combat for many people is removal of weapon bar swap. Keep weapon swap for the weapon abilities / stats / bonus but remove the bar swap, add 5 more skill slots to the current bar and map them to 6 to 0. This will change will remove all issues for players. The servers never have low latency and the biggest downfall of that is weaponswap.

2/3 of the playerbase uses console controllers with no numbers.

The skill bar restrictions were not arbitrary, they were designed specifically to accommodate the amount of available buttons on console controllers.

they were designed specifically to accommodate the amount of available buttons on console controllers~ Where did you get this information?

ALL mmorpg games on console have a simple system to use many skills with ease of access.

Let me give you a few examples:
Many skills bars with a simple L1 / L2 modifier, no latency attached.
https://youtu.be/-9UYAimBrf8?t=77

Again easy access to many skills with simple modifiers, no server to decide if a swap is allowed.
https://youtu.be/v5-Az3yi_wY?t=26

Please be informative or supportive in your replies, you cannot thumbsuck information because you are bound to a console.

Azurya

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hi all,

I wanted to take moment to share some info about how we’re approaching Combat updates in U21.

I’m guessing many of you will be interested to know more about the racial balance changes. While we aren’t ready to share specific details yet, here’s a peek at the goals driving the team’s effort:

• When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role.
• The combat power provided by each race should be more equalized.
• Players should feel a stronger sense of power progression through racial passives as they level up.
• The unique feeling and flavor each race provides should be retained and enhanced where possible, and remain faithful to established lore.

That's all for now. Feedback, as always, is welcome.

My 10 cents to this:
Point 1: you can already play any role with any race, having 15 chars in all available races, I can tell you that
Point 2: huh equalized, all brought down to the same lvl, kills diversity, kills uniqeness, no more outstanding roles playable,
but everything is equalized, don´t see any positive thing in it, but ok, lets look on
Point 3: yeah leveling up takes so much time it is really necesarry to FEEL that progression every 30 minutes
Point 4: here it all comes together: Uniqueness versus Equalizing! first you bring all DOWN to the lawn and then you say something about uniquenes, which you killed already above, do you even have an idea what you are doing???

I don´t think so, and reading the class changes, I get more doubts.
I think you guys are just boiling your soup, and have no idea neither an intention towards which point ot goal you are working.

Villaine

Azurya wrote: »

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hi all,

I wanted to take moment to share some info about how we’re approaching Combat updates in U21.

I’m guessing many of you will be interested to know more about the racial balance changes. While we aren’t ready to share specific details yet, here’s a peek at the goals driving the team’s effort:

• When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role.
• The combat power provided by each race should be more equalized.
• Players should feel a stronger sense of power progression through racial passives as they level up.
• The unique feeling and flavor each race provides should be retained and enhanced where possible, and remain faithful to established lore.

That's all for now. Feedback, as always, is welcome.

My 10 cents to this:
Point 1: you can already play any role with any race, having 15 chars in all available races, I can tell you that
Point 2: huh equalized, all brought down to the same lvl, kills diversity, kills uniqeness, no more outstanding roles playable,
but everything is equalized, don´t see any positive thing in it, but ok, lets look on
Point 3: yeah leveling up takes so much time it is really necesarry to FEEL that progression every 30 minutes
Point 4: here it all comes together: Uniqueness versus Equalizing! first you bring all DOWN to the lawn and then you say something about uniquenes, which you killed already above, do you even have an idea what you are doing???

I don´t think so, and reading the class changes, I get more doubts.
I think you guys are just boiling your soup, and have no idea neither an intention towards which point ot goal you are working.

And 1 token to boot. I am SHOCKED that this is not the single largest complaint on this thread and all the rest concerning passive changes.

Sygil05

Sygil05 wrote: »

Think we'll get a follow-up within 2 months of the original post?

Think we'll get a follow-up within 3 months of the original post?

paulychan

It's moving to a card based combat mechanic

The Uninvited

BollaZee wrote: »

My feedback: What would really change combat for many people is removal of weapon bar swap. Keep weapon swap for the weapon abilities / stats / bonus but remove the bar swap, add 5 more skill slots to the current bar and map them to 6 to 0. This will change will remove all issues for players. The servers never have low latency and the biggest downfall of that is weaponswap.

And do more finger acrobatics? Hell no! You know, just for your information, some of us would like to keep moving while using skills.

Maura_Neysa

The Uninvited wrote: »

BollaZee wrote: »

My feedback: What would really change combat for many people is removal of weapon bar swap. Keep weapon swap for the weapon abilities / stats / bonus but remove the bar swap, add 5 more skill slots to the current bar and map them to 6 to 0. This will change will remove all issues for players. The servers never have low latency and the biggest downfall of that is weaponswap.

And do more finger acrobatics? Hell no! You know, just for your information, some of us would like to keep moving while using skills.

Not to mention, this is actually impossible since this is a console game too, and there are no more buttons to push. The only option is to bar swap and use the same buttons for new skills

Uryel

The Uninvited wrote: »

And do more finger acrobatics? Hell no! You know, just for your information, some of us would like to keep moving while using skills.

You do realise that most MMO have had that settings, skills from 1 to 0, and even the next two keys for most, for like 20 years ? Never prevented anyone to keep moving.

tagrhm_ESO

NightBlades and all those weapons. I always see or hear about combat changes for the various classes etc. but I was wondering if developers are considering taking what they did for regen ( your highest stat magicka, health, or stamina) and applying it to all weapons. I hate having to use staffs for every magicka build. Why can't I restore magicka with to daggers? They could be magically imbued weapons. The game has all these cool weapons but they force players to choose either magicka - staves or stamina duel wield weapons (most variety) or tank sword and board. If the game is truly suppose to encourage freedom how about letting us, choose our weapons and still enjoy being a magicka based build?

Sygil05

Sygil05 wrote: »

Sygil05 wrote: »

Think we'll get a follow-up within 2 months of the original post?

Think we'll get a follow-up within 3 months of the original post?

Well, now I know the answer - today marks three months since the original post. Is this the new approach? Make promises that aren't delivered on? What was even the point of the original post in this thread, other than to presage the racial passive changes?

Are we really 2 months through the year still with no long-term plan on combat changes?

rexagamemnon

@Zos_RobGarrett what is a racial pass?
Also is there any plans to revisit Imperial passives?

Arato

I wish I'd remembered these were coming and done the PTS so that I could have seen the changes earlier and cancelled my sub before I was billed 2 days ago.
As an Altmer and Bosmer player Rob I'd like to hock a fat loogie in your face.

You have successfully cancelled your membership.

Koronach

I’m guessing many of you will be interested to know more about the racial balance changes. While we aren’t ready to share specific details yet, here’s a peek at the goals driving the team’s effort:

When selecting a race, players should have multiple effective options for any given gameplay role. The combat power provided by each race should be more equalized. Players should feel a stronger sense of power progression through racial passives as they level up. The unique feeling and flavor each race provides should be retained and enhanced where possible, and remain faithful to established lore.

That's all for now. Feedback, as always, is welcome.

Sorry none of those are even close to true for Argonians. Also how is removing Argonian poison resistance staying faithful to established lore?



It's all over the actual in game lore from quest NPC's. Let's see we have the Bleakrock spider quest, Eastmarch Daril quest, Green-Venom-Tongue Shadowscale stating he got his name because he drank so much poison, his tongue is permanently stained green, Jee-Lar mentioning it in that poison sniffer lizard quest, and prob others I'm forgetting.
@ZOS_RobGarrett @ZOS_Gilliam care to elaborate on this epic lore fail?

Sygil05

So, 4 months ago (ok, ALMOST 4 months) we were told:

"To that effect, the team is currently investing a portion of its time into codifying our vision and long-term strategy for combat. This is not a trivial task because, as mentioned before, the game is huge and there’s a lot to cover with combat. As such, we’re pulling back on the volume of combat balance changes being introduced in U21 compared to previous updates. "

And yet here we are with Update 21 releasing, a new class being announced, and no follow up on the main subject of the initial post in this thread. Why even leave this as a sticky item, other than to serve as a reminder of the lack of respect ZOS has for the player-base?

Suddwrath

Are we going to get an update on the codified vision in the near future?

@ZOS_RobGarrett

Shadow-Fighter

What means "codifying our vision"?

Somewhere

Shadow-Fighter wrote: »

What means "codifying our vision"?

It means that they haven't actually ever sat down and decided what they wanted each class's toolkit to look like until now. So they were basically just balancing everything ad hoc, based upon the meta at the time without ever considering how they wanted each class to function differently from each other. The result is we got a lot of homogenization. Ideally they are working on that and sat down and made a roadmap of long term class changes and how they should implemented in relation to other content rollout.

We are supposed to see the beginning of this new codex in the Elsweyr chapter.

Sygil05

Somewhere wrote: »

Shadow-Fighter wrote: »

What means "codifying our vision"?

It means that they haven't actually ever sat down and decided what they wanted each class's toolkit to look like until now. So they were basically just balancing everything ad hoc, based upon the meta at the time without ever considering how they wanted each class to function differently from each other. The result is we got a lot of homogenization. Ideally they are working on that and sat down and made a roadmap of long term class changes and how they should implemented in relation to other content rollout.

We are supposed to see the beginning of this new codex in the Elsweyr chapter.

Are they actually even doing anything different? The original post is now almost 5 months old and they haven't even bothered to follow up. I'm surprised they even left this as a sticky, because it just serves as a reminder of how little they think of the player base.

GhostofDatthaw

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hello all, and Happy New Year!

Clearly many of you are chomping at the bit to learn more details about the U21 changes. As mentioned in the Class Rep Meeting Notes, our intent is to provide a more in-depth preview of the racial passive adjustments prior to publishing the patch notes for PTS 1. You can expect that preview in the next couple weeks. The rest of the changes will be detailed in the patch notes.

As for the long-term plan for Combat, that effort is still in progress and we don't have an ETA right now. As I mentioned before, this is a non-trivial effort and we still have updates to deliver in U21 and beyond.

Thanks for your patience. It's going to be an exciting year!

I wonder if "exciting" means anxious about performance? Because no one I know is excited about this lagfest. We all upset and want better

GhostofDatthaw

Oh yeah


OoooOOOOoo boo

Necro'd