Combat Update in U21 - A New Approach

John_Falstaff

@Aluneth , it's a game all right. Multiplayer competitive game, not a single-player RPG. It's dumbed down by definition to a degree, to keep up with MMO component. So no, in ESO, a game focused on certain competitive sides, not all abilities have equal usefulness, and not all of them help enhance anything at all. If I remove racials, I'm just letting people be who they are and enjoy it, while removing the burden of peer pressure for being inferior by their choice of race for the role they enjoy. You're trying to make your lack of imagination everyone's problem now.

I see a trend here; people who lucked out to like what's currently meta or don't care about the race as long as they're min-maxed, vote to keep imbalances. Nothing changes.

Bevik

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Aluneth , it's a game all right. Multiplayer competitive game, not a single-player RPG. It's dumbed down by definition to a degree, to keep up with MMO component. So no, in ESO, a game focused on certain competitive sides, not all abilities have equal usefulness, and not all of them help enhance anything at all. If I remove racials, I'm just letting people be who they are and enjoy it, while removing the burden of peer pressure for being inferior by their choice of race for the role they enjoy. You're trying to make your lack of imagination everyone's problem now.

I see a trend here; people who lucked out to like what's currently meta or don't care about the race as long as they're min-maxed, vote to keep imbalances. Nothing changes.

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Aluneth , it's a game all right. Multiplayer competitive game, not a single-player RPG. It's dumbed down by definition to a degree, to keep up with MMO component. So no, in ESO, a game focused on certain competitive sides, not all abilities have equal usefulness, and not all of them help enhance anything at all. If I remove racials, I'm just letting people be who they are and enjoy it, while removing the burden of peer pressure for being inferior by their choice of race for the role they enjoy. You're trying to make your lack of imagination everyone's problem now.

I see a trend here; people who lucked out to like what's currently meta or don't care about the race as long as they're min-maxed, vote to keep imbalances. Nothing changes.

You are damn wrong. Making all pretty much the same means dumbing down everything to a level when you pick whatever you want and just press 1 button and won in a PvP or killed a Boss. Picking the right class and race is a huge role of being a smart player. ESO is enough casual friendly, don't even have a proper reward for hardcore players anyway. There is nothing to fight for. vMA and vDSA are the best ones to show how a good player can be rewarded. And you want to dumb everything down even more.

What can be done is to make races and classes in line. So adjust the passives to the level where the extra fire damage in pair with a spell crit for example. Extra mag regen make up for the DPS loss etc. Anyway Stam and Mag morphs for racials are welcomed.

Aluneth

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Aluneth , it's a game all right. Multiplayer competitive game, not a single-player RPG. It's dumbed down by definition to a degree, to keep up with MMO component. So no, in ESO, a game focused on certain competitive sides, not all abilities have equal usefulness, and not all of them help enhance anything at all. If I remove racials, I'm just letting people be who they are and enjoy it, while removing the burden of peer pressure for being inferior by their choice of race for the role they enjoy. You're trying to make your lack of imagination everyone's problem now.

I see a trend here; people who lucked out to like what's currently meta or don't care about the race as long as they're min-maxed, vote to keep imbalances. Nothing changes.

I play an Imperial Warden.

Now tell me how lucky I am, and how much I follow the meta.

John_Falstaff

Bevik wrote: »

Picking the right <...> race is a huge role of being a smart player.

Stopped reading here. Picking 'right' race doesn't make you a smart player. It just shows that you don't actually care about RPG side of it, and would be happy to pick any blob of pixels to play as - provided that numbers are best. Poor man's game.

John_Falstaff

@Aluneth , if you're a tank? Pretty close to meta actually, your passives are useful for that role. If you're not? Well, you're in for some ridiculing from others from time to time. (No joke, I ran with a trial group, we had a bosmer tank, and I was cringing as they were ridiculing him on discord voice chat.) Not sure if you enjoy it, but that's competitive side for you.

Bevik

John_Falstaff wrote: »

Bevik wrote: »

Picking the right <...> race is a huge role of being a smart player.

Stopped reading here. Picking 'right' race doesn't make you a smart player. It just shows that you don't actually care about RPG side of it, and would be happy to pick any blob of pixels to play as - provided that numbers are best. Poor man's game.

It's an MMO not an only RP game. Back to square one when RPers want everything without an effort. My very first char is a Breton magDK so defo picked the wrong race still loving her. Actually don't even have a proper tooltip on the char creation screen.

And by the way, true that I don't really care about the RPG side, nor the lore. I just want to enjoy the game and relax.

John_Falstaff

@Bevik , that 'not only' part is what I stress. Key point being, it's both MMO and RPG, by the very definition, game design should cater to both and keep them in harmony. And if by 'effort' you mean 'not having to peek at Alcast's site and choose best race', then yes, I'd say game will survive if such effort was removed from it.

And well, everyone wants to enjoy the game and relax. So if you don't care, then let other people who care also have their comfort and fun, it won't cost you any.

Aluneth

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Aluneth , if you're a tank? Pretty close to meta actually, your passives are useful for that role. If you're not? Well, you're in for some ridiculing from others from time to time. (No joke, I ran with a trial group, we had a bosmer tank, and I was cringing as they were ridiculing him on discord voice chat.) Not sure if you enjoy it, but that's competitive side for you.

Stamina healer.

Soul_Demon

" Class Reps to get feedback "

Can you share who the class reps are and explain how they will have or get information representative of the community?

DUTCH_REAPER

ZOS you might want to fix this ASAP. You have entire guilds bouncing out to other games because those game developers are actually listening to the community.

Earthewen

@ZOS_RobGarrett

I'm a little concerned that all of the nightblades you have representing ALL nightblades are solo/small group players. What are you doing to represent the large group players and those people who tend to think out of the box?

Aluneth

Soul_Demon wrote: »

" Class Reps to get feedback "

Can you share who the class reps are and explain how they will have or get information representative of the community?

They're not representative of the community. It was a good idea that got ruined very quickly.

ZarkingFrued

So when you nerf good classes rather than buff the underperforming classes like you usually do with balance changes, do we get a free race change token per character? Or is it all part of your plot to make more money by forcing us to buy a race change?

Juhasow

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

...while we do sometimes stumble along the way, we’re pretty proud of what the team has accomplished.

I laughed and cringed at the same time.

ZarkingFrued

Lord_Dexter wrote: »

Thank You @ZOS_RobGarrett for update,

Current racial passives influence players to choose race for their role,

For Example:

PVE Magicka DPS mostly chooses from Altmer/Dumner or Breton, why shall not choose Khajit?, because Carnage passive will be useless and its good to miss. Reaper's March have lot of Khajit NPC mages.

PVE Tank mostly chooses from Argonian, Imperial, Nord or Orc, why shall not choose Bomser?, because its racial passives are not useful for tanking.

Racial passives should be balanced in way that every race can be used for any role (Magicka/Stamina DPS, Tank or Healer)

So you want for there to be absolutely no point in races? K. This isnt a roleplaying game.

Sandman929

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

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.

Just clarifying, is this saying that in ZOS's view the last few updates have been a whirlwind of combat updates and the brakes have to be applied so everyone can take a breath and try to do some big-picturing rather than continuing the break-neck pace of balance changes to which we've all become so accustomed?

John_Falstaff

@Aluneth , yes, you're definitely not playing any sort of competitive side of this game. ^^ Explains. You're lucky, you have such an easy time saying 'let's keep racial passives, they're lore friendly'.

@ZarkingFrued , it's officially a roleplaying game. Guess what 'RPG' in MMORPG stands for. There's that other part too, though, have to cater to both. And races are self-sufficient. If you like being a khajiit, you don't need numbers for deeper immersion.

Earthewen

DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

ZOS you might want to fix this ASAP. You have entire guilds bouncing out to other games because those game developers are actually listening to the community.

You are absolutely right, Dutch. I know entire guild who are preparing to dot out of ESO to other games. I know of one community that is in development at this very moment who is extensively listening to more than just a few solo/small group players. You would think that ZOS would want to talk to actual guilds of size because if those guilds leave, then *POOF*, they will lose anywhere from 100 to 500 players that will leave ESO for another game. Guilds are communities within themselves, not just in one game.

If another game company is listening to the guilds, they are being smart as to where their numbers really lie. Not in the people who SIT AND WATCH SOMEONE ELSE PLAY, but the people who are really playing the game themselves.

DUTCH_REAPER

Well I am rooting for you ZOS to fix this mess before it’s too late. You might want to open your feelers out to other players though for representation since you currently only have small scale solo players as your reps. Not just your little twitch and you tube peeps. J/s

ZarkingFrued

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Aluneth , yes, you're definitely not playing any sort of competitive side of this game. ^^ Explains. You're lucky, you have such an easy time saying 'let's keep racial passives, they're lore friendly'.

@ZarkingFrued , it's officially a roleplaying game. Guess what 'RPG' in MMORPG stands for. There's that other part too, though, have to cater to both.

You know what I mean lol. Quite obviously an "rpg", but not in the sense that we want to cater to you being able to be an orc magicka healer so you can live out your odd fantasies lol. Actual in game "roleplaying" is just plain weird. The point of eso is combat, somewhat stories, but combat is bottom line. If it's made so you can play any role as any race then there becomes no point in races other than the way your character looks. Fine tuning goes away.

John_Falstaff

@ZarkingFrued , why this 'fine tuning' (a.k.a. going to Alcast's site and choosing recommended race) is important and why do we have to have it at the cost of forcing people to play unloved races, again? And why the way the character looks is not enough reason to play one? I don't need some stealth passive to have reason to play khajiit, I just like being one. What I don't need is people from guild shaking head at me and saying I'd be better off being redguard because I'm underperforming otherwise. As a middle ground, we can have fine tuning through 'constellations' like in old RPGs, that way fine tuning is detached from race choice.

Earthewen

ZarkingFrued wrote: »

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Aluneth , yes, you're definitely not playing any sort of competitive side of this game. ^^ Explains. You're lucky, you have such an easy time saying 'let's keep racial passives, they're lore friendly'.

@ZarkingFrued , it's officially a roleplaying game. Guess what 'RPG' in MMORPG stands for. There's that other part too, though, have to cater to both.

You know what I mean lol. Quite obviously an "rpg", but not in the sense that we want to cater to you being able to be an orc magicka healer so you can live out your odd fantasies lol. Actual in game "roleplaying" is just plain weird. The point of eso is combat, somewhat stories, but combat is bottom line. If it's made so you can play any role as any race then there becomes no point in races other than the way your character looks. Fine tuning goes away.

I actually agree with you @ZarkingFrued. I don't play a game for cosmetics. Okay, so not entirely … Combat out on the field isn't about how I look, but it IS ABOUT PERFORMANCE. I like the race differences for sure, and they need to be viable and appropriate for the class I'm playing. Enhancement, really. So much time is being spent on cosmetics, that our combat has been all but forgotten.

I'm still concerned that all combat is being pushed towards the desires of a small section of the community and all sections are not being taken into account. Basic Statistics and Research classes in college would point out that their data collection method is erroneous.

Sandman929

Racial passives, useless sets and bug fixes are all fine uses of time, but if you're really doing a deep dive on combat for the next year+, it might be a good idea to take a good long look at the area of the game that ZOS chooses to exclude in portions of their own game because of the imbalance that it creates: The Champion Point system.

jhall03

I recon I’ll hold off on race changing to an Argonian. Honestly I do hope they adjust that OP potion passive. It shouldn’t give back to all three resource pools.

Soul_Demon

Aluneth wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

" Class Reps to get feedback "

Can you share who the class reps are and explain how they will have or get information representative of the community?

They're not representative of the community. It was a good idea that got ruined very quickly.

One of the reasons I asked....looked for the class rep forum post (98% of the active players dont bother to read forums due to ZOS's habit of not responding with information over the years) and found names I recognize as largely solo or small scale players. Not that they cant provide good feedback, however the in game hemorrhage of players started years ago about the same time ZOS put their eggs in a basket with you tube and twitch 'game promoters for free' solo and small scale players.

Since then the numbers have continued to dwindle and we have seen a further alteration of the landscape of players one can extrapolate that our changes have been somewhat 'indirectly' supportive of a specific style. Like it or not, those choices resulted in massive player exodus over the same exact time-frames you implemented changes with minimal feedback from sources other than those players. That would never be permitted in a real business model- there is no way someone who has a personal financial interest would be tapped for business decisions impacting a large platform such as the game. Nor would it ever be considered "feedback" from the community, free PR or not.....unless you have decided the 'community' is now small scale and solo.

Fake Remedy

get ready for race passives locked behind the dlc paywall

Earthewen

Fake Remedy wrote: »

get ready for race passives locked behind the dlc paywall

Oh I hope not. Getting a little tired of everything having to be purchased. Either BE FTP or not. There should be no in between.

Weper

I hope the Nord will get some nice racials for Stamin Nightblades (DD).

Earthewen

Soul_Demon wrote: »

Aluneth wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

" Class Reps to get feedback "

Can you share who the class reps are and explain how they will have or get information representative of the community?

They're not representative of the community. It was a good idea that got ruined very quickly.

One of the reasons I asked....looked for the class rep forum post (98% of the active players dont bother to read forums due to ZOS's habit of not responding with information over the years) and found names I recognize as largely solo or small scale players. Not that they cant provide good feedback, however the in game hemorrhage of players started years ago about the same time ZOS put their eggs in a basket with you tube and twitch 'game promoters for free' solo and small scale players.

Since then the numbers have continued to dwindle and we have seen a further alteration of the landscape of players one can extrapolate that our changes have been somewhat 'indirectly' supportive of a specific style. Like it or not, those choices resulted in massive player exodus over the same exact time-frames you implemented changes with minimal feedback from sources other than those players. That would never be permitted in a real business model- there is no way someone who has a personal financial interest would be tapped for business decisions impacting a large platform such as the game. Nor would it ever be considered "feedback" from the community, free PR or not.....unless you have decided the 'community' is now small scale and solo.

I totally agree here as well. Numbers have dwindled, and I suspect that Tamriel One had more to do with the dwindle and putting everyone on less servers. I'd love to hear an opposing view of that for sure. I have always wondered about a conflict of interest if ZOS is indeed paying Twitch users and YouTube streamers kick-backs. Would it not be human nature then for self-serving monetary goals take over?

Grollok76

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

• A small number of other balance changes, many of which are wrapping up efforts the team took on in U20

So Magsorc finally gets completely removed from the game?

But seriously, all of this at least sounds like a step in the right direction. If this is a reaction to the Murkmire (resisted the urge to write Nerfmire ) fallout, it's kind of a good one.