Update 23 will widen the gap between floor, average and ceiling more than previous patches combined

ecru

msalvia wrote: »

Basically here's my readout:

Casual and mid-tier players (95% of ESO population): This sucks and invalidates the work I've put into farming sets, learning rotations, learning class and weapon skill lines etc. Across-the-board damage nerfs limit the number of players who can clear vet stuff with reasonable effort and skill.

Elite/"pro"/sixteen hours per day players: This is great, reward my ability to play this game as if it were work. I'm in end game guilds and can just farm any set any time.

Seems like the second group is over-represented on the forums. Sure it should take effort and skill to clear hard stuff, but we can't deny an obvious (and increasingly wide) skill gap in this game, and this isn't gonna close that gap.

The second group is saying the same thing you think the first group is saying. Threads started in this forum arguing against these changes were started by some of the best players in the best guilds in the game.

This change is hurting everyone, but the people hurt most by it are going to be average players who now will have absolutely no chance of clearing harder content.

templesus

Everything but the Orb change are great ZOS. Good work, keep it up.

Ozby

Cries wrote: »

mobicera wrote: »

Cries wrote: »

coop500 wrote: »

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Naw this patch looks good, if you dont PvE at all lol

Fixed

Very accurate fix.
This patch is 100% for the PVPers, shafting PVEers in the process.
Oh but PVEers don't matter, because PVP is endgame! Damn carebears, get out of our game!
(There I said it for the PVP elitists)

Wow! It’s almost like the last 2 years of patches have all catered toward pve and have boned pvp every time. Pvp finally gets a good patch and the pve boys can’t handle it. Pvp players have been adapting since the launch of this game. Now if only pve players could do the same.

Please post a video of you clearing the harder dlc trials and content on the pts this Monday...
These changes hurt average groups pretty badly and may simply kill prog groups.

What does your post have anything to do with what I just said? Not only is your comment irrelevant but not very original. All the pve players saying clear XYZ on HM this Monday. It’s like me asking pve’rs to do 1vX this Monday and how good this patch is for that. Please try harder and read my OP again.

OP said at the beginning this post is for PVer's not PVPr's so why do you feel the need to troll people in here? from what ive seen in other posts about this patch you just cant help yourself and you seem very childish.

DUTCH_REAPER

I’ve done the hard trial content back when 32k dps parses were the top top. If you pulled 20k you were in the end game guilds for pve. Since those days the power creep is redonkulous. I mean honestly. First time doing HRC HM went through the mechanics and lived and beat the boss. Just last week did it and all we had to do was burn him down. The power creep needs to be fixed.

SeaUnicorn

DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

I’ve done the hard trial content back when 32k dps parses were the top top. If you pulled 20k you were in the end game guilds for pve. Since those days the power creep is redonkulous. I mean honestly. First time doing HRC HM went through the mechanics and lived and beat the boss. Just last week did it and all we had to do was burn him down. The power creep needs to be fixed.

How about new content? vSS has DPS check of 40K to be able to clear.

UrQuan

Minno wrote: »

Naw this patch looks good, if you aren't a brainless zergling lol

Care to explain exactly how you can zerg a 12-man trial @Minno ?

josh.lackey_ESO

This is not a PvP vs PvE thing. This patch sucks for PvP, too.

The people saying otherwise are selfish stamina mains who see the severely widening gap between stamina and magicka effectiveness as easy kills preying on significantly weaker magicka characters.

SaucyMcSauceface

DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

I’ve done the hard trial content back when 32k dps parses were the top top. If you pulled 20k you were in the end game guilds for pve. Since those days the power creep is redonkulous. I mean honestly. First time doing HRC HM went through the mechanics and lived and beat the boss. Just last week did it and all we had to do was burn him down. The power creep needs to be fixed.

And each patch they have introduced content that matches the power creep. As they nerf damage, are they also going to nerf the newer content?

Runefang

msalvia wrote: »

Basically here's my readout:

Casual and mid-tier players (95% of ESO population): This sucks and invalidates the work I've put into farming sets, learning rotations, learning class and weapon skill lines etc. Across-the-board damage nerfs limit the number of players who can clear vet stuff with reasonable effort and skill.

Elite/"pro"/sixteen hours per day players: This is great, reward my ability to play this game as if it were work. I'm in end game guilds and can just farm any set any time.

Seems like the second group is over-represented on the forums. Sure it should take effort and skill to clear hard stuff, but we can't deny an obvious (and increasingly wide) skill gap in this game, and this isn't gonna close that gap.

End gamers of both PvE and pvp are heavily represented here. Go to ESO reddit and you wonder if you play the same game, it’s all rainbows and butterflies screenshots to those people.

redlink1979

Thakns OP, very insightful.

PvE vs PvP? No, peeps. We're all in the same boat. Changes will affect us all in a bad way.

Icy_Waffles

Well written. Been having similar thoughts. This is only going to be more divisive to the player base. For pve at least. Heavy armor changes seem solid lol

aetherial_heavenn

slofwnd wrote: »

DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

I’ve done the hard trial content back when 32k dps parses were the top top. If you pulled 20k you were in the end game guilds for pve. Since those days the power creep is redonkulous. I mean honestly. First time doing HRC HM went through the mechanics and lived and beat the boss. Just last week did it and all we had to do was burn him down. The power creep needs to be fixed.

How about new content? vSS has DPS check of 40K to be able to clear.

It is easier to re-tune and re-balance PvE AI in an encounter (dungeon/trial/arena) than balance skills between, among and against other players. A good dev co will adjust the content scaling while keeping the base mechanics in PvE encounters relevant, if a major skill re-balance happens. ...For example, vSS dps check can be retuned to 35k or 30 k dps check thru existing scaling mechanics. This lowers the ceiling for non top tier players and makes the encounter dobale...thereby solving power creep and PvP balance while not increasing the gap between for example, Hodor and an average progression trials guild. I hope ZoS does this.

In some players ideal world, doing Sunspire teaches a group enough that doing vetSS simply takes a lot more regular practice and vet hardmode becomes feasible for say 20 % of players who do vet trials regularly.

On the other hand, some posters have said they want to keep the hardest content really hard so only the top 2 or 3 % of players complete it. in the olden days, beating the hardest content in the game within 3 months of release was seen as too quick. Beating it on the PTS meant it was stupid easy...Once upon a time it took the best of the best six months to get a World first...in the heyday of one game I played, it took the top raid guild 9 months...after Beta..after release...9 months of trying different approaches and classes and skill combos weekly. That approach would keep the end game content eaters happy for a long time But that approach means very few would ever be able to beat vSS hardmode or get tick tock tormentor while those few that do would be able to do it in their underwear using a frying pan shortly thereafter.

MMO end game balance is a tricky beast

I think the skill changes and set changes and standardisation will allow most players to adapt. If mostly the changes bring reduced power creep, appropriate challenging content for all group content levels and helps with PvP balance but the changes mean some existing PvE content is simply not achievable now and it was achievable before, by the same players, (like vHoF hardmode execute phase, for example) then that content should be re-tuned first. Because that is much simpler to do.

VioletVience

frozzzen101 wrote: »

And finally massive, truly uncalled nerf to Orbs and sustain/hot coming from that. Unless you missed history lesson from Morrowind sustain nerfs, this affects low/medium tier groups the hardest. Top groups will manage somehow. They will fit in 4 orbs from their support and 4 Symphony/Sentinel while majority of groups not as good or coordinated or experienced will remain gutted and have to invest into sustain making performance gap more and more apparent. Good groups will stack adds more efficiently to allow higher dps/resource spent, their support will walk the razor’s edge just to make sure they empower their dds, where learning/progressing or straight up weaker groups will never be able to afford such things. So I will ask once again, ZoS, who are you nerfing?

Wow, its time to learn base game mechanics and make low groups better?

Jagdkommando

frozzzen101 wrote: »

Let me preface that I believe that in its current form, this patch will be the single worst thing that happened to this game. Worse than Morrowind sustain nerfs, worse than infamous Nerfmire and worse than anything devs have thrown at us in recent years. I'm talking from a perspective of Dungeon-Trial-Arena person, as I’m not knowledgeable enough on pvp matters and on the surface level pvp changes look sensible for the most part. However, pve has been hit by multifaceted nerfs all across the board, and hardest hit will be on uncoordinated dungeon groups as well as any sort of progression teams that are still struggling with content they are progressing. So, which portion of your playerbase is the combat team actually attempting to nerf?

First let’s focus on dps nerfs because these are the simplest to explain. ZoS has been talking a lot about re-standardization and new standards for dots and aoe dots, however these new standards are absolute garbage.
If we compare parses from your average Joe and from Liko, arguably one of best dds in game at the moment, you will notice that Joe’s parses will be much more affected by reduction of efficiency of damage over time abilities. That’s because the very best dds can weave their direct damage skills and light attacks much more efficiently than the average dd, they know how to mitigate damage getting even more weaves, while your average dds, coupled with average support will have to spend time shielding, dodging and surviving making LA/spamable portion of their parse much less pronounced. The most consistent way of dealing damage in low-mid end of dps spectrum is trough dots. More specifically, strong ground aoe dots that are placed on the ground without the need to aim specific target priority targets and then you can do whatever. This difference is felt much more in actual content rather than dummy parses. I won’t bother clogging this thread with ESO combat log of peak, high, mid and low tier parses because anyone with IQ higher than their shoe size can deduce the effect of lowering damage over time abilities and its effect on players in certain dps thresholds, you know, the very obvious thing that our beloved combat team is so incredibly oblivious to. If for some reason you wanted to nerf peak dps, proper way of doing it was to nerf LA/spamable portion of parses and/or alter damage formula slightly. Difference would be felt across the spectrum for sure, however higher end players would feel it more than average/low tier players, and no one would feel singled out because of nerfs to their class abilities, but I digress. Make no mistake, it’s far too late to change this mindset of our developers. Even if their methods of lowering the dps ceiling are mathematically proven flawed, nothing will change because all of these changes are already programmed in PTS and it’s far too late to change it because of programming dollars.

Healing/Support changes are far worse and more far reaching than changes to dots. Healing in ESO at the moment is based on healing over time abilities, and with changes to orbs and springs everything is pushed in direction of reactive healing. While it might not look inherently bad on first glance because it might allow for higher healer skill ceiling, it will be massive nerf for everyone who’s not close to that ceiling and mid/low tier player suffers once again. Add in the fact that for years ESO was balanced around hot based healing and unless entire game and many encounters are rewamped, many low/mid tier groups will be forever stuck at content X without any chances of progressing in game. If we compare new Grand Healing that is 56% of its former strength without capability to stack with current iteration of this skill, the peak of having 4 stacks of Illustrious Healing is 7 times more healing than what is achievable in upcoming U23 trough this skill. Is that efficient healing? No, it’s overhealing but it’s also safety net for new players who cannot predict amount of incoming damage.

Let this sink in. At its peak performance as a hot, new Grand Healing will have 14% effectiveness from U22. Just as a sidenote, vCR+3 first clears have been done with 3 tanks using non-nerfed Earthgore, two healers with Bogdan for increased healing, and as many magblades as possible because at the time they had highest offhealing potential. Yeah, when you argue about healing being overpowered just think of this little factoid, would you? There are people still progressing that content. Even after vCR, recent content has also been balanced by having huge defiles on maintank in both BRP and something like Frostvault hardmode as well as its sister dungeon of Malatar. Not to mention, having to heal multiple people on multiple places, offtanks, maintanks, stacked dds and all that. Just think of AS+2 healer roles for example.
And finally massive, truly uncalled nerf to Orbs and sustain/hot coming from that. Unless you missed history lesson from Morrowind sustain nerfs, this affects low/medium tier groups the hardest. Top groups will manage somehow. They will fit in 4 orbs from their support and 4 Symphony/Sentinel while majority of groups not as good or coordinated or experienced will remain gutted and have to invest into sustain making performance gap more and more apparent. Good groups will stack adds more efficiently to allow higher dps/resource spent, their support will walk the razor’s edge just to make sure they empower their dds, where learning/progressing or straight up weaker groups will never be able to afford such things. So I will ask once again, ZoS, who are you nerfing?

Ultimately this travesty of a patch cannot be reverted completely because programming costs and developer pride was often placed as a priority over wishes and protests of community. However I do hope that there is sensible person in charge who can see past pride and attempt to alleviate some of major painpoints introduced with this update. The ever growing gap between peak, high, medium and trench tier players is one of major issues this game is facing and is fracturing the community. This patch will make it worse than ever before. Power creep introduced by various means isn’t your primary concern. Power difference however is. Rethink where you will take damage from dds because it will have huge ramifications on your playerbase and its average performance.
I really don’t want to badmouth the combat team. I know they have their vision of the game and want to see it through. But if I were in charge, and got submitted this PTS notes as a draft for balance changes, you’d be straight up fired on the spot, because shortsightedness of combat team regarding far reaching consequences of this arbitrary standardization is equivalent of corporate CEO bankrupting a company.

Agree 100%!!! In this way they gonna lose vast majority of players which is equal to bankrupt...

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Agree with OP. ZOS changed their combat team and this is the result. Less & less option every patch. What I would like to know is: What is their goal ? Because it cant be balance. You don't achieve balance by making huge, revolutionary changes EVERY update, because you change the whole ecosystem too drastically. So it is even hard to predict the outcome.

I have to admit, ever since Gilliamtherogue joined combat team, thing are going downhill. I am sure I am not the only one who is disappointed. The guy's knowledge about the game seemed that if he joins combat team things will be better. But no...

Noticed that too about Gilliam...
ZOS should fire him.
They are ruining this great game, but what can we do? So let it be

Eldartar

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Agree with OP. ZOS changed their combat team and this is the result. Less & less option every patch. What I would like to know is: What is their goal ? Because it cant be balance. You don't achieve balance by making huge, revolutionary changes EVERY update, because you change the whole ecosystem too drastically. So it is even hard to predict the outcome.

I have to admit, ever since Gilliamtherogue joined combat team, thing are going downhill. I am sure I am not the only one who is disappointed. The guy's knowledge about the game seemed that if he joins combat team things will be better. But no...

Noticed that too about Gilliam...
ZOS should fire him.
They are ruining this great game, but what can we do? So let it be[/quote]


How can you blame 1 person for the combat changes? Gilliam is just a small cog in a big machine, like any small cog he follows the direction he is pointed in. He is a part of a TEAM and it is unfair of you both to single out 1 person from that team and blame them for everything you think is wrong and to suggest ZoS should fire him! Are you drunk? High? or Both?

Tavore1138

Sort of agree with the OP and impact on PvP will be similar I suspect.

This is symptomatic of all major changes since Morrowind - the true irony of this is that the one of the guys doing these designs was one of the loudest and most details critics of this approach in Morrowind days. I guess he got sent to the re-education camps?

It is very telling how few dev explanations there are on the biggest changes - suggests they know these changes are indefensible.

The underlying problem continues to be the same as always - the people they talk to, they guilds they communicate with, the streamers they invite to HQ and the community and class reps are always the top of the tree players who's requirements from the game are very different from the vast bulk of players.It's like trying to write a tax code that is fair to everyone and only inviting billionaires to help write it - guess what the billionaires do quite well but even if they genuinely try to represent the non-billionaires they don't truly understand their experience and so make poor choices.

darkblue5

This has been the prediction when it comes to nerfs... but the gap only really opens up when there are buffs like the
Siroria and Relequen sets. Buffs scale better with skill.

stevenyaub16_ESO

So much angst.

Just chill the *** out and test it on PTS then give them the results/feedback.

Whining with nothing to back it up makes you all look like a bunch of children. No dev will take any of this feedback with serious consideration.

msalvia

DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

I’ve done the hard trial content back when 32k dps parses were the top top. If you pulled 20k you were in the end game guilds for pve. Since those days the power creep is redonkulous. I mean honestly. First time doing HRC HM went through the mechanics and lived and beat the boss. Just last week did it and all we had to do was burn him down. The power creep needs to be fixed.

DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

I’ve done the hard trial content back when 32k dps parses were the top top. If you pulled 20k you were in the end game guilds for pve. Since those days the power creep is redonkulous. I mean honestly. First time doing HRC HM went through the mechanics and lived and beat the boss. Just last week did it and all we had to do was burn him down. The power creep needs to be fixed.

I agree that power creep is out of control; BUT they're now designing content where you NEED north of 40k to complete (ex. vSS end boss HM). They gotta pick a lane: embrace high dps #s and keep designing content with that in mind, or pull back and stop requiring insane dps checks if you're gimping dps #s. Vet content clear rates are already abysmal, and while top-tier players are gonna be fine (read: most of the people in the forums), your average player is gonna see themselves unable to clear stuff they currently can.

Varana

Tavore1138 wrote: »

The underlying problem continues to be the same as always - the people they talk to, they guilds they communicate with, the streamers they invite to HQ and the community and class reps are always the top of the tree players who's requirements from the game are very different from the vast bulk of players.It's like trying to write a tax code that is fair to everyone and only inviting billionaires to help write it - guess what the billionaires do quite well but even if they genuinely try to represent the non-billionaires they don't truly understand their experience and so make poor choices.

I don't know.
Parts of these notes have seen condemnation from several top-tier players. At other times, or some changes, maybe, but there are things in there that even the billionaires find ridiculously stupid.
In this case, it's more like writing the tax code for specifically to benefit the lumber industry while shafting everyone else in the process.
Lumber here being a subset of stamina PvP players.

idk

frozzzen101 wrote: »

Let me preface that I believe that in its current form, this patch will be the single worst thing that happened to this game. Worse than Morrowind sustain nerfs, worse than infamous Nerfmire and worse than anything devs have thrown at us in recent years. I'm talking from a perspective of Dungeon-Trial-Arena person, as I’m not knowledgeable enough on pvp matters and on the surface level pvp changes look sensible for the most part. However, pve has been hit by multifaceted nerfs all across the board, and hardest hit will be on uncoordinated dungeon groups as well as any sort of progression teams that are still struggling with content they are progressing. So, which portion of your playerbase is the combat team actually attempting to nerf?

First let’s focus on dps nerfs because these are the simplest to explain. ZoS has been talking a lot about re-standardization and new standards for dots and aoe dots, however these new standards are absolute garbage.
If we compare parses from your average Joe and from Liko, arguably one of best dds in game at the moment, you will notice that Joe’s parses will be much more affected by reduction of efficiency of damage over time abilities. That’s because the very best dds can weave their direct damage skills and light attacks much more efficiently than the average dd, they know how to mitigate damage getting even more weaves, while your average dds, coupled with average support will have to spend time shielding, dodging and surviving making LA/spamable portion of their parse much less pronounced.

While I agree Zos has been saying they are raising the floor and lowering the ceiling for the past few years while they are actually driving a wedge between them all the while raising the ceiling, I do not see OP explaining how weaving light attacks has changed this patch.

I also do not see how OP is saying survival mechanics have changed this patch either. These things have to have actually changed this patch to have the bearing OP is suggesting.

Again, I agree Zos has been poorly managing the game and their actions to not match their words, but I do not see the point OP is trying to make concerning dps in this patch. Granted, they have not tested anything yet.

Alchimiste1

Yeah I don't think that's how the math works out for dps. I'm fairly sure dps with a higher overall dps will lose more dps because the aoe nerf is a percentage value not a flat value. For example:

Dps1: 10k dps from light attacks @ a ratio of 0.94 la/s
4.5k dps from wall of elements @ an uptime of 94%
Lets say wall of elements gets nerfed by 30% then the new value this player will do is 4500 * 0.70 = 3150
DPS loss: 4500-3150 = 1350

Dps 2: 8k dps from light atacks @ a ratio of 0.75 la/s
3.6k dps from wall of elements @uptime of 75%
Nerfed dps: 3600 * 0.70= 2520dps
dps Loss : 3600 - 2520 = 1080

So actually the dps with higher uptimes on their abilities will have a bigger dps loss. The fact that someone has a higher light attack ratio has is not effected at all by aoe nerfs to certain abilities. and in generally it is likely that someone with higher overall dps has a better uptime on all their abilities so the change would cause them to lose more overall dps.
- please correct me if you find any flaw in my logic

RavenSworn

Not wanting to be a downer or something but... Have you guys actually tried the pts? Are the changes up in the first place?





And why is the sky falling?

Zypheran

Completely agree with OP and I can't see how ZOS don't see this. Of course this will increase the dps gap.
The dps gap comes from rotation and LA weaving / AC. For those of us with bad lag, these "features" are inconsistent and often don't fire. So people on the lower end of the dps spectrum rely more on building up dots and keeping them up while hoping as many of our LA's as possible will actually fire. Nerfing dots so heavily will essentially mean that those that can't weave and AC will be hit hardest.
I understand and agree with the concept of equalizing all the dots to be more consistent but why does the bar to which they are being equalized have to be lowered by 30-37%??
Why not raise the other underperforming dots up to that level. And if the answer is power creep then it's time to be honest and focus on the real cause of power creep!
We all know if AC is negated then LA weaving is reduced and this is really what will close the dps gap in PVE

Tavore1138

Varana wrote: »

Tavore1138 wrote: »

The underlying problem continues to be the same as always - the people they talk to, they guilds they communicate with, the streamers they invite to HQ and the community and class reps are always the top of the tree players who's requirements from the game are very different from the vast bulk of players.It's like trying to write a tax code that is fair to everyone and only inviting billionaires to help write it - guess what the billionaires do quite well but even if they genuinely try to represent the non-billionaires they don't truly understand their experience and so make poor choices.

I don't know.
Parts of these notes have seen condemnation from several top-tier players. At other times, or some changes, maybe, but there are things in there that even the billionaires find ridiculously stupid.
In this case, it's more like writing the tax code for specifically to benefit the lumber industry while shafting everyone else in the process.
Lumber here being a subset of stamina PvP players.

I'd agree in general but as a player who tends to use stamina more than magicka in both PvE and PvP these changes are ugly for me too.

kylewwefan

The sky is falling peoples are straight delusional and severely out of touch with “normal” players.

When Gilliam joined, heavy hitters were in mid to upper 40k’s. 50k was hot titties around wolfhunter time. The dummy humpers keep getting more and more each patch.

It’s kind of out of hand now. These guys are around 100k DPS now, while average players are still struggling to get 20k. Some strive for 30k+ but it’s just not necessary.

No one is gonna notice these changes. Maybe a few builds have to change up a little, but we probably end up with more damage for everyone. Even though they just nerffed the daylights out of everything.

Just wait and see how it plays out. Looks fun.

Osubaker33

Amazing post OP and I couldn't agree more. As someone that falls in tier 2 these changes will make it impossible for my guilds to clear vet dlc trial content. We already struggle.

ZoS says their goal is to close the skill gap but their actions seem like they are catering to the top 1% instead.

Varana

Tavore1138 wrote: »

I'd agree in general but as a player who tends to use stamina more than magicka in both PvE and PvP these changes are ugly for me too.

That's why I wrote "a subset of". Not all of them.

kylewwefan wrote: »

These guys are around 100k DPS now...

You do realise that those infamous 100k parses come from the new iron atro target dummy that give people all the buffs and all the synergies all the time, right? And that the numbers on these dummies have absolutely nothing to do with old-style self-buffed parses?

Hashtag_

Am I the only one that feels like there should be a wide skill gap in games? Not everyone needs a trophy.

IonicKai

Hashtag_ wrote: »

Am I the only one that feels like there should be a wide skill gap in games? Not everyone needs a trophy.

There is already a massive skill gap but it is going to grow to a point where the game likely won't be fun for most players. People don't like being pushed backwards because of a series of nerfs when they have put in a lot of work to get where they are now.