ESO updates: Total misunderstanding

LoreToo

So after reading netch potes, 15ish discords, 3 forums i have (and i guess 90% of players) only 1 question: "Why you keep doing this changes?".
Of course all of us understand main concept of each single change, like "you can only have 1 ord same as 1 spear" "healing springs is OP, need to nerf it" ect.
But
Why do you realise so different changes? First, you nerf snipe, now you buff it, you buff sheilds now you nerf it, you tried to decrease DPS, now you buff it ....and more and more. All this changes are too far away from each other every 2-3 month.
They are not bad, they are what they are, all high-end players will adapt easily to every buff/nerf.
But the main problem: I (and so many ppl) dont see any clear path in that patches. Do you want to make PvE harder? Or easier? Do you want to increase overall DPS or decrease it? You want ppl play sorc/nb/dk/stam/mag/whatever in PvE or PvP as dd/tank/heal? Ect....
We need some clear conception of what you are going to do like "ok, for the next year we will make: 1)dps changes(decrease) 2)nerf magsorcs 3) change meta from stam to mag dps (slowly)........
Ppl realy disappointed about all those changes without any comments

idk

Zos has an issue with not thinking things through and it has had a profound effect on the game. CP, as it was first added to the game and even how it is now, is one great example.

But first, the changes to skills where they make a change and seemingly reverse is not isolated to what you mention. The Templar javelin knockback was buffed and Zos gave a compelling reason for it. However, less than a year later the knockback was removed from the stam morph. Since most stam are melee it makes sense they are not knocking their targets away from them. But why was this not done in the first place? Do they not understand basic fundamentals of combat?

As for CP. That was launched without an artificial cap. Zos specifically stated they expected the average player to reach the full 3600 CP in less than 2 years time.

We told them on the related PTS where we were able to test the full 3600 CP it was incredibly overpowered. Yet they launched it that way because they did not listen and do not understand gaming fundamentals. We all know they ate crow and adjusted it after they realized we were right and they were wrong.

I chalk most of this up to Matt being over his head and not having a good grasp of how to manage the team and company. This has nothing to do with the money side of things, but the ability to make sound decisions and lead the team. I have though it was the same reason this game launched in such shambles and why GF is still broken after 2 years. He is not able to make the tough calls and set priorities properly.

darkblue5

Oh no skills barely changed by a couple percent what a scandal

leik iff u cri evrytmie

KerinKor

LoreToo wrote: »

So after reading netch potes, 15ish discords, 3 forums i have (and i guess 90% of players) only 1 question: "Why you keep doing this changes?".

Simplee answer: Endless moaning about 'OPness' from PVPers.

Seriously, if you look back at most of the large-scale changes they've ALL been attempts to lolbalance PVP .. which no MMO has ever done as far as I know .. by nerfing to Oblivion skill after another, to the huge detriment of the PVE game: prime example being removal of CC such as stuns from Shards, nerfing to the grouund of Rune Cage, etc.

Very, very few 'balance' changes have been driven by PVE considerations .. this game would be hugely better off without PVP.

LoreToo

darkblue5 wrote: »

Oh no skills barely changed by a couple percent what a scandal

leik iff u cri evrytmie

It is not about how you change skills. Devs can do whatever they want, like stamdesto ult ot mag voley or res ult on NB, its ok to change smth. It is about "why you did this?". They are talking about easy trial content, but still increase dps cause of changes. Trying to fix thus dps-killing pvp. Fixing pvp-killing something in PvE ect. This changes is unpredictable and confuse ppl

Turelus

From what I understood they were taking some heavy swings at things this year (and going forward) to rebuild the base levels of things, however without context of final vision some of the changes seem radical and out of nowhere without any reason.

Bealeb319

darkblue5 wrote: »

Oh no skills barely changed by a couple percent what a scandal

leik iff u cri evrytmie

30 percent changes are not a couple percent and when you decrease damage by 30 percent than increase cost it makes a difference. The problem is that the changes they are making are focused on a few players who are very good at the game, the changes won't effect those players because they will find other ways to be very good. These changes though will hurt the non elite players who pretend they are good at the game just wait till you have to wait 40 minutes for a dungeon que to find out your healer is a sorc of really any non templar.

KerinKor

Prime example of what I'm talking about is this 'dev' comment about the nerf to Dawn's Wrath:

The previous iteration of Eclipse was originally meant to be a tool to disincentivize your target from continuously attacking, and instead back off or remove the effect. Due to the effect being able to be removed through CC break, it lead to very binary performance situations. This new functionality is meant to retain the idea to punish the target from continuously attacking, but with less polarizing gameplay elements for both sides. We also wanted the ability to be used in both PvE and PvP, so we've removed the pseudo crowd control element it once operated from.

Clearly stating they're killing a fun and useful PVE ability to pander to PVPers .. obviously mobs can't be made to have less polarizing gameplay", their AI determines that!

This kind of thinking permeates many of the 'dev' comments, all to the detriment of the PVE side of the game. Unlike some developers, ZOS appear incapable of making the code PVP/PVE dependent, they simply nerf anything that affects PVP without any thought for how it negatively affect PVE.

LoreToo

KerinKor wrote: »

Prime example of what I'm talking about is this 'dev' comment about the nerf to Dawn's Wrath:

The previous iteration of Eclipse was originally meant to be a tool to disincentivize your target from continuously attacking, and instead back off or remove the effect. Due to the effect being able to be removed through CC break, it lead to very binary performance situations. This new functionality is meant to retain the idea to punish the target from continuously attacking, but with less polarizing gameplay elements for both sides. We also wanted the ability to be used in both PvE and PvP, so we've removed the pseudo crowd control element it once operated from.

Clearly stating they're killing a fun and useful PVE ability to pander to PVPers .. obviously mobs can't be made to have less polarizing gameplay", their AI determines that!

This kind of thinking permeates many of the 'dev' comments, all to the detriment of the PVE side of the game. Unlike some developers, ZOS appear incapable of making the code PVP/PVE dependent, they simply nerf anything that affects PVP without any thought for how it negatively affect PVE.

As a PvP player i cant agree with you, simply because there were same buffs/nerfs in pve, that effected pvp(as example-templar beam dmg increase, sorcs emplosion rework, cap of mobs/players that you can damage, DKs fire breath ect, i can count more). And yes, i know what am talking about, cause raid pve a lot in year 1-3. The problem still in "fix one-> broke another" circle.

idk

Turelus wrote: »

From what I understood they were taking some heavy swings at things this year (and going forward) to rebuild the base levels of things, however without context of final vision some of the changes seem radical and out of nowhere without any reason.

I would expect heavy changes based on what they said last year and I am pretty sure I get less information that you do.

The link below is where Rob says they are "codifying our vision and long-term strategy for combat." What we are seeing now is the implementation of that. If they actually did a good job and thought all this through then we should see less heavy handed changes with each update as we have for years now.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/445615/combat-update-in-u21-a-new-approach/p1

This is something a good manager, president of Zos, should have done before the game launched. Not 5 years later. We can all hope they thought things through for a change.

Alienoutlaw

Turelus wrote: »

From what I understood they were taking some heavy swings at things this year (and going forward) to rebuild the base levels of things, however without context of final vision some of the changes seem radical and out of nowhere without any reason.

so to say that these changes harsh as they seem now will be balanced with a new "CP" model would not be to far of the mark?

LoreToo

Turelus wrote: »

From what I understood they were taking some heavy swings at things this year (and going forward) to rebuild the base levels of things, however without context of final vision some of the changes seem radical and out of nowhere without any reason.

To make it clear: if devs have roadmap its good, but will be better to show it(or any part of it) to community. Cause now it looks like they are trying to fix random things out of box

AcadianPaladin

Been playing for awhile now (8 chars ~CP1200) as primarily a solo PvE player. All I know is that it seems each and every patch seems to make my game less fun. Rather than look forward to updates/patches/new content I have learned to dread them.

I've had pretty much a gut full of 'evolving'. To me that typically means moving in directions I don't want to go. For example, a review of the proposed PTS patch changes and my healer first cut on my 'evolve' response is to change her from a healer with a bit of dps into a dps with a bit of class only heals (dump resto staff completely). She would go from a pug healer to a solo dps. Is that the kind of 'evolve and adapt' that is the 'objective/vision' here? My dps characters will 'evolve and adapt' by cutting a number of dungeons from the list of dungeons they are willing to enter. Previous patches have already 'evolved' me to totally ignore all DLC dungeons and all DLC WBs. My 'evolution' path is toward more and more solo only play, and my dungeon progression is moving toward delves instead of DLC dungeons.

Since each update seems to make my game less fun, I am concerned about the logical consequences of that; my ongoing search for a replacement game that is Single Player (no 'balance' drama) open world, massive scale, medieval fantasy rpg intensifies.

Rehdaun

LoreToo wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

From what I understood they were taking some heavy swings at things this year (and going forward) to rebuild the base levels of things, however without context of final vision some of the changes seem radical and out of nowhere without any reason.

To make it clear: if devs have roadmap its good, but will be better to show it(or any part of it) to community. Cause now it looks like they are trying to fix random things out of box

Totally agree here. Show us ZoS! I'm sure I'm not the only one who's frustrated with the sweeping changes each patch. It seems idiotic to have to either retool/regear each of my toons each patch or stop playing them because "Zos decides to kill a race/class/gear set/etc." Give us your vision so we can plan too!!! You're getting all this negative feedback because you aren't sharing. Do what we all were supposed to have learned in kindergarten Zos!!! Share!

luen79rwb17_ESO

Actually I'm getting tired of wondering what's the next set I need to gold because the meta changes every 3 months or so while the collection of useless gold sets is taking up most of my inventory or passing it to alts that are gimped with these useless sets and I'm out of resources to gold better sets for them.

Alienoutlaw

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Been playing for awhile now (8 chars ~CP1200) as primarily a solo PvE player. All I know is that it seems each and every patch seems to make my game less fun. Rather than look forward to updates/patches/new content I have learned to dread them.

I've had pretty much a gut full of 'evolving'. To me that typically means moving in directions I don't want to go. For example, a review of the proposed PTS patch changes and my healer first cut on my 'evolve' response is to change her from a healer with a bit of dps into a dps with a bit of class only heals (dump resto staff completely). She would go from a pug healer to a solo dps. Is that the kind of 'evolve and adapt' that is the 'objective/vision' here? My dps characters will 'evolve and adapt' by cutting a number of dungeons from the list of dungeons they are willing to enter. Previous patches have already 'evolved' me to totally ignore all DLC dungeons and all DLC WBs. My 'evolution' path is toward more and more solo only play, and my dungeon progression is moving toward delves instead of DLC dungeons.

Since each update seems to make my game less fun, I am concerned about the logical consequences of that; my ongoing search for a replacement game that is Single Player (no 'balance' drama) open world, massive scale, medieval fantasy rpg intensifies.

Kingdom come is a very good option

anitajoneb17_ESO

Turelus wrote: »

From what I understood they were taking some heavy swings at things this year (and going forward) to rebuild the base levels of things, however without context of final vision some of the changes seem radical and out of nowhere without any reason.

I've never played any other online game but ESO and one of the motivation I had for trying ESO was to find out how a "neverending game" could work. It's clear to me that constant changing of combat system is just as part of the "neverending aspect" and player retention as expansions are.

How do other games deal with combat changes ? And how do their communities react to them ?

twev

LoreToo wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

From what I understood they were taking some heavy swings at things this year (and going forward) to rebuild the base levels of things, however without context of final vision some of the changes seem radical and out of nowhere without any reason.

To make it clear: if devs have roadmap its good, but will be better to show it(or any part of it) to community. Cause now it looks like they are trying to fix random things out of box

If they show us what the roadmap is regarding future nerfs/buffs, players will start collecting buff sets now.
The same reasoning behind why pre-Summerset jewelry wasn't allowed to be broken down for XP or mats.

Skills should have a PvE value, and a different PvP value, so they could balance outside Cyrodiil Vs inside Cyrodiil without penalizing either group of players.

idk

LoreToo wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

From what I understood they were taking some heavy swings at things this year (and going forward) to rebuild the base levels of things, however without context of final vision some of the changes seem radical and out of nowhere without any reason.

To make it clear: if devs have roadmap its good, but will be better to show it(or any part of it) to community. Cause now it looks like they are trying to fix random things out of box

The devs claimed they were essentially building a road map. A "vision" for combat they were "codifying" and that is essentially what they are implementing now.

I do agree it would be best for Zos to communicate to use better and give us a big picture but Zos tends to not be great at talking with us. Yes, they have said multiple times over the years they are working to improve on it but they fail at that pretty consistently. The do it half ass at best.

In the end Matt Firor is the person responsible and has the final say about informing us on such major issues. Clearly he does not find communication important.

WeerW3ir

ofc. they deleted my answer about the truth ;(

Morimizo

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Been playing for awhile now (8 chars ~CP1200) as primarily a solo PvE player. All I know is that it seems each and every patch seems to make my game less fun. Rather than look forward to updates/patches/new content I have learned to dread them.

I've had pretty much a gut full of 'evolving'. To me that typically means moving in directions I don't want to go. For example, a review of the proposed PTS patch changes and my healer first cut on my 'evolve' response is to change her from a healer with a bit of dps into a dps with a bit of class only heals (dump resto staff completely). She would go from a pug healer to a solo dps. Is that the kind of 'evolve and adapt' that is the 'objective/vision' here? My dps characters will 'evolve and adapt' by cutting a number of dungeons from the list of dungeons they are willing to enter. Previous patches have already 'evolved' me to totally ignore all DLC dungeons and all DLC WBs. My 'evolution' path is toward more and more solo only play, and my dungeon progression is moving toward delves instead of DLC dungeons.

Since each update seems to make my game less fun, I am concerned about the logical consequences of that; my ongoing search for a replacement game that is Single Player (no 'balance' drama) open world, massive scale, medieval fantasy rpg intensifies.

Agreed; I think the 'vision' is to actually create an 'Aging Simulator' for those who have been playing the longest, so instead of getting more effective in combat, we get clumsier and weaker so that in another few years our swords and staves become quite difficult to hold.

Perhaps they will add a 'Merchant Stall' skill line so we can retire to the village or town of our choice and sell common repair kits, lockpicks, and substandard healing potions. .....As long as we get to choose the requisite repetitive three greeting text lines, I'm all in!!

jainiadral

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Been playing for awhile now (8 chars ~CP1200) as primarily a solo PvE player. All I know is that it seems each and every patch seems to make my game less fun. Rather than look forward to updates/patches/new content I have learned to dread them.

I've had pretty much a gut full of 'evolving'. To me that typically means moving in directions I don't want to go. For example, a review of the proposed PTS patch changes and my healer first cut on my 'evolve' response is to change her from a healer with a bit of dps into a dps with a bit of class only heals (dump resto staff completely). She would go from a pug healer to a solo dps. Is that the kind of 'evolve and adapt' that is the 'objective/vision' here? My dps characters will 'evolve and adapt' by cutting a number of dungeons from the list of dungeons they are willing to enter. Previous patches have already 'evolved' me to totally ignore all DLC dungeons and all DLC WBs. My 'evolution' path is toward more and more solo only play, and my dungeon progression is moving toward delves instead of DLC dungeons.

Since each update seems to make my game less fun, I am concerned about the logical consequences of that; my ongoing search for a replacement game that is Single Player (no 'balance' drama) open world, massive scale, medieval fantasy rpg intensifies.

Sadly, ESO isn't the only game that's been suffering from fun nerfing. It seems to be happening across the board, in multiple games. The trend is toward forcing players into "new and shiny," whether it be content, classes, or grindy gearing systems. Usually, if something is too enjoyable, lucrative, or easily possible by a solo player, it's time for the Fun Police to strike

SWTOR with solo-unfriendly Galactic Command drove me to Secret World Legends, where the gear grind was semi-manageable 'til too many solo players got decent gear via the Tokyo shipping containers. Nuking that sent me back to GW2, where my first toon, a core bow ranger got flattened by the nerf hammer to encourage players to use the unfun elite specs, and my poor scourge got slowed down in PvE for PvP reasons. Too bad, because GW2 probably has my favorite MMO combat.

Despite a not-so-fun combat system, I've been enjoying myself here. Once you make it past CP 160, there are so many ways you can offset a lot of the kludge, annoyance, and clunkiness either with CP allocation or by easily crafting and upgrading sets the way you like them. A 40% nerf to lightning splash and my pets is going to undo every offset I've made to my sorc. When other classes annoy me, I hop back to her because she's relaxing and fun to explore Tamriel with when I need some down time.

I'll probably survive this pass by the Fun Police, but the CP stuff that's being hinted at might be the end for me in this game.

MehrunesFlagon

KerinKor wrote: »

LoreToo wrote: »

So after reading netch potes, 15ish discords, 3 forums i have (and i guess 90% of players) only 1 question: "Why you keep doing this changes?".

Simplee answer: Endless moaning about 'OPness' from PVPers.

Seriously, if you look back at most of the large-scale changes they've ALL been attempts to lolbalance PVP .. which no MMO has ever done as far as I know .. by nerfing to Oblivion skill after another, to the huge detriment of the PVE game: prime example being removal of CC such as stuns from Shards, nerfing to the grouund of Rune Cage, etc.

Very, very few 'balance' changes have been driven by PVE considerations .. this game would be hugely better off without PVP.

Honestly for pve the removal of the stun on shards was more beneficial.

Eraldus

They just want to keep changing stuff periodically, in an attempt to make the game look "fresh" on the outside, while it's still raw on the inside.

As soon as the players will find the new meta, they will start complaining about it, and the cycle of tail chasing continues...

Braddec

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Been playing for awhile now (8 chars ~CP1200) as primarily a solo PvE player. All I know is that it seems each and every patch seems to make my game less fun. Rather than look forward to updates/patches/new content I have learned to dread them.

I've had pretty much a gut full of 'evolving'. To me that typically means moving in directions I don't want to go. For example, a review of the proposed PTS patch changes and my healer first cut on my 'evolve' response is to change her from a healer with a bit of dps into a dps with a bit of class only heals (dump resto staff completely). She would go from a pug healer to a solo dps. Is that the kind of 'evolve and adapt' that is the 'objective/vision' here? My dps characters will 'evolve and adapt' by cutting a number of dungeons from the list of dungeons they are willing to enter. Previous patches have already 'evolved' me to totally ignore all DLC dungeons and all DLC WBs. My 'evolution' path is toward more and more solo only play, and my dungeon progression is moving toward delves instead of DLC dungeons.

Since each update seems to make my game less fun, I am concerned about the logical consequences of that; my ongoing search for a replacement game that is Single Player (no 'balance' drama) open world, massive scale, medieval fantasy rpg intensifies.

As someone who plays every class (both magicka and stamina) it is very disheartening to have to relearn ("adapt") how to play multiple classes each patch. Especially as my play time has shrunk to an hour, maybe two, a night. It's not fun having characters I've invested in not be able to perform as they have in the past. It kills my desire to play.

OrdoHermetica

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

From what I understood they were taking some heavy swings at things this year (and going forward) to rebuild the base levels of things, however without context of final vision some of the changes seem radical and out of nowhere without any reason.

I've never played any other online game but ESO and one of the motivation I had for trying ESO was to find out how a "neverending game" could work. It's clear to me that constant changing of combat system is just as part of the "neverending aspect" and player retention as expansions are.

How do other games deal with combat changes ? And how do their communities react to them ?

Depends on the game, but the ones that do it well typically are very open and transparent with their communities (note: this is not the same thing as just doing whatever their community says) as they make iterative changes and gradual adjustments to the meta. Most of the updates and changes to said meta comes from new content, but because everything is built around a common idea, it's not a dramatic and disruptive change to the game when something new is introduced. Weekly developer diaries, frequent Q&As between developers and players, and other things of that nature are all usually pretty good indicators of a savvy online game.

Basically, consistent and reliable communication between the company and their players, clarity of purpose and intent when it comes to what the game should be and how the developers plan on getting there, and some level of developer accountability are signs of success in other online games.

Jaraal

The thing that bothers me most is the incremental slowing down of players ever since Nerfmire.

Summerset, and the introduction of Swift, was the high point for quick and efficient travel. But after a while they stated that players were having a hard time targeting other players in Cyrodiil (due to server lag, although they would never admit that), so they nerfed Swift, as well a speed potions and sets with Major Expedition. So basically, instead of figuring out how to make things run more smoothly on their end, they decided to just slow players down to compensate, and force us to create less calculations for them to process as a result.

Since then they are removing Major Expedition from skills, or cutting the duration drastically, to get us moving ever more slowly. With the new patch, they have finally broken the camel's back by knocking Rapids down to 8 seconds, from 30 seconds. And this will hurt people with small stamina pools (magicka users) the most, because there will be no way to spam Rapids every 8 seconds to get around without running out of stamina. So to get things moving in slow motion in PvP, they are collaterally hurting PvEers who are running around harvesting materials, trying to run through dungeons, and getting from point A to Point B while questing.

At what point will they just remove Major Expedition entirely from the game? They have proven time and time again that they don't know how to reduce the server lag, so with the continuous introduction of more players, not to mention more and more data intensive particle effects (shiny crown store mounts, pets, and items), it's going to come down to that.

OmniDo

I thought I would never say this, but I miss Elitist Jerks from my WoW days. Those folks used to invest enormous amounts of time with math, spreadsheets, and college level analysis of Blizzards game mechanics, much to the constant embarrassment of the developers. Always proving them wrong, incompetent, or inept, simply by doing the science and calling them on their BS.
Eventually, the developers had no choice but to admit their "oversight" and adjust their game accordingly.
A pity ESO has no equivalent within it's community.

KoultouraS

OmniDo wrote: »

I thought I would never say this, but I miss Elitist Jerks from my WoW days. Those folks used to invest enormous amounts of time with math, spreadsheets, and college level analysis of Blizzards game mechanics, much to the constant embarrassment of the developers. Always proving them wrong, incompetent, or inept, simply by doing the science and calling then on their BS.
Eventually, the developers had no choice but to admit their "oversight" and adjust their game accordingly.
A pity ESO has no equivalent within it's community.

Eso has an equivalent within it's community though . The thing is that they are never heard, or rather frequently they are censored.

max_only

KoultouraS wrote: »

OmniDo wrote: »

I thought I would never say this, but I miss Elitist Jerks from my WoW days. Those folks used to invest enormous amounts of time with math, spreadsheets, and college level analysis of Blizzards game mechanics, much to the constant embarrassment of the developers. Always proving them wrong, incompetent, or inept, simply by doing the science and calling then on their BS.
Eventually, the developers had no choice but to admit their "oversight" and adjust their game accordingly.
A pity ESO has no equivalent within it's community.

Eso has an equivalent within it's community though . The thing is that they are never heard, or rather frequently they are censored.

Or they are hired and assimilated.

KoultouraS

max_only wrote: »

KoultouraS wrote: »

OmniDo wrote: »

I thought I would never say this, but I miss Elitist Jerks from my WoW days. Those folks used to invest enormous amounts of time with math, spreadsheets, and college level analysis of Blizzards game mechanics, much to the constant embarrassment of the developers. Always proving them wrong, incompetent, or inept, simply by doing the science and calling then on their BS.
Eventually, the developers had no choice but to admit their "oversight" and adjust their game accordingly.
A pity ESO has no equivalent within it's community.

Eso has an equivalent within it's community though . The thing is that they are never heard, or rather frequently they are censored.

Or they are hired and assimilated.

OH yeah that too