Additional Context on U23 Combat Changes

mobicera

Did you even think about the average player with regards to these changes?
Some of us are still progressing through vet dlc trials, not everyone can clear with the speed and ease of Hodor.
What these changes will do is flat out kill progression runs.
This is morrowind all over again a good deal of my friends are already set to just give up and leave and this is something I don't want to see:(
Please reconsider some of the drastic changes to skill mechanics that game mechanics have been balanced around.
Please pretty please don't kill progressions

Dalsinthus

I wish they would disclose the standards that they keep referencing and are ostensibly balancing around. I also wish that they would standardize around the current game as it is rather than having to rebalance content at some point in the future to these new standards. This game is huge and the fixes may never come.

Honestly I wish we could go back to the pre Nerfmire days but that ship has sailed.

Trian94

@ZOS_BrianWheeler As a PvPer with experience, looking into the changes I can say that bleed damage needs another adjustment apart from respecting resistances. Maybe scaling with the target's hp is a good one. A good idea would be to have a range of max hp where bleeds will do normal damage but if you're lower than that they will do less (scaling down the less you have) and of you're above that they will do more damage (scaling up the more you have). Caps are needed of course and the numbers are yours to decide should you think this suggestion is worth implementing.
I think this change wouldn't cause an over-performance in pve but would cause bleed damage to be a counter to tanks and less effective Vs normal PvP builds that have an average of 26k hp or so.

TheNightflame

you have zero right to call any healer "gang" as if we stand by you cuz you're you through any change. you've ostracized our role.

akl77

Combat lead for eso is a pvp designer, I’m sorry but pvp and PVE and trials are very different things, is that why all the changes seems to accommodate pvp combat balances.
Also, if orbs can be synergised by multiple people and not dissolve, shards should acts the same for fairness in terms of resources provision.

Amdar_Godkiller

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Heyo gang!

We wanted to quickly provide some additional context for many of the combat changes in this update so that everyone has a better idea of our goals.

In Update 23 our main focus was to ensure there was an ultimate point of reference for abilities to properly match up against one another in their respective categories. This provides us with a solid baseline, where all abilities fit within a set of standards/power levels and allows future balancing passes to be much easier and timely.

We're aware that some content has been designed around old functionality of abilities that existed beyond our standards and might need some sort of compromise in regards to how you engage with it and/or how we balance it. This is something we will be watching closely, however we are not averse to the idea that players might need to adjust their current builds such as running more defensive Ultimates rather than offensive ones, or running more survival enhancing sets, rather than pure damage or buff oriented ones. Please also remember that we've introduced some new abilities to help offset the loss of things such as Healing Springs stacking, with abilities like Ring of Preservation, or the large increase to Cleansing Ritual.

As always, we will be monitoring feedback about all the balance changes during this PTS cycle, however we wanted to let everyone know that in a future PTS patch, the synergy from Orbs will not cause the Orb to vanish and can be activated multiple times by anyone not on synergy cool down.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

This is another in a long line of patches that have nerfed Werewolf massively. It's not like its been overperforming in PVP, its a build choice that requires sacrifice and now the trade off you receive is just no where near worth it. Short of turning it into a toggle, these changes can't really be made with the expectation that WWs will remain competitive in PVP.

Last update's changes to the bleed refresh already reduced the effective light attack damage of PVP wolves, since that bleed refresh gave us a solid 2K tick of damage on top of our light attacks that wasn't reduced by resistances.


Now it is reduced by resistances and doesn't tick for the first second and requires 5 seconds to refresh, and you are further reducing WW light attacks, which are already the weakest light attack in the game for some reason. Then you're nerfing our heal by 20% and nerfing our other DOT, and another attack, as well as increasing some costs.


Why?

If you did this to sorc or nightblade, you'd face so much QQ that you'd have to give them all free access to major vulnerability or major protection to quiet them down, but from wolves you'll get a dead class because we are already underrepresented. Come on, Man! Give us something! Give a dog a bone!

Drako_Ei

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

[Quoted post has been removed.]

Why is that dumb lmao.

Is doing anything other than going 100% pure dmg really so stupid to you? Have some dd's slot a aoe heal?, have some slot some type of defensive ult for heal checks? A permafrost would be very useful with its aoe protection.

Anti-fun = not hitting 100k dps anymore?

Less DPS mean more time in the mechanic that less healing can't heal through. I am neither for or against changes until numbers but that's what I am seeing as a possible outcome.

Less dps means you can't burn bosses past mechanics and will have to do them.

If you slot more healing then you can heal it, this is a counter to power creep and overhealing carrying people and its a good change. You'll need less healing if you aren't all 18k hp glass cannons, even just swapping pure dmg ults in certain situations for a DD to instead use something like nova or perma for 30% dmg reduction will make it possible.

18k? I run 14k hp... and i only lost 3k dps so i will still skip mechanics, good luck with your 30k hp healer dps hybrid

Dusk_Coven

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

This is something we will be watching closely, however we are not averse to the idea that players might need to adjust their current builds

Any chance we'll get a few Skill Respecification Scrolls when the update goes live?
To ensure no one gets left out when it's delivered (sometimes mailboxes get full and people will freak out when they don't see the mail), maybe it could be put in the Crafting Bag. Yes, it's not a material, but that Bag has unlimited space...

VoRaVeLi

Heyo gang!
( What a unprofessional goofy intro to try to disarm your fan base and act like we're all friends here )

We wanted to quickly provide some additional context for many of the combat changes in this update so that everyone has a better idea of our goals.
( We want to stop people from quitting the game in large numbers )

In Update 23 our main focus was to ensure there was an ultimate point of reference for abilities to properly match up against one another in their respective categories. This provides us with a solid baseline, where all abilities fit within a set of standards/power levels and allows future balancing passes to be much easier and timely.
( We really don't know what we're doing but Gilliam is giving us all the advice he can about how he thinks NB should be and we are doing our best to tailor NB to Gilliams EXACT specifications in a patch that was centered around the release of a new class don't worry we will get incap right one of these days. )

We're aware that some content has been designed around old functionality of abilities that existed beyond our standards and might need some sort of compromise in regards to how you engage with it and/or how we balance it. This is something we will be watching closely, however we are not averse to the idea that players might need to adjust their current builds such as running more defensive Ultimates rather than offensive ones, or running more survival enhancing sets, rather than pure damage or buff oriented ones. Please also remember that we've introduced some new abilities to help offset the loss of things such as Healing Springs stacking, with abilities like Ring of Preservation, or the large increase to Cleansing Ritual.
( We literally have no idea what we're doing that's why we add things like Major Vulnerability that isn't needed at all and then we go and nerf class skills to try to fix the ridiculous DPS increase we added. Like literally we have no idea what we're doing give us a break here )

As always, we will be monitoring feedback about all the balance changes during this PTS cycle, however we wanted to let everyone know that in a future PTS patch, the synergy from Orbs will not cause the Orb to vanish and can be activated multiple times by anyone not on synergy cool down.
( We came up with a really dumb idea but we're gonna find a way to implement it anyways )

kypranb14_ESO

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Heyo gang!

We wanted to quickly provide some additional context for many of the combat changes in this update so that everyone has a better idea of our goals.

In Update 23 our main focus was to ensure there was an ultimate point of reference for abilities to properly match up against one another in their respective categories. This provides us with a solid baseline, where all abilities fit within a set of standards/power levels and allows future balancing passes to be much easier and timely.

We're aware that some content has been designed around old functionality of abilities that existed beyond our standards and might need some sort of compromise in regards to how you engage with it and/or how we balance it. This is something we will be watching closely, however we are not averse to the idea that players might need to adjust their current builds such as running more defensive Ultimates rather than offensive ones, or running more survival enhancing sets, rather than pure damage or buff oriented ones. Please also remember that we've introduced some new abilities to help offset the loss of things such as Healing Springs stacking, with abilities like Ring of Preservation, or the large increase to Cleansing Ritual.

As always, we will be monitoring feedback about all the balance changes during this PTS cycle, however we wanted to let everyone know that in a future PTS patch, the synergy from Orbs will not cause the Orb to vanish and can be activated multiple times by anyone not on synergy cool down.

Oh look, I guessed right!

For reference:

kypranb14_ESO wrote: »

From a PVP-Battlegrounds perspective, and from a Veteran Hard Mode Dungeon perspective, these changes look excellent.

I can't speak from a trial perspective, as I've only done a few normal trials.

I was thinking though, if the springs changes alone could be so game changing for trial-goers, do you think that maybe springs was over-tuned to begin with?

Let'a use our heads for a moment here without getting heated. If not being able to stack healing springs would make certain trials impossible, what if these changes are designed for force endgame trial-goers to stack more resistance, in turn lowering DPS?

Just thinking out loud here, I don't even know if the "Heal-check" damage can be mitigated.

tyggerbob

leeux

Balancing by removing player capabilities, or making players less powerful never works in online games... it always leads to players leaving and the game dying, or being kept on artificial support until it dies.

Sad to see ZOS take this route myself... I'm not saying that the changes are inherently bad, it's just the way they're done... you always have choices on how to go about things, and IMO this is the wrong one at this particular stage in the game, after 2 consecutive patches (Morrowind, Murkmire) were people left due to unpopular changes... every time it happens, it takes less resistance to break a player.

I personally don't care anymore... I already cancelled my subscription and probably won't be coming back this time, it's just past beyond the line I'd consider acceptable.

BennyButton

@ZOS_BrianWheeler these changes are great! You're ensuring that everyone who wants to remain relevant buys elsweyr for necromancer, reducing the number of support in a trial guild, since stamcros with vigor will take the place of a dedicated healer.

this is REALLY balanced!

UrQuan

@ZOS_BrianWheeler if you'd really like to give us additional context on the combat changes, I suggest you do a proper show and tell. I've already gone into some detail of what I'd like to see here:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/483957/request-devs-vet-trials-on-pts-livestream#latest
Basically, get the best players at ZOS together (if you don't have enough people to put together a full trials team capable of clearing content like vCR+3 or vHoF hard mode, etc, then invite some players from top raiding guilds to fill in and help direct them with how to set up their builds), and show us how you guys approach some of the hardest PVE content in the game with these changes. Show us how you envision builds changing for people to be able to clear this content, talk about the things that have been adjusted and how you can compensate.

A lot of people (including a lot of top raiders) have indicated that they're very concerned about what these changes mean for some of the hardest trials, so if you can do a livestream of you clearing these trials on the PTS it would go a long way towards alleviating those concerns, while also showing us the types of things that you envision players doing to compensate for things like the massive healing changes.

Perhaps you have ideas for what can be done to get past these trial mechanics that people just now seeing the patch notes, and just now starting to experiment on PTS haven't thought of yet, and if so we'd like to see those things as soon as possible so that we can then take that away and start doing our own testing. Then we'll be able to give much better and more directed feedback.

Morgul667

Please fix the performance issue

Eraldus

I just wish this board had a Barf reaction, just so I could express my disgust over this patch.

What is the logic in adding more opportunities for the player, by buffing weaker skills, while killing others in the process? For the sake of simply changing the game, while trying to make it look like you made things more "balanced"?

Have fun chasing your own tail around, while the players will always keep finding new meta builds, only for you to go back and change everything you done in this patch on the next, because you heard a lot of people crying that players are only using XYZ skills on PVP and because they don't know how to play their toons, so they blame their lack of skill on others... Have fun changing stuff just for the sake of changing and never getting it up to your "standards".

I wonder if you ever played any previous TES game to begin with... If you did, then perhaps you'll understand why people are complaining about how balance is being held in this game.

ThePainGuy

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Some good changes with the patch notes and some other changes that remain to be seen how they play out. Some passives (combustion) have been improved in the patch. Can the combat team take a look at "improved sneak" in medium armor skill line. currently lackluster in PVE and PVP combat content. Thanks.

Daedric_NB_187

John Smedley? Nancy McIntyre? Is that you?

BlissfulDeluge

I am still concerned about and firmly against the changes to Healing Springs and their impact on trials and dungeons, but... honestly, as far Necrotic Orb goes? This is a lowkey buff, and I'm Hella excited to see it!

From the sounds of it;

• A single orb can be synergized an infinite amount of times by players, so long as they're not on cooldown for orbs or shards. No more fighting over orbs with tanks and deeps!

• Healers' resources will be easier to manage, since healers will only need to send one orb in the groups' direction to prebuff the group for sets like Lokkestiiz, Alkosh, etc. They also won't have to spam the orbs midfight.

• Orbs float more slowly, which makes activating them less of a hassle. If an orb floats too far, a healer can just refresh it. No more need to chase after them!

This is honestly amazing, and much less bleak than the first proposed change. It's better, even.

CP5

In my opinion orb speed is fine on live, reducing the speed makes it a chore to get orbs to the group when kite healing and getting orbs to people far away, like the off tank, as a non-templar is insane.

Stormitor

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Heyo gang!

We wanted to quickly provide some additional context for many of the combat changes in this update so that everyone has a better idea of our goals.

In Update 23 our main focus was to ensure there was an ultimate point of reference for abilities to properly match up against one another in their respective categories. This provides us with a solid baseline, where all abilities fit within a set of standards/power levels and allows future balancing passes to be much easier and timely.

We're aware that some content has been designed around old functionality of abilities that existed beyond our standards and might need some sort of compromise in regards to how you engage with it and/or how we balance it. This is something we will be watching closely, however we are not averse to the idea that players might need to adjust their current builds such as running more defensive Ultimates rather than offensive ones, or running more survival enhancing sets, rather than pure damage or buff oriented ones. Please also remember that we've introduced some new abilities to help offset the loss of things such as Healing Springs stacking, with abilities like Ring of Preservation, or the large increase to Cleansing Ritual.

As always, we will be monitoring feedback about all the balance changes during this PTS cycle, however we wanted to let everyone know that in a future PTS patch, the synergy from Orbs will not cause the Orb to vanish and can be activated multiple times by anyone not on synergy cool down.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler
For 30 min I was ok with this, but then after giving it some thoughts, some stuff I wil lassume since we don't have details about it. It works for sustain in PvE, combustion heals would have had nice coordination to it, but then I went on to the damage morph, damage combustion will add 200k+ AoE damage in a stack for example of 10 mobs. and then my thouths went to PvP, a good coordinated group will have better healing than before the change on orbs and springs cause of combustion, and then again damage orbs it is like having a free detonation on everyone except this one is instant. and after those thoughts my mind went to HARMONY ON JEWERLY. Myabe, just maybe give this another thought. Ofc this is assuming orbs work as they work.

Nepenthe

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

My huge concern with the Grand Healing / Orbs changes is how they impact people with disabilities, like my wife. She has a coordinational disorder and isn't able to execute dps rotations, and has found her way to participate in the game as a healer because she's able to perform multiple repetitive actions: stacking Grand Healing, and throwing multiple orbs at once. She is able to also cast some of the other abilities to keep the group buffed, but she feels that this update will make her NEED to quit the game because it will have simply become inaccessible to her. ESO brings a lot of happiness to her because she is housebound and experiences chronic pain.
ESO lets her escape and feel more normal. Pleasee think of ALL of the people who play your game. Not just the able-bodied ones.

Suddwrath

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Please also remember that we've introduced some new abilities to help offset the loss of things such as Healing Springs stacking, with abilities like Ring of Preservation, or the large increase to Cleansing Ritual.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_RobGarrett
I'm having a very difficult time believing the changes made to Healing Springs and Orbs are about "consistency". Can you please be honest with us? If these changes were truly about finding consistency and some sort of standardization of abilities/items, then explain the Master's Restoration Staff. The Master's staff is an item that has been farmed by most end-game healers, and isn't exactly a walk in the park to unlock (especially for those who acquired theirs back in the VR days). With the changes made to Healing Springs the Master's Restoration Staff has now become obsolete.

Now, you could argue that it was an oversight and the Master's Restoration Staff will be adjusted at some point in the future to compensate. However, if that is the case and it was truly due to oversight, I would argue that is proof that you are not even aware of how drastic these new changes are. If you couldn't account for one of the most commonly used arena weapons then it is no surprise that you wouldn't consider other significant impacts these changes would have in the game.

MehrunesFlagon

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

[Quoted post has been removed.]

Why is that dumb lmao.

Is doing anything other than going 100% pure dmg really so stupid to you? Have some dd's slot a aoe heal?, have some slot some type of defensive ult for heal checks? A permafrost would be very useful with its aoe protection.

Anti-fun = not hitting 100k dps anymore?

Less DPS mean more time in the mechanic that less healing can't heal through. I am neither for or against changes until numbers but that's what I am seeing as a possible outcome.

Less dps means you can't burn bosses past mechanics and will have to do them.

If you slot more healing then you can heal it, this is a counter to power creep and overhealing carrying people and its a good change. You'll need less healing if you aren't all 18k hp glass cannons, even just swapping pure dmg ults in certain situations for a DD to instead use something like nova or perma for 30% dmg reduction will make it possible.

So the goal is to ruin any build we actually like using.

MehrunesFlagon

forthwinds wrote: »

You're telling us to wear more defensive sets but at the same time set the speedrun for Sunspire at 30 minutes which requires class stacking stamnecros in glass cannon builds. Even then only 1 group has done a HM run in the allotted speed run time 4 months after release... these changes have to be a joke right?

Obviously clueless about pve.

SirAndy

mobicera wrote: »

Did you even think about the average player with regards to these changes?
Some of us are still progressing through vet dlc trials, not everyone can clear with the speed and ease of Hodor.
What these changes will do is flat out kill progression runs.

I've said it before and i'll say it again, you can NOT balance your game around the top 1%.

The top raiding guilds have probably already found a way to turn this whole mess into a buff.
And meanwhile the majority of your player base is left wondering wtf just happened to the game.

CipherNine

It is obviously apparent that Brian Wheeler only cares about PVP. This entire patch is a big F U to us PvEers. Especially us healers that you clearly don't want as a role.

Im sick and tired of an Elder Scrolls game that is being balanced and catered entirely to the PVP players. But go ahead and just keep ruining PvE. let the all the PvE'ers keep leaving and see where that leaves you. Hope the minority that is the PvP part of the game is enough for ZOS to feel like ESO is worth to keep it going.

MehrunesFlagon

Trian94 wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler As a PvPer with experience, looking into the changes I can say that bleed damage needs another adjustment apart from respecting resistances. Maybe scaling with the target's hp is a good one. A good idea would be to have a range of max hp where bleeds will do normal damage but if you're lower than that they will do less (scaling down the less you have) and of you're above that they will do more damage (scaling up the more you have). Caps are needed of course and the numbers are yours to decide should you think this suggestion is worth implementing.
I think this change wouldn't cause an over-performance in pve but would cause bleed damage to be a counter to tanks and less effective Vs normal PvP builds that have an average of 26k hp or so.

Well obviously no need to listen to you then.

uFuqinwitme

In Update 23 our main focus was to ensure there was an ultimate point of reference for abilities to properly match up against one another in their respective categories. This provides us with a solid baseline, where all abilities fit within a set of standards/power levels and allows future balancing passes to be much easier and timely.

You used a similar point of reference for the racials pass...and then you gave Wood Elves a stealth detection passive. Is that your point of reference? Because that would actually make sense.

#universalapplicability am I right?

Dojohoda

(Removed comment) I might ask later or in another thread.