Additional Context on U23 Combat Changes

Razorback174

Are you people actually surprised with all of this? The writing's been on the wall since the racial gutting rebalance pass that gave us PvP only passives like Hunter's Eye and Spell Recharge (and totally spitting on decades of established lore in the process).

This is what happens when the PvP developer becomes the lead combat developer for the entire game.

PvE gameplay be damned...

rsantijw13

How about you fix guild banking so i dont spend 2+hours a day depositing or withdrawing? I am not kidding about the amount of time. Thats roughly what it takes for me to deposit and with draw the 2000 or so every day. Wheres that fix? Wheres that quality of life. For me combat can take a back seat to that since when thats fixed I actually would have more time for it.

MehrunesFlagon

Razorback174 wrote: »

Are you people actually surprised with all of this? The writing's been on the wall since the racial gutting rebalance pass that gave us PvP only passives like Hunter's Eye and Spell Recharge (and totally spitting on decades of established lore in the process).

This is what happens when the PvP developer becomes the lead combat developer for the entire game.

PvE gameplay be damned...

I'm not surprised at all.Still it's disheartening.

Eraldus

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

I doubt I'll get a reply from you, so I'll just leave this for you, and YOU ALONE to think about, because I'm too tired of debating this over and over:

Was the SnB extreme nerf really warranted? Was this skill line really as broken as some people are making it look like? Because I certainly don't feel like it was... Tanks already have average damage for solo PVE gameplay, and this heavy nerf will just make people want to use other weapons for PVE, basically killing much of the diversity TES series is known to provide.

In regards of Puncture, I could agree on it getting a damage reduction, due to its physical resistance debuff, but 37% reduction? That's a bit too much imo.

Low Slash also got hit pretty hard, but you gave Deep Slash a better AOE... The question is why didn't you just reduced the damage of the Deep Slash morph alone, since it's now a decent AOE, so it would make sense that it deal reduced damage? By nerfing the damage on the base skill, you made Deep Slash pretty much a sure pick for most, if not all PVE builds, while Heroic Slash being hardly useful at all, because not only this morph also got its damage reduced, it only hits a single target... As PVE player, I see no reason to ever bother with Heroic Slash now, because Deep Slash feel like the better skill in every way.

It's nice that you gave Power Bash some love, but now you also made so that tanks that wants to deal any damage MUST pick this skill, or else they might as well just hold guard and let enemies lynch them up...

Some of the changes you made to SnB look good, but some also look pretty weird... You seem to be focusing way too much into the PVP aspect of the game, which is only made up from a fraction of your playerbase, and yet you decided to balance SnB in a way that will screw people that enjoys playing SnB solo like myself, and I'm sure that there should a better way to deal with this SnB balancing, other than gutting it for both PVP and PVE.

BringerOfOmens

This sounds like these across the board changes more in the mindset of pvp and trying to level the playing field by all abilities being equal to each other. Was there any consideration given to the complimentary skills needed in actual group content for pve?

I seriously hope you guys scrap all of these combat changes and go back to the drawing board. This level of change will effectively require you to re-assess all of your pve content and readjust it; not to mention all the associated challenge achievements.

This is the single largest game upsetting nerf bat I have seen in over 30 years of gaming. Well done on that score I suppose.

SirLeeMinion

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

... As always, we will be monitoring feedback about all the balance changes during this PTS cycle...

LOL

Back when I created this account, I believed it. In fact, I even naively tested stuff and expressed concerns. But that trust was squandered long ago. This game has glaring performance issues and the gang are spending their time nerfing things across the board rather than fixing game ruining bugs.

As always, I'll be monitoring the game and be back when you stop focusing on shaking things up just 'cause you can and start looking beyond the top 1% of players.

P.S. Gratz on delaying this nonsense until after Elsewyr - you got $US 40 from me that you wouldn't have if this nonsense had dropped then as opposed to coming now with the Gamebreaker release.

Turelus

Thanks, context helps a lot.

Any chance of the community getting to see some examples of the end game plan or base lines?

Trancestor

Man poor Wrobel he was actually the good guy compared to this dood we have now

red_emu

I am glad I do not really play PvE content. I would never fit into the DPS requirement brackets for most Trial runs. Now you've made it clear to me. You're not an elite player with the BiS gear, you can't play PvE content. Thanks guys for clearing things up. I'm too trash at this game to be able to play it.

Oh and thanks for not buffing mag Necro and nerfing the only stun available to the class. Now I can go ahead and delete the character. Good job.

Also, thank you for nerfing MagDK. Your high risk-high reward melle Magica combat style that MagDKs are supposed to be is now high risk-no reward-death recap combat style. I can go ahead and delete this character too.

Thank you for yet another patch of Warden getting gutted. He's been wearing no gear and taking up a slot, so I guess I can delete that one too.

Time to get my StamSorc dusted off and spam dizzy swing with eyes closed.

Can you please tell me which class and what spec you want me to play? This game is no longer play-as-you-like but I would like to still enjoy it. Please tell me how and what to play now.

Deathlord92

Gina all I ask for is a hot when I hit someone with concealed weapon please and movement speed full time 😎

master_vanargand

Why are you crying even though update is enjoy and exciting?
Crybaby want to no change forever.
But the stagnation is a silly idea, and it kill MMO.
MMO is the ever changing game.
Adapt if you are the MMO player.

MehrunesFlagon

Trancestor wrote: »

Man poor Wrobel he was actually the good guy compared to this dood we have now

Some Wrobel would be really good right about now.

Valencer

So many gems in here.

"We might need to rebalance existing content. idk lol"
"Use more defensive ultis if healing is a problem"

Very cool, Brian, thanks. You guys are really good at solving non-existent problems

Sebar80

This is for sure a long needed performance patch. One orb and one grand healing instance active per healer also aoes nerfed so these are used less often. Some skills ticking less often but for longer, vigor single target and so on.This patch is not about "balancing" its about removing strain from the servers or spreading it more over time.

Also i love how little consideration is being put in to the effect these changes would have on the groups progressing harder content. They just may change things....in the future. Or maybe i am wrong and its all calculated effort. No need to fix bugs in trials if no one is going to play them.
The progression pve groups and people who are not yet that good but want to be better will suffer the most. End game pve community will shrink and eventualy stop to exist.

At the end of it we will have pets and mouts "mounts off" from wow as end game content, who spent the most money on reskins, ZOS approves.

Rant off

MLGProPlayer

Yo Brian, can you explain to me why you felt that magicka warden needed to be bludgeoned with the nerf bat? I'm having trouble understanding. Please tell me what from the following data informed your decision to nerf the lowest DPS class in the game into oblivion.

Controlled DPS tests by Liko: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuLGCNYH1t5DyQQ5tfU4Hdw/videos

Magicka Sorcerer: 93k
Magicka Templar: 90k
Magicka DK: 89k
Magicka Necromancer: 89k
Magicka NB: 87k
Magicka Warden: 86k

ESO Logs for Vet Sunspire: https://www.esologs.com/zone/statistics/12#dataset=95&difficulty=121&metric=dps&aggregate=amount

Magicka Templar: 57k (4,136 players in last 2 weeks)
Magicka Sorcerer: 55k (6,502 players in last 2 weeks)
Magicka DK: 53k (680 players in last 2 weeks)
Magicka NB: 53k (1,388 players in last 2 weeks)
Magicka Warden: 51k (228 players in last 2 weeks)
Magicka Necromancer: 44k (316 players in last 2 weeks)

I look forward to your response. But I know I won't get one.

Agalloch

@ZOS_BrianWheeler This is the worst patch ever in ESO , regarding combat changes and balance.

All respect for you , Combat Team and all ZOS team.

I am a huge fan of ESO but this is the first MMO where the players are nerfed so hard.

We want progression ..we want to feel and become more powerful . We want to play for fun not to heavy attack often to resist to a trash of mobs.

You want to reduce the power creep ..Those nerfs will not do that .

After this patch only 10% of the player base will do the vet and hard content . The power creeep will be larger.

I hope you will understand why the community is so angry and you'l revert those changes.

Thanks in advance.


English is not my native language.

MLGProPlayer

Dalsinthus wrote: »

I wish they would disclose the standards that they keep referencing and are ostensibly balancing around.

There are no standards. It's just *** being flung at a wall every patch.

HelixUnited

UrQuan wrote: »

@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.

agree..
but one add to this.. with non templar healers

MLGProPlayer

UrQuan wrote: »

@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.

This.

If you have such a great plan, show us what makes it so great. Demonstrate to us why we should buy into your vision. It can't be that hard, can it?

Oooh, and also, make sure to use a team of diverse classes. I want to see all classes represented in the various roles.

I look forward to these videos being uploaded shortly.

MLGProPlayer

Razorback174 wrote: »

Are you people actually surprised with all of this? The writing's been on the wall since the racial gutting rebalance pass that gave us PvP only passives like Hunter's Eye and Spell Recharge (and totally spitting on decades of established lore in the process).

This is what happens when the PvP developer becomes the lead combat developer for the entire game.

PvE gameplay be damned...

Not surprised, just disappointed in @ZOS_MattFiror and @ZOS_RichLambert for letting it get to this point.

Tommy_The_Gun

Could you pls not nerf Pack Leader that hard ? It will be useless if those changes go live. No joke. I can not think of a content (pvp, pve, solo or group) or secenario in which some one would pick "new" Pack Leader over Werewolf Berserker...

blnchk

Thanks, context is good.

I hope that your new ruleset will not eliminate more and more class abilities from people's bars. Class skills should always be preferable to generic skills. Though at this point, I'm not sure that you agree.

VioletVience

Trancestor wrote: »

Man poor Wrobel he was actually the good guy compared to this dood we have now

Only if you play nightblade in zerg or ball group.

gepe87

I could understand deep combat changes in a new mmo, not in 5 years old game.

Qbiken

Werewolf needs further adjustments:
Made a thread about it here. The damage nerfs are way overtuned and shouldn´t go live.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/484345/werewolf-scalebreaker-feedback-why-most-of-the-changes-are-unjustified-and-needs-tweaking/p1?new=1

ZAD1ST

Allowing the orbs to be synergised multiple times is a much better idea. I can work around and alter my builds (regardless of class) to accommodated the other skill changes.

I don’t expect to never have to change my builds, the game has to grow and develop over time but the orbs change as is and on top of the other skill changes would have crippled my 6 pve healers in progression trials teams

Seraphayel

Honestly, while reading this thread I feel ashamed as a player by a lot of the responses here.

Ranging from directly insulting the devs to some hilarious conspiracy theories, spoiled claims and demands, a lot of unfriendliness and entitlement and unfortunately just a few elaborate and helpful posts that are laying out what the problems/pain points are and how the changes - in some cases - enforce or - in other cases - don’t even tackle them.

Is it so difficult to keep the discussion civil and stay on topic? I often disagree with changes that are made but after going over this thread it‘s clear why developers don’t listen to feedback: it’s hidden behind a wall of rude, degrading and condescending responses. I wouldn’t be surprised if no dev ever steps a foot into this thread again and I couldn’t blame them, it’s a shame what’s going on here.

Zayoo

Seraphayel wrote: »

Honestly, while reading this thread I feel ashamed as a player by a lot of the responses here.

Ranging from directly insulting the devs to some hilarious conspiracy theories, spoiled claims and demands, a lot of unfriendliness and entitlement and unfortunately just a few elaborate and helpful posts that are laying out what the problems/pain points are and how the changes - in some cases - enforce or - in other cases - don’t even tackle them.

Is it so difficult to keep the discussion civil and stay on topic? I often disagree with changes that are made but after going over this thread it‘s clear why developers don’t listen to feedback: it’s hidden behind a wall of rude, degrading and condescending responses. I wouldn’t be surprised if no dev ever steps a foot into this thread again and I couldn’t blame them, it’s a shame what’s going on here.

The thread is called "additional context". I think the players being furious about those (partially steamrolling) changes qualifies as "context", too. We all paid money to play this game and pay money for monthly subscriptions. We are the people keeping this game alive and obviously, most of us don't like what is happening here. So choice 1: Zenimax does it so we like it and we keep paying, choice 2: They don't and a lot of us will leave... Context.

x48rph

Thanks for the additional context, except for the fact that it still makes no sense. You buffed some skills last patch on the grounds they were under performing based on your standards and then turned around and nerfed those same skills by like twice as much this time with the same justification. It doesn't seem like there are any standards. More like just a roller coaster ride of what you do next. Combine that with the fact that since this year started you've completely destroyed entire play styles and screwed over certain races with the changes while giving players a measly 3 tokens to fix their 10+ chars. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence that there is some grand vision that's going to make the game awesome again (won't even go into the ridiculous lag fest and issues with abilities not working since these changes). More just fear that whatever patch comes out next will just destroy whatever progress I made trying to recover from this round.

Seraphayel

Zayoo wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Honestly, while reading this thread I feel ashamed as a player by a lot of the responses here.

Ranging from directly insulting the devs to some hilarious conspiracy theories, spoiled claims and demands, a lot of unfriendliness and entitlement and unfortunately just a few elaborate and helpful posts that are laying out what the problems/pain points are and how the changes - in some cases - enforce or - in other cases - don’t even tackle them.

Is it so difficult to keep the discussion civil and stay on topic? I often disagree with changes that are made but after going over this thread it‘s clear why developers don’t listen to feedback: it’s hidden behind a wall of rude, degrading and condescending responses. I wouldn’t be surprised if no dev ever steps a foot into this thread again and I couldn’t blame them, it’s a shame what’s going on here.

The thread is called "additional context". I think the players being furious about those (partially steamrolling) changes qualifies as "context", too. We all paid money to play this game and pay money for monthly subscriptions. We are the people keeping this game alive and obviously, most of us don't like what is happening here. So choice 1: Zenimax does it so we like it and we keep paying, choice 2: They don't and a lot of us will leave... Context.

And that can be done in a civil, mannered way? Because that’s the only thing I was asking for, not to stop criticizing or discussing.