Additional Context on U23 Combat Changes

Vinterskald

Mh. Well the two listed skills certainly are going to help magsorc healers.

That aside, I'm really thankful about the orb allowing several people to activate the synergy then. That was honestly my main concern. Still would be much easier and allow for more mobility if we could just have several orbs active at a time (just two and I'd be happy, really!) but it's better than one orb with one synergy at any rate.

Minno

Can we have a design intent write-up for all the classes from the dev point of view?

CipherNine

Minno wrote: »

Can we have a design intent write-up for all the classes from the dev point of view?

You know what they would say. "Our intention has and always will be to make each class viable for all content and roles"
Even though everything they do shows that its the complete opposite.

Minno

CipherNine wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Can we have a design intent write-up for all the classes from the dev point of view?

You know what they would say. "Our intention has and always will be to make each class viable for all content and roles"
Even though everything they do shows that its the complete opposite.

i just want to see how they view each class for both PVP and PVE. I know they have an opinion, because gilliam at least had quick bullet point phrases describing each class. Like templars were masters of AOE and efficiency, according to him.

But all I see from ZOS is, "classes can be any role they want ::derp::". Like a bunch of commies lol.

Feralmyst

Greater species diversity ensures natural sustainability for all life forms - this holds true for Tamriel as well. My strategic concern is the normalization of skills and abilities will remove sufficient diversity and adversely impact our beloved Elder Scrolls. ZOS statements such as 'conforms to our AOE standard', 'our spammable standard', 'our DOT rules' cause me concern as it will lead to different flavors of vanilla across classes. The diversity of race, class, and abilities/skills are critical to healthy tanking, dps and healing and, dare we forget, FUN. Please stop trying to make our avatars same, similar or 'fair' as you may define it - we thrive on the differences and while we may scream about this or that being OP or worthless - it's those differences that feed the richness of our world; flavors of vanilla will kill us all.

stpdmonkey

They spend the last year buffing and evening out classes. Or so they say. Then just remove all the benefits. Kill dps groups. Destroy healers and claim it's to keep with their standards. I thought everything over the last 2 years was about that. But then remove it. First they kill my favorite part of tanking. Hurt my tanks abilities. Ok I can manage. Then destroy my healer and favorite dps. I have spent hours on hours tweaking and testing all 3 of my mains. And now I don't even want to continue. 2 years of farming and practicing. I spent 4 months in a progression to complete vmol. Now that is going to be a thing of the past as we all spend the next 4 months rebuilding everything. I have paid for eso plus for over 3 years and invested alot of money into this game. That is the only reason I have toughed out the horrible performance issues and basically unplayable game for the last few months. This was my entertainment. But seeing what they are doing makes me question seriously if it's worth it anymore. Its lost its entertainment value. Destroyed the entire play style and made it into another job just to be able to do anything. I have more frustration and stress playing now then at work. Not to mention if I do leave what happens to the 20 or more people I have brought into the game. They will also. Not that zos cares.

Jodynn

Updated parse.

Noteworthy things are I had to use spell sym around 5 times, FoO on frontbar to support molten buff, unstable wall of elements is level 1.

My rotation is much more fun as I have one more dot to use and it takes a bit more effort than lives rotation, I really enjoy degeneration and the sustain buff.

eso_lytw8

This response tells me that someone that does not understands the complexity of PVE should not be in charge of combat changes. The game continues to degrade in attempt to balance pvp which I contend can not be balanced without extreme homogenization of the classes. Unless all classes are exactly the same there will always be something the appears to perform better in pvp and thus garner complaints = nerfs. Yes making every class skill have the exact same damage to cost ratio will get you closer, but you still have passives which will require homogenization as well. Of course when you are done with balancing all these elements you will have a class system with no uniqueness, but there will be balance just at great cost.

The other issue that is really not understood here is all the dependencies that have been built in PVE over the last 5 years between class skills, non-class skills, gear sets, and tactics. These changes may appear fine from an individual skill perspective with respect to pvp, but they will have huge impacts on PVE that it is clear the designers of the changes have no clue as to what they are.

I've seen a lot of people leave with past updates, but this one is going to make those look insignificant. People are looking for other options. And the larger population still has no idea this is coming.

leepalmer95

eso_lytw8 wrote: »

This response tells me that someone that does not understands the complexity of PVE should not be in charge of combat changes. The game continues to degrade in attempt to balance pvp which I contend can not be balanced without extreme homogenization of the classes. Unless all classes are exactly the same there will always be something the appears to perform better in pvp and thus garner complaints = nerfs. Yes making every class skill have the exact same damage to cost ratio will get you closer, but you still have passives which will require homogenization as well. Of course when you are done with balancing all these elements you will have a class system with no uniqueness, but there will be balance just at great cost.

The other issue that is really not understood here is all the dependencies that have been built in PVE over the last 5 years between class skills, non-class skills, gear sets, and tactics. These changes may appear fine from an individual skill perspective with respect to pvp, but they will have huge impacts on PVE that it is clear the designers of the changes have no clue as to what they are.

I've seen a lot of people leave with past updates, but this one is going to make those look insignificant. People are looking for other options. And the larger population still has no idea this is coming.

Half of these changes are mean't to stop the fact people are hitting 100k dps. By reducing sustain, making them not build full glass cannon or requiring them to slot a small heal skill to survive.

Adernath

@ZOS_BrianWheeler
Thank you for your update. What I would like to know is if you plan with a general concept for the various classes and if there is a primary and secondary role for them. Because at the moment magicka based builds are slacking behind in damage compared to meele. Hopefully that will be adjusted in the future.

Seraphayel wrote: »

2. Due to scaling Magicka can’t all of a sudden use Echoing Vigor or Ring of Preservation efficiently, neither can Stamina use Restoration Staff heals as they’re not scaling with their main resource. Could you either adjust scaling for healing skill so that they always scale with your highest stat instead of solely Magicka or Stamina?
@ZOS_BrianWheeler

In my opinion the entire mechanism with scaling damage based of the resource pool is not transparent. Magic damage and healing power should solely come from spell power.

master_vanargand

BennyButton wrote: »

bulcke10 wrote: »

I'm happy with this patch 👌 why are there so many haters in this game without testing and theorycrafting 🤔 I'm happy because this game is far from death with this mutch effort they put on the game for 5 years 👍 hope they continue until they have a new elders scrolls online game 👏

So if u hate en put negative things on this forum why do you play this game?

this looks really balanced

This is using a cheap trick.
He uses Minor + Major Mending and other many passive skills.

Gilvoth

i love the patch notes, and i hope they stay.
keep these changes, especially with sorcerers nerfs, Don't revert them like you did last time.
ignore the mass complaint threads, these nerfs are not even as strong as should be but atleast its a start in the right Direction.

Seraphayel

brandoncoffmannub18_ESO wrote: »

Updated parse.

Noteworthy things are I had to use spell sym around 5 times, FoO on frontbar to support molten buff, unstable wall of elements is level 1.

My rotation is much more fun as I have one more dot to use and it takes a bit more effort than lives rotation, I really enjoy degeneration and the sustain buff.

I think this is one of the goals and they succeeded: making builds more interesting. By reducing the damage from AoE ground DoTs that have been so dominant for years there are finally other options to consider. By pushing other single target DoTs or unused skills in general (even if the scaling isn’t perfect yet) they created new builds that are less stale than before.

eso_lags

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.

But you must be aware that not all abilities, play styles, classes, and builds are equal right? I dont think blanket changes are going to help in a game like this. Especially when it comes to classes. And im not sure why you would want to make everything equal anyway? This late in the game? So drastically? The one thing I, and many others, love about this game is the combat system. If you keep trying to make things equal, with blanket nerfs and changes, you are going to do much more harm than good.

Everything is not equal in game like this, nor should it be.

On another note the new ultimate animations are awful. Dawnbreaker is awful. Dswing feels worse for some reason, when it should feel better. And dodge roll is completely broken. Dswing and dodge roll may be because im using gamepad, but it is literally an entire new combat system with gamepad right now. Its terrible, so if the change is not intended please look at it.

eso_lytw8

leepalmer95 wrote: »

eso_lytw8 wrote: »

Half of these changes are mean't to stop the fact people are hitting 100k dps. By reducing sustain, making them not build full glass cannon or requiring them to slot a small heal skill to survive.

I haven't seen this stated as an objective, but if it is I don't think this will impact the 1-2% of players that can achieve that level of dps, just like the last patch did nothing to impact them. It will only impact the 98% of the player base that already struggles to complete the harder vet content. Highly organized raid teams will be fine as always. I think this is another flaw in the balance attempts is focusing balance on such a small part of the user base not understanding how they impact the average player.

Gilvoth

love the changes, please also remember to add a stamina cost to jumping.

leepalmer95

master_vanargand wrote: »

BennyButton wrote: »

bulcke10 wrote: »

I'm happy with this patch 👌 why are there so many haters in this game without testing and theorycrafting 🤔 I'm happy because this game is far from death with this mutch effort they put on the game for 5 years 👍 hope they continue until they have a new elders scrolls online game 👏

So if u hate en put negative things on this forum why do you play this game?

this looks really balanced

This is using a cheap trick.
He uses Minor + Major Mending and other many passive skills.

Likely vitality as well and maybe stand next to a keep.

AlayneStone

I'm not here to play a hybrid class, thanks but no thanks, cancelled my sub, will wait to see what happens when this goes live. Really sucking the joy outta the game for me and many others.

CompM4s

Changing to many things at once...

Malada

Behold it is I!!! The scourge of the Racial Updates Feedback Forum the Terrible Voice of Truth.

These changes, at least combat and class wise, are harrible.

I really, honestly, didn't think it could get any worse after what you guys did to the Wood Elf passives. You guys seem to keep pushing this dodge roll and then stealth up and attack or whatever... -which defies all logic really- and all this really does is penalize the player by forcing us to pay stam to pay for your unnecessary bonus. I can produce a build with everything I need and never need to roll dodge in order to stealth attack or get buffed at any time, except when I'm, say it with me, *evading*.

See I realize that you hate stealth players and you know that we are not buying into this. And those who are will not accomplish much, they'll just be that much shorter on stam for the fight and they'll be fighting when they should evade and evading when they should be fighting.

I know that's not very nice thing to say however neither are your changes.

To begin with, I feel this is too much. I mean, think about it... if you have to change this many things (and there are alot) then something's wrong here. A patch as far as I can remember, is generally something you use to keep up as ***other things change*** however your game here is like it's fighting a Civil War or something.

Let's say that again, generally... a patch... is used to keep up... as OTHER THINGS change. Why do you have to patch your game so much? To be a little more specific, I'm primarily talking about balance. I mean, this is crazy. Never seen this anywhere before. Other games are made, sometimes an update comes out, sometimes a couple updates comes out and it's over unless... something ELSE changes. Seriously wth.

I would love to know, what, or who, is driving these changes and running the game into the ground. This post is mostly my bias however I'm really not sure what could help this situation other than you guys to stop breaking your own product. Stop making changes and stand behind your product. Decide what it is and stand behind it please. And stop changing everybody's set, I'm afraid to buy anything right now. What is the point of investing in a set for a build if you guys are going to keep changing what it does, fundamentally.

This game has been out for FAR too long to have this many balance changes like what 4 or 5 years after release now?

There's a saying that, "Meaningful, long lasting change occurs slowly." When you're testing things there's a reason time is part of the budget as we don't want to rush in one day and come back next week and undo our changes.

Another thing too, while I meant to stop there, I have a grievance with you. Stop saying stupid things like, "it's getting nerfed so low lvl players can use it". Seriously what is the point of leveling? Let me explain this as I've seen this so many times, check this out for Christ sake... End game players have to deal with larger problems. A noob, a low-level char, or whichever does not need the advanced class passives because they do not have to deal with the same problems as those of us in later content. Now you say, yes they do because they'll have to go up against stronger players and deal with stronger PvE contact etc... However I maintain this is something that should be gradually presented.

A lvl 10 Necro strutting around in the depths of Imperial City is going to get creamed. It's their fault, they shouldn't be there. And in a way, it's you guys' fault for enabling ppl like this to have access to areas of the game meant as end game content.

It's so insulting that my class is getting denied the bonus from a passive so someone else who may not even need to use a skill at it's strongest point is being given a strong skill they won't really need or use for a long time and I'm locked out of it for what? Why is that my problem because some players don't want to work hard and lvl their characters like nearly ALL of us have to do. If you keep doing this, keep putting out garbage, keep penalizing those of us who've been around for a minute I can almost guarantee you and everyone else all you will have is 'new players'. Maybe that's what you want.

Mygalomorpea

So after a brief excursion to pts I now have the following opinion on the dps changes

On live my 2h imperial stam sorc parses 42k on a 6m dummy without major fracture or any support. Relequen is 12% of that dps.

In the pts the same build can no longer sustain using crushing weapon as a spamable, so that had to change out... Highest parse I got was 36k dps using wrecking blow instead as spamable along with heavy attacks. This is with major fracture. Relequen was 18% of the dps.

How about healing? No worries - crit surge is still unchanged and heals for 4.5k per seconds.

This changes has dramatically reduced dps and healing done, but self heals are unchanged. As pts stands 1 tank and 3 dd runs will now be the norm for dlc dungeons.

Simple.

LovesCoffee

Mygalomorpea wrote: »

As pts stands 1 tank and 3 dd runs will now be the norm for dlc dungeons. Simple.

It's currently normal on live server. As for your dps, dunno what u're doing wrong, but i saw 99k stamsorc parses from pts already, there is no dps drop definetely

Peekachu99

Put on one defensive or sustain set. Just one. I know your epic DEEPS might drop by 10k or so, but you’ll live and the boss will still die and a dead dps=0 dps. The blinders that this community wear at times are lolworthy.

darkblue5

Feralmyst wrote: »

Greater species diversity ensures natural sustainability for all life forms - this holds true for Tamriel as well. My strategic concern is the normalization of skills and abilities will remove sufficient diversity and adversely impact our beloved Elder Scrolls. ZOS statements such as 'conforms to our AOE standard', 'our spammable standard', 'our DOT rules' cause me concern as it will lead to different flavors of vanilla across classes. The diversity of race, class, and abilities/skills are critical to healthy tanking, dps and healing and, dare we forget, FUN. Please stop trying to make our avatars same, similar or 'fair' as you may define it - we thrive on the differences and while we may scream about this or that being OP or worthless - it's those differences that feed the richness of our world; flavors of vanilla will kill us all.

I'm not sure how making skills that weren't laughable back in 2014 but were laughable since 2015 actually useable will kill diversity. Seems a bit like an off-meta for the RP build will have a much greater chance of being playable after standardization than before.

There will always be the most efficient skills and homogenization around them because many people like using the best. Keeping it so that a decent number of skills are so incredibly overnerfed that even the most casual players can tell that they're complete trash seems like it'd further restrict the number of worse but still viable builds.

The richness of your world will not be reduced by Scalding Rune no longer being steaming bull hocky.

Edited for spelling

kind_hero

Any dev should start from a simple fact, that the Elder Scrolls games are not PvP or multiplayer games. They were never meant to be like that. But for a MMO, it is normal to have PvP and balancing.

One thing I really loved about the ES games is how you become a demigod hero starting as an escaped prisoner. The whole experience of an Elder Scrolls game is centered around your char becoming very powerful. I understand that in PvP the game has to be balanced, but outside of pvp, each class should feel different, and at max level, powerful. This is less and less the case with TESO. I am not asking for OP abilities that would make group content very easy, but am worried about the class identity and how bland each class starts to feel.

The playstyle is emphasising on defence, classes that at their core are offensive became tanky, so I really don't get it, I don't understand why the devs think this is like Elder Scrolls anymore. I mainly play a mNB. For me it does not feel like a nightblade at all, it reminds me more of the fire mage I played in an other game. When I played my nightblade as stamina, it was more like a brawler/fighter than an agile assassin. Most of this is because of PvP, because in player vs player engagements, a fight has to last at least a number of seconds, you can't have a player one shot an other, so you need nerfs, or different abilities which actually do the same damage or behave the same way.

You are tailoring your game considering only the top players, not the vast majority who play casually for fun and because there is no Elder Scrolls VI yet.

John_Falstaff

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. <...>

I will admit I cringed while reading this, and here's why: it suggests to offset the loss of restoration staff ability with a buff to class ability. Read it twice, folks. Thrice if needed. Feel it through. Skill available to all healers is nerfed, but it's all right, because we have buffed a skill available to a single class.

I don't know if I feel horrified by this direction development of the game takes, but I think I really should feel horrified. That remark is the closest thing to "we're giving up on 'play as you like' motto" I've heard so far.

(And no, I'm not a fan of homogenization and replacing class skills with generic ones. But if you've started in that direction - then please be thorough. Improve Cinder Storm's utility instead of increasing cost. Unnerf Refreshing Path and make it really stand out so NB healers could bring something to the group. And so on, and so forth.)

Varana

To be honest, I don't think this remark was meant as a goodbye to playing all roles with all classes. If anything, the changes of the last patches point in the opposite direction, i.e. trying (albeit rather clumsily, and not always effectively) to homogenise the classes.

It's just that not much thinking went into that remark, and/or an obvious ignorance of what this whole discussion is really about.

John_Falstaff

@Varana , the changes are lopsided, after a fashion - for damage dealing, homogenization is the name of the game; AoEs getting nerfed, out-of-class single target abilities buffed. For healing, though, feels like everything is going the opposite direction - out of class group healing tools are nerfed, but somehow ZOS isn't in hurry to make up for it with in-class buffs. I really hope it's just a clumsy wording on their part and they do have further plans of making good on their any class, any role promise.

Trian94

Remove the cast time from ultimates. It's awful, awkward and it hinders skillful, fast reaction gameplay

SlowMetabolism

John_Falstaff wrote: »

@Varana , the changes are lopsided, after a fashion - for damage dealing, homogenization is the name of the game; AoEs getting nerfed, out-of-class single target abilities buffed. For healing, though, feels like everything is going the opposite direction - out of class group healing tools are nerfed, but somehow ZOS isn't in hurry to make up for it with in-class buffs. I really hope it's just a clumsy wording on their part and they do have further plans of making good on their any class, any role promise.

You talk about homogenization as if it is a bad thing then go on to say that you hope they essentially homogenize all of the classes so that they can all play any role. I just made a discussion about this the other day. When you make it so that every class has the ability to do X Y Z you really destroy the uniqueness and foundation the classes were originally set on. giving every class a heal/tank/damage skill line really limits the number of in class abilities worth running if they play one of the three roles.