U23 Combat Q&A

Lauranae

KappaKid83 wrote: »

Seeing a few answers being addressed as "combined with the overall desire to improve client and server performance, meant that some healing abilities which relied on layering or multi-casting needed to be changed.", is disheartening. It confirms that the servers can not handle the game and the skills within it. It is time to really address the servers before anything @ZOS_MattFiror, this is unacceptable.

This was exactly my reaction.

So all the changes happens to aleviate the performance of the server ??

There is something wrong here. You build a game and you do not give it the strengh necessary to go further so you just nerf it and downgrade it ??

Elsonso

Lauranae wrote: »

There is something wrong here. You build a game and you do not give it the strengh necessary to go further so you just nerf it and downgrade it ??

I think that everyone knows that there is something wrong here. Hopefully, what they are working on through June 2020 adequately addresses this.

Heatnix90

After reading through the responses more thoroughly, I'm just going to go ahead and set my expectations for Dragonhold and Update 24 on the floor, that way I won't be disappointed by whatever nerfs balance changes get tossed into the game.

Somehow, it will still be disappointing

Moloch1514

Thanks for the Q&A, sheds some light that things aren't getting any better around here. Healing nerfed for "performance", yet I don't any improvements this patch. Still same code, still same problems.....yet the game is less and less fun with every "audit" this team does. Oh but the Crown Store works just fine.

NBrookus

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Miscellaneous

Adding cast times to Ultimates appears to be a change most people here have reacted negatively to. Why are these cast times being added? What issue is the team attempting to solve with this change?
Ultimate abilities are some of the most powerful abilities in the game. We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much. You also can’t animation cancel them because we don’t want players to be able to instantly cast them anymore. They are just too powerful.

Does this mean we can expect all backloaded abilites (Curse, Shalk, Proxy, etc.) and travel time abilities (Dark Flare, Snipe, etc.) to be instant cast and immediate? Because *those* are why 3-4 abilities land at once. The cast time doesn't change that at all.

I have no particular problem with the mini cast time on ultimates; you can adapt to timing and like that you can see them even if they kill you, but they are atrocious in lag -- which in Cyrodiil is always.

Emma_Overload

usmguy1234 wrote: »

Ultimate cast time:

We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much.

So, are they implying that gcd doesn't work or that they don't have a clue how their game works?

I think they're counting light attacks and bashes as well as spells and ultimates. Maybe procs and enchants, too.

Honestly, I have a hard time sympathizing with the grievances about cast times when:

1) Meteor takes forever to land and has a nice big visual warning.
2) Overload light attacks still move through the air like snowballs snowflakes.
3) Soul Assault only kills noobs, but still got nerfed into an even longer, weaker channel.
4) Storm Atronach takes a second to land, a couple seconds to start fighting, can be stunned (LOL) and can't even MOVE!

All this talk about "skilled play" is just biased prattle from stamina builds who have had it so easy for so long that they didn't realize the very mechanics of the game were tilted in their favor. Now that ZOS is finally making some itsy-bitsy tiny baby steps towards balance, all these guys are coming out of the woodwork to protest. No tears falling from my eyes!

Heatnix90

NBrookus wrote: »

I have no particular problem with the mini cast time on ultimates; you can adapt to timing and like that you can see them even if they kill you, but they are atrocious in lag -- which in Cyrodiil is always.

This is all fine and dandy until you realize that the so-called "uninterruptible cast time" can in fact be interrupted by way of crushing shock or CC abilities. I've lost track of how many times I've been CC'd through Soul Siphon and Incap while in BGs, where latency shouldn't be an issue.

Nice "counterplay"

SirAxen

Liam12548 wrote: »

Lol, "Ultimates are too powerful" yet players can spec as a healer or tank and be COMPLETELY UNKILLABLE 1v1 REGARDLESS OF WHAT ULT THE DAMAGE BUILD USES.

Bunch of clueless roleplayers over at zenimax. Get your heads out of your asses and seek out some proper PVP feedback from people that have THOUSANDS of hours into it.

Hey! I roleplay and get down in PVP with a lot of success in both. Heh.

Alaztor91

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Surge feels a little underwhelming and difficult to trigger unless you’re using a healing staff. Are there any changes planned to improve the skill?
This morph is intended to be focused on healers, but we are aware of the desirability of Sorcery to other playstyles and are looking to address that in the future.

At least there is still some hope, imo adding Major Sorcery to the Critical Surge morph would resolve this.

Heatnix90

Alaztor91 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Surge feels a little underwhelming and difficult to trigger unless you’re using a healing staff. Are there any changes planned to improve the skill?
This morph is intended to be focused on healers, but we are aware of the desirability of Sorcery to other playstyles and are looking to address that in the future.

At least there is still some hope, imo adding Major Sorcery to the Critical Surge morph would resolve this.

Bold of you to assume they won't just butcher the skill completely.

MaskedHuman

There's a lot of things I don't agree with here, but I assure you there is way more questions that people have tried to get answers from out of ZoS.

I'm going to completely ignore the statement regarding the ultimate cast time, and talk about another question that pvp players have always wondered.

Will there be ANY new changes to battlegrounds instead of just adding new maps? we want deathmatches with different team sizes and player sizes. for example, a lot of pvpers want to see a 12 player free-for-all battleground, some want deathmatches with only 2 teams, and some want deathmatches with duos.

I would love to see some sort of statement regarding battlegrounds.

also plz fix dots

goldenarcher1

When do you expect to start reworking/auditing the Champion Point system?
We’re actually working on it internally right now, but in terms of when we’re going to get something out publicly, that’s not anytime soon.

This has to be the hottest potato in town.

FenrisWolf1136

Werewolf is in a balanced state? This is what we are going to call balance? Yikes.
Cant wait to see a bunch of pack leader morphs running around in pve trials for dps because its balanced so well!

ESO_Nightingale

Focusing on class identity?


One can only hope that they make frost more attractive for Magden. For me personally, Buffing Glacial Presence, and changing Expansive Frost Cloak, Winter's Revenge, Arctic Blast (And adding old Arctic Blast's AoE to Polar Wind), Crystallized Slab and Frozen Retreat to all be more attractive Magdps morphs would be something I'd love to see. We do need more dps skills on this class, along with changes to make existing Normal DPS skills more appealing.

No_Division

I love how my question regarding class design intent was defaulted to the tri role blanket intent.

Well how do you see each class fulfill these roles? Is one better than the other? What about mechanics that don't really translate into the tri roles, like Templar stand your ground mechanics don't translate well into highly mobile combat or DK self healing only works for tanks/PvP solo builds.

I kinda expected a larger bullet point and I don't think this Q and A will help the community give proper feedback. I hope the devs can dive further.

Daedric_NB_187

Well. That was disappointing. Pretty much the same stuff they put out in the PTS patch notes explanations. But I wasn't really expecting much anyways. Just was hopeful for more. Oh well.

code65536

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

What is the rationale behind reducing the damage of AoE ground DoTs?
AoE abilities should not do more damage than a single target ability on a single target. There should be a choice – if you are hitting more than 3 targets, AoE is the right choice. As it was before U23, AoE was always the right choice, in every situation.

The problem with AoE ground DoTs is that they are sensitive to positioning. Position poorly, and you wasted a cast. Enemies move out after a couple of ticks? You might as well have not casted it.

Yes generic AoE should do less damage than single-target, but ground AoE is different. Sure, if you are hitting a target dummy or certain PvE bosses that roleplay as a target dummy, these downsides don't manifest themselves. But there are a lot of combat scenarios--in PvP especially--where position sensitivity of ground DoTs are a major downside.

I.e., I think position sensitivity needs to be factored into your "power budget" for ground-placed AoE effects.

MasterSpatula

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Surge feels a little underwhelming and difficult to trigger unless you’re using a healing staff. Are there any changes planned to improve the skill?
This morph is intended to be focused on healers, but we are aware of the desirability of Sorcery to other playstyles and are looking to address that in the future.

I find this a really inadequate response to the justified outcry over a change that has had an enormous negative impact on my enjoyment of the game, but at least they're finally saying something. Nothing about how Entropy has an awkward animation, has no visual indication that it's active (or which aspects of it are active and which aren't), and puts an ability that's boringly generic in place of something that was an essential part of class identity.

But at least it's not silence. I can read through the lines here and get that they're aware that a major class identity ability now provides literally nothing to magica dps with one morph and nothing but a HoT with the other here, and they're aware that's not "desirable." But nothing about how there's a zero percent chance they weren't already aware of that when they made the change, and that fact makes the last-minute timing of the change particularly galling and seem somewhat suspicious.

But at least it's not silence.

BahometZ

Thank you Gina, your efforts are appreciated.

A lot to unpack here, based on what is said and more importantly what isn't said.

Any public statements from the developers is clearly, and understandably, as much about PR as anything else. But also bear in mind this is just the combat team, they aren't going to talk about things that aren't in their purview. So while performance issues affect combat, the combat team themselves aren't in charge of it, just like the art team aren't in charge of the crown store.

It is hugely telling that changes to healing were done with server performance in mind. The game can't cope with people spamming skills? Good thing that doesn't happen too often in every aspect of the game...

And they feel ok with healing changes because some people are still able to do the hardest content on PC. I mean, how many teams we talking here? And how narrow are the new tactics? And how will these changes translate to console? Because some elite minority is coping with reduced healing abilities it's all good? If you make healing harder, or spread the onus, that just limits the variety of options available to people, and results in restrictive trial composition. I've been in a bunch of progression teams that have all sorts, and it's great, but there's a fair chance people will be turned away if they don't meet certain requirements. I mean, why use anything but warden/templar healer or dk tank if it's just going to get harder? How does a healer keep people alive when they must spread out, which happens in plenty of trials?

I must emphasise, there are players and teams who have this all covered, but for every one person at the top end, there are many who aren't there and may never be if we make it restrictively difficult and unenjoyable. There are currently progression teams who are about to be kicked back down the mountain. Sympathise or don't, that's your call.

I'm glad to hear that class identity is next on the list, because it is desperately needed. Not just identity, but utility and viability needs a hard look. Stamsorcs have no identity. Sorcs in general have been tinkered with so much they are all over the shop. Magblades seem banished to the shadow realm, Magdens have flavour, but that's it. There are classes that have no point in being specced into healer or tank for any challenging content. I understand it's a fine line between every class doing the same thing with a different skin, and every class bringing something different but equally useful to each role.

The current class agnostic DoT meta looks hideous, and obviously so. I'm a little flabbergasted they are content for us to sit with it for however many months it takes to do whatever it is they are going to do to classes that somehow brings class abilities back on to our bars.

I don't particular like the responses or intentions behind many of the answers but I understand that some of them are either in progress, not entirely up to the combat team to decide, or the best of a bad set of options.

For instance, cast time on ultis is frustrating, but to be honest animation cancelling such a blockbuster prestige ability so that your opponent can barely react is not skillful. It's like king hitting someone, or if you aren't familiar with the term, punching someone who is unable to see or react. Stam builds used to deleting people are going to have to adjust. I get why they did it, and I get why people don't like it.

Overall, the first time in a while that I'm just not looking forward to a patch at all.

Sandman929

Hmm...sounds like a direction to me, even if it's one some won't like. I'm curious to see where it's going with the class identity audit, but it seems like generic is outperforming class specific at the moment, so hopefully that's considered.

WeylandLabs

Can somebody please direct me to the performance question and answer ?

I would presume somebody did ask this, as its an issue across all platforms for a long time now.

Or did this community of potatoes get bamboozled again for the 3 straight year. 😂

KillsAllElves

Do you have any plans to create a more diverse healer platform for other classes?
Yes, we do want to have more classes be able to effectively heal within their class kit.

^this right here is a problem, this is something that should not be implemented where all classes can be able to have role options of healer, dps or tank- "class identity" becomes irrelevant!





What’s the design intent for all the classes?
Classes should have the tools in their class lines to be able to fill any role (Tank, DPS or Healer) with the other skill lines helping to broaden the toolset.

^All classes should not have the tools in their class line to be able to fill any role.
One of the worst things this game has are the "abilities" for any class to fulfill any role.- once more "class identity" is irrelevant.
One class should be designed for tank role, one class designed for healer role, and have your stamina brawler/archer and magical dps classes. This would ensure class identity which is very diverse from one to another.

One class trying to be identical at doing the same thing/role as the other class is not the same as "class identity"....

Rake

Emma_Overload wrote: »

usmguy1234 wrote: »

Ultimate cast time:

We added cast times so there is counter play; we felt that having 3-4 abilities hitting you at once, including an Ultimate, is just too much.

So, are they implying that gcd doesn't work or that they don't have a clue how their game works?

I think they're counting light attacks and bashes as well as spells and ultimates. Maybe procs and enchants, too.

Honestly, I have a hard time sympathizing with the grievances about cast times when:

1) Meteor takes forever to land and has a nice big visual warning.
2) Overload light attacks still move through the air like snowballs snowflakes.
3) Soul Assault only kills noobs, but still got nerfed into an even longer, weaker channel.
4) Storm Atronach takes a second to land, a couple seconds to start fighting, can be stunned (LOL) and can't even MOVE!

All this talk about "skilled play" is just biased prattle from stamina builds who have had it so easy for so long that they didn't realize the very mechanics of the game were tilted in their favor. Now that ZOS is finally making some itsy-bitsy tiny baby steps towards balance, all these guys are coming out of the woodwork to protest. No tears falling from my eyes!

Learning to play takes even longer than meteor to land, and some seem to be permablocking that for some reason.

f047ys3v3n

I feel like here, in year 5, I am playing a beta all over again. We have changes that amount to one half reductions in ability power all over the place and a sudden desire to change the main source of dps from ground cast abilities to sticky DOT's. This, despite the fact that in the past, most sticky DOT's were progressively nerfed because people didn't like dying to invisible things they didn't know had been put on them in PVP. This also despite the fact all PVE fights for the last 5 years were designed with the old damage source meta in mind and none have been redesigned or re-balanced at all.

Further adding to the beta feel, the game is also crashing all the time, like it was in beta. Now, ESO has never been the pinnacle of stability by any stretch but for years it got basically better little by little. Then, Elsewhere drops and the whole thing just falls apart. You say you changed all that healing to improve server performance. Where is the improvement? Things haven't been this bad in years.

Also, when cheats are as common as they are in ESO, forgive me when I don't think looking though your logs and seeing "lots" of groups having success at things like heal check mechanics despite the changes is convincing. I have watched some of the runs of those groups and when you have cheated your damage mitigation up to ~75% I can see why you wouldn't have much of a heals issue. For my part, my experience with heals in trials post update is that they are noticeably less robust, especially in situations where grouping becomes more spread.

I am not impressed with the changes and I do not like the new all DOT no class meta one bit. I am also not willing to slog through relearning and repracticsing a new build on a new class every patch while you all learn to do your job. It is new content I want to spend my time learning and practicing, not the completely retooled basics of combat every patch.

WeylandLabs

Can't wait for another 2020 skill audit 😂 And 2021 and 2022 and 2023, it's a new game every year !

Define insanity again please 👍

KillsAllElves

I am not impressed with the changes and I do not like the new all DOT no class meta one bit. I am also not willing to slog through relearning and repracticsing a new build on a new class every patch while you all learn to do your job. It is new content I want to spend my time learning and practicing, not the completely retooled basics of combat every patch.[/quote]

Zo$ keeps talking about "class identity" yet is buffing DOT damage sources unrelated to classes, this throws their search for "classy identity" out the window.

Ragnaroek93

Cast time on ultimates feels absolutely awful and takes away every fun out of the game for me. You know, that there's a global cooldown on skills which prevents you from hitting someone with 4 abilities at the same time? The classes with delayed burst which allow you to line up with other skills are actually the ones who didn't get a cast time on their ults (templar, sorc).

Talking about class identity now after nerfing so many class spammables or leave bad class spammables untouched (Funnel Health, Cliffracer, Surprise Attack, Skull) while not giving stamDk and stamSorc a spammable since years feels sarcastic, especially after turbo buffing Wrecking Blow and dots which nobody really enjoys to use. For me specific and unique class spammables are a core part of the gameplay and would definitely a reason to lose interest in the game if implemented badly (which they are currently for everything except templar and magdk).
But I'm saying it since years - the game won't become more enjoyable if you just nerf, nerf, nerf class specific things all over again. Logging on to my Nb now and see how much I lost (minor berserc, major fracture, stun + defile on Incap) makes me sad. But it wasn't already enough, lets give Incap a cast time as well. And I'm sure others feel similar on their main classes.

I'm playing this game since beta (some breaks in between tho) and played mostly 1vX, high end duels and some BGs (mostly after release). The game just doesn't feel fun and fluid anymore, so much stuff got nerfed, so many playstyles got gutted for no reason and I'm about to quit again from the game. I don't know what your "longterm vision" for the game is but it's for sure something else than mine is.

Hotdog_23

Thanks for the info and communication.

My thoughts

Healer Changes
Healing changes were done more for performance then audit to fit standards. Not saying that is a bad thing but still a change. Can’t wait to see the improved performance.

Future plans
My thinking is I would have wanted to see class identity decided upon first then the skills audit. To help make each class a little different but what do I know I am not a developer.
Looking forward seeing what you decide upon for class identity as it relates to how each class will perform all three roles.
Did not see anything about passives being audit or looked at. Hopeful this will be part of the class identity.
Champion point system, boy I do not envy whoever is tackling that subject.

Stamina & Magicka
Little concerned about the comment of ranged and melee playstyles. I hope you are talking about both skills being available to all build types and not just making say a magicka sorc really only a ranged option and DK really only a melee option. I kind of like both styles to be open to both styles.

Classes & Skills
Nice to see Necromancer tether being improved and working on giving blast bones some brains.
The passive Searing Heat explanation did really answer the original question of why it needs a passive just to get up to standards but hey at least you tried to give a run around answer so half credit.
Surge, I can see why the change but the loss of major sorcery for a sorcerer makes little sense. Not everyone wants to play the farm game to make pots to play the game.
Werewolf, more of a role play than anything else.

Miscellaneous
Cast time on ultimate’s. I would have hoped by now we the community would have made it clear that we do not like cast times. Just in case you missed it we don’t at all. In fact, we hate them almost as much as we hate permeant pets like flappy.
The reduction in AOE vs single target makes sense on paper but when a target moves out of AOE it becomes useless. In other words, I think they need a little more damage added to them on the front half of the skill times vs evenly spread out of over the entire cast time.


….. got to go finish later.

VaranisArano

Shokasegambit1 wrote: »

Can somebody please direct me to the performance question and answer ?

I would presume somebody did ask this, as its an issue across all platforms for a long time now.

Or did this community of potatoes get bamboozled again for the 3 straight year. 😂

People asked, but the combat team didn't answer because here's the official word on performance: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/56681

Slimebrow

Wait...classes? This game actually has classes? Never noticed it. They feel pretty much samey to me...floaty and awkward, so may have failed to notice "classes" in the first place.