PTS Update 24 - Feedback Thread for the Sprint Changes

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for the Sprint changes. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did you notice any differences between sprinting on PTS versus how it currently is on Live?
• Do you have any item sets or passives that no longer work while sprinting?
• When using a mount, do you feel the longer period of sprinting offsets the loss of speed when running out of stamina?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

CaffeinatedMayhem

Coward's Gear is behaving weirdly - orange glow is present when *NOT* sprinting, but disappears when sprinting.
I know Major Expedition is additive now... but it feels weird.

With in-game buffs displayed - Major Expedition is displayed at all times, even when walking/sneaking.

1. When normal running - feels same speed as live.
2. Sprint - feels like regular sprint, does not feel as if Major Expedition applied.
3. Sneak - feels like sneaking with Major Expedition applied, much faster than normal sneak.

zyk

The mount change is terrible. It's baffling you would make this change after more than 5 years. It's anti-QOL.

Furthermore, it's not a bug fix. Multiple ZOS devs described mounted sprinting without stamina as a feature in 2014:

ZOS wrote:

Yes, horses can sprint indefinitely without consuming stamina. That said, stamina is still valuable for two other reasons: It protects you from being dismounted when attacked, and if you rapidly press the sprint key you will get big boosts of speed on your mount (but at a much higher stamina cost). Of note, only horse mounts have the endless sprint trait. Other upcoming mount types will have different special traits.

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/news/post/1019

Unknown_Redemption

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the Sprint changes. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Do you have any other general feedback?

Please make mount training account wide, while significantly increasing the gold cost to level (e.g. 5,000g per). This should still merit crown sales given the cost; but to veteran players this will come as a huge relief.

Gnortranermara

All sprinting out-of-combat should be free, period. This would have very little effect on combat and it would be a massive QoL improvement across the board.

BohnT2

You can sprint while swimming which will drain stamina but will slow you down if you're an argonian (not tested on other races)

StopDropAndBear

60 mount Stamina=about 3 1/2 minutes of mount sprinting (give or take) if anyone is curious
For comparison, on live it's about 2:15 (again give or take) until your bar is emptied

Honestly it felt okay to me, the regen also seemed pretty fast. Still not really sure why the change is necessary.

When the bar runs out you still get about 5 seconds of sprint before you slow down and it starts to regen, seems to just be a minor visual bug with the bar not being big enough.

NBrookus

Unknown_Redemption wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the Sprint changes. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Do you have any other general feedback?

Please make mount training account wide, while significantly increasing the gold cost to level (e.g. 5,000g per). This should still merit crown sales given the cost; but to veteran players this will come as a huge relief.

Or remove the time lock and have them get progressively more expensive when purchased in succession. Noobs with no cash don't get penalized, vet players get a gold sink.

Jayne_Doe

Unknown_Redemption wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the Sprint changes. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Do you have any other general feedback?

Please make mount training account wide, while significantly increasing the gold cost to level (e.g. 5,000g per). This should still merit crown sales given the cost; but to veteran players this will come as a huge relief.

All of my current characters were fully trained when I made a new necro. No way I'd want to pay 5k per level on just one character.

NBrookus wrote: »

Unknown_Redemption wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the Sprint changes. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Do you have any other general feedback?

Please make mount training account wide, while significantly increasing the gold cost to level (e.g. 5,000g per). This should still merit crown sales given the cost; but to veteran players this will come as a huge relief.

Or remove the time lock and have them get progressively more expensive when purchased in succession. Noobs with no cash don't get penalized, vet players get a gold sink.

This would be a good compromise. As many veteran players (like myself) already have their toons fully trained and only need to train a new toon.

Jayne_Doe

zyk wrote: »

The mount change is terrible. It's baffling you would make this change after more than 5 years. It's anti-QOL.

Furthermore, it's not a bug fix. Multiple ZOS devs described mounted sprinting without stamina as a feature in 2014:

ZOS wrote:

Yes, horses can sprint indefinitely without consuming stamina. That said, stamina is still valuable for two other reasons: It protects you from being dismounted when attacked, and if you rapidly press the sprint key you will get big boosts of speed on your mount (but at a much higher stamina cost). Of note, only horse mounts have the endless sprint trait. Other upcoming mount types will have different special traits.

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/news/post/1019

I do recall that at launch mounts DID slow down when they ran out of stamina. And, I remember noticing when it changed, so that mounts continued to sprint even when their stamina was depleted. Perhaps it was a bug at launch that they fixed. Or, perhaps they changed it on purpose to be a feature of horses, with the intention of including different traits with different mounts - which, of course, never happened. All mounts got this "feature."

Whatever the case, they've now considered it a bug that they wanted to fix. But, they've also increased the stamina pool for mounts and it depletes more slowly and refills more rapidly. From one person's testing, stamina seems to last longer on PTS than on live, so it shouldn't really be an issue.

StopDropAndBear

Why not implement some kind of increasing time gate to mount training, the same way trait research works? Or maybe let you train 2-3 times or something in the 20 hour period instead of just the 1? Might make low stamina (and speed I suppose) less of a pain point on new characters.

Major_Lag

Maybe instead of the current 20h cooldown on mount training, implement a system similar to how recalling to wayshrines works.

For example: if you want to train again immediately, the cost is very high (>10k gold?), but it gradually decreases back towards the base cost (currently 250g) over the next 20 hours.

UnseenCat

Mounts have a really noticeable burst of speed for a second just after starting to sprint, then slow down to "regular" sprint. It's more noticeable on low-level toons that haven't trained up on riding speed. I'm not sure what the use of it really is, unless it's enough to get out of aggro range of some enemies? But once they start chasing, you're still likely to remain in combat mode.

Sprint duration on low-level riding skills is...OK. Not fantastic, but... OK. Underwhelming, maybe? Riding stam regen still takes a bit. I don't think the regen comes as fast as it might have been made out to be in the livestream.

I'm not sure how this really makes a difference with respect to performance. Multiple characters riding in on screen still need the server to keep track of their respective speeds and stam pools. Plus now the regen rate comes into play more than ever.

Overall, my reaction is that at least on the surface, it wasn't broken, so why "fix" it now. Obviously, I have no insight into the underlying game code, so it may well fix something, or at least put a band-aid on it.

But from a player perspective, it adds a minor mechanic to keep track of that isn't really necessary or that brings much to the game. Unless there's a serious problem underpinning the riding stamina mechanic, I'd prefer the old system. This change feels too much like change for its own sake, and more of an annoyance than a feature.

Djiku

UnseenCat wrote: »

Mounts have a really noticeable burst of speed for a second just after starting to sprint, then slow down to "regular" sprint. It's more noticeable on low-level toons that haven't trained up on riding speed. I'm not sure what the use of it really is, unless it's enough to get out of aggro range of some enemies? But once they start chasing, you're still likely to remain in combat mode.

Sprint duration on low-level riding skills is...OK. Not fantastic, but... OK. Underwhelming, maybe? Riding stam regen still takes a bit. I don't think the regen comes as fast as it might have been made out to be in the livestream.

I'm not sure how this really makes a difference with respect to performance. Multiple characters riding in on screen still need the server to keep track of their respective speeds and stam pools. Plus now the regen rate comes into play more than ever.

Overall, my reaction is that at least on the surface, it wasn't broken, so why "fix" it now. Obviously, I have no insight into the underlying game code, so it may well fix something, or at least put a band-aid on it.

But from a player perspective, it adds a minor mechanic to keep track of that isn't really necessary or that brings much to the game. Unless there's a serious problem underpinning the riding stamina mechanic, I'd prefer the old system. This change feels too much like change for its own sake, and more of an annoyance than a feature.

I agree with most this. This just seems like change for its own sake, almost like poking in the dark to present any solution.
I don't like the change and I don't think it's necessary. I am not buying that it is supposedly improving game performance. Didn't notice a thing. What comes next? Don't use Skills as often, cast fewer spells because then the game engine would perform better?

Finedaible

Major_Lag wrote: »

Maybe instead of the current 20h cooldown on mount training, implement a system similar to how recalling to wayshrines works.

For example: if you want to train again immediately, the cost is very high (>10k gold?), but it gradually decreases back towards the base cost (currently 250g) over the next 20 hours.

^So much this. The current mount training system is so annoying it's a major turn-off to players. ZoS, please give us some alternate way of ranking up mount stats.

The fact that devs flip-flopped on this bug/feature is very telling about the stance of Cash Shop purchases. If you really want to keep the 'F2P' title, then give players actual ways to grind out or earn stuff. Warframe is the only truly F2P game where you can earn nearly all of the stuff (barring some minor cosmetics) through smart gameplay and smart trades. Please take some notes from Digital Extremes.

Fischblut

On PTS we no longer have any visible/audible transition between mount run and sprint. When we speed up, the mount simply starts to run faster. It looks very awkward and immersion-breaking

PTS:

https://youtu.be/17C3h3Ifsho

Tell me that it's not intended and will be fixed before going live If it goes live, our mounts will lose great part of their individuality (many mounts have 3 special voices just for sprint transition). Also all our characters have shouts specially for this (as well as all Polymorphs). Those shouts will not be heard again anywhere...

For example. On live, all mounts with Lion voice make 3 unique sounds when starting to sprint (skip to 1:15):

https://youtu.be/7UpR48wf338?t=83

When jumping, they have 3 totally different sounds (skip 1:40). On PTS, when using Lion-based mount, we would never hear 3 of their special sounds again

Visible body moves when making the mount sprint also is invaluable - on live, it's easy to tell that the mount started sprinting. On PTS, I have to watch the mount stamina bar to see if it actually started sprinting.

This is very bad change if it's all intended

ZeroXFF

@Fischblut I actually hope they keep the PTS version. This run/sprint transition is always just wasting time, combined with the FPS drop for the first second or so after using rapids, it is downright annoying on live.

CaffeinatedMayhem

Run/Sprint for Coward's Gear is fixed, thanks!

Sneak still feels as if Major Expedition is applied, even the orange glow from Cowards Gear is *active* while moving in sneak. This *could* be considered an exploit in PvP, so I'm reporting it.

thatlaurachick wrote: »

Coward's Gear is behaving weirdly - orange glow is present when *NOT* sprinting, but disappears when sprinting.
I know Major Expedition is additive now... but it feels weird.

With in-game buffs displayed - Major Expedition is displayed at all times, even when walking/sneaking.

1. When normal running - feels same speed as live.
2. Sprint - feels like regular sprint, does not feel as if Major Expedition applied.
3. Sneak - feels like sneaking with Major Expedition applied, much faster than normal sneak.

Solariken

I don't think Coward's Gear is working properly. Major Expedition works fine but I don't think the Major Protection is working at all. Also the orange glow animation is not behaving like it should - it's not showing while sprinting, but is showing up randomly when not sprinting.

Davadin

General feedback:
1. as a 60-60-60 user, it doesn't affect me that much. i rarely go overland pve or cyro that would finish my whole bar. but as an alt, it's a pain. i understand there's monetary benefit of every alt rank it separately (coz ZOS is selling the buff scrolls), but asking 60x3 days for each character is simply too much.
2. there's zero reason for mount sprinting to use stamina out-of-combat EXCEPT realism. but come on, we're super characters who fought gods and demons. and some our mounts breaths fires or undead animals.

Recommendations in light of making mount stop sprinting without stamina:
1. Either (a) reduce the mount leveling to 20-20-20, OR (b) make mount leveling shared between characters, OR something in between those 2.
2. out-of-combat sprint should not use any stamina. stamina is only for getting hit and in-combat sprinting.a

zyk

Has ZOS given us an explanation for the removal of endless sprint for mounts that is consistent with what they told us in 2014?

2014: Endless sprint while mounted is an intended feature
2019: Endless sprint while mounted is a bug, so we're fixing it by removing it

Of course, mounted tap sprint was also nerfed in 3.2.8 without explanation: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/381689/bug-mount-tap-sprint-is-broken

Am I being unreasonable? It doesn't feel like it.

Fischblut

As there is no fix for https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6353402/#Comment_6353402 in this PTS update, I start to worry more
@ZOS_GinaBruno , can you please confirm if removal of sounds and animations (when we command our mount to start sprinting) is intended change?