ESO’S COMBAT CHANGES PLAN

Czekoludek

Since new combat team started to introduce their vision of combat in ESO, we lived through many, unreasonable patches. From our perspective changes are mostly chaotic and inconsiderate (like famous dot changes, buffing strong classes while nerfing weak ones, "identity" patch that in the eyes of many, didn't bring a lot of identity for specific classes. Yet ZOS devs are constatntly trying to ensure that these changes are argumentative, in accordance with new standards and that soon combat will be better then before. At this points in many threads, word "standardization" became synonym to "nerfs" (as we can see with Iceheart nerfs when they said that sets like Phoenix, sets used by no one, are their new gold standards how the things should be done). So my proposition is this:
ZOS, create Eso's Combat Improvement/Changes Plan, like you did with performance changes, so we can see that indeed, your combat team HAVE a plan for how combat in this game should looks like. Prove us that in this random, chaotic and for many unreasonable changes, there is a specific goal that your team is trying to accomplish. Do it so players can give you feedback about proposed changes now, before it's too late. It was proven many times that PTs is too short time for combat team to listen to the feedback and introduce better changes. You did it with performance changes (tbh you did it definietely too late but better late then never), you saw that this move was warmly received by many. Give us something, because at this point we are tired of your "thank you for your patience" words, your standardization with spreadsheets that take so much fun from our classes, these BETA changes that shouldn't be introduce in almost 6 year old game (buffing/nerfing skills by 60% should be done in beta, not at this stage and especially not on this scale). Maybe my way of thinking is wrong, if so, I ask community for help. If you know a better way, write it in the comment. If you think combat team is doing something wrong, give your feedback. If in your opinion, changes were great, tell us your feedback also. I think we should discuss this and devs should also take an active part in this, because the game and community, need it badly.

Mettaricana

Just like everything zos does this whole post will be purposefully ignored..

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO

They do have a plan...is just that Akatosh keeps dragonbreaking and stuff goes in randomly but in the end we should get everything right!

zvavi

Hmm, to be honest lately it really feels like their combat plan gets a bit affected from the marketing point of view, and it makes me really, really sad.

logarifmik

Nanfoodle

Been MMOing for over 20 years and the one constant you can count on. Things will change. Some things you will like and some things you won't. Fact is and any dev team worth their salt, will form a vision and work towards that. Even if in the short terms this means growing pains. A dev team that cant stick to a vision means a scattered mess of a game long term.

I played beta for ESO and back then, this game was utter crap. Looking at what they have made this game into from that start point. I think they have earned some leeway.

idk

It has been said that a big picture plan for these changes would have been nice. However, now that we are nearing the end (hopefully) and most has already been done I do not see a point in that big picture outline for the changes. Most of the ship has already sailed so to speak.

Gythral

idk wrote: »

...Most of the ship has already sailedsunk so to speak.

corrected to what you really ment

Ksariyu

I've been hoping they'd do this since they first announced this series of changes. Of course, I'd also hoped it would only take the year to do, but here we are looking at an entire second year at least before the core structure of these changes are even in place.

Nanfoodle wrote: »

Been MMOing for over 20 years and the one constant you can count on. Things will change. Some things you will like and some things you won't. Fact is and any dev team worth their salt, will form a vision and work towards that. Even if in the short terms this means growing pains. A dev team that cant stick to a vision means a scattered mess of a game long term.

I played beta for ESO and back then, this game was utter crap. Looking at what they have made this game into from that start point. I think they have earned some leeway.

Having a vision would also imply a direction, which I think we all saw with last year's back and forth changes is something ZoS doesn't really have right now. I agree that sometimes sticking it out through long changes can be worthwhile, but two years is a long time to ask players to blindly sit and wait.
I too have played since beta, and while I was a big admirer of the dedication they had to improving the game through Homestead, it's quite clear their focus has shifted from improvements to money. If they really wanted to get these changes implemented, they would've had that be their focus for this year rather than redoing the entire vampire system and adding Antiquities.

idk wrote: »

It has been said that a big picture plan for these changes would have been nice. However, now that we are nearing the end (hopefully) and most has already been done I do not see a point in that big picture outline for the changes. Most of the ship has already sailed so to speak.

What makes you even remotely think we're nearing the end of the changes? The majority of the class and set updates this PTS cycle are bug fixes, not balance changes, and every class besides the Necro still severely lacks any real identity. Further, there's still been no update on what role they intend Weapon and Guild skill lines to play once the class audits are finished, meaning there's likely going to be ANOTHER huge duration of constant changes once they are. So to me, some sort of roadmap would in fact still be very beneficial to the playerbase.

ZonasArch

Mettaricana wrote: »

Just like everything zos does this whole post will be purposefully ignored..

As it should, considering how empty it is. Too much complaint with too little solution. As per usual. And my own reply doesn't help either, but I really don't mind

And the game is doing fine btw, except performance being a joke. One thing at a time.

Gnortranermara

Sounds nice at first, but think about it: the combat team's problem is that they take the greatest ideas (like standardization, racial balance, staff tanking, etc) and give them the most *** poor implementations imaginable. I don't know what we'd really gain from seeing a list of all the great ideas doomed to be incompetently bungled. The class rep meeting notes very clearly demonstrate that the class reps are better suited to lead the combat team than the team itself is at doing their jobs. Whether they have the coding knowledge or not, the class reps have an objectively superior understanding of the player experience and balance. What the program really accomplished is proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that the combat team really just shouldn't be calling their own shots anymore. They need external oversight to restore all of the fun they've sucked out of the game.