What is the purpose of making combat awkward and clunky?

eso_lags

Now that the update is on xbox I've been trying things out and I'm just a bit curious, is there some kind of endgame here? Like for better performance? Or are you just trying to dumb it down to the point that its a completely new combat system that is more about button mashing than skill, timing, or knowing how the game works.

Its not that drastic yet but it still feels very different from a year ago, or two years ago, etc. And not in a better way. It feels like you are slowly trying to make combat worse in this game for some reason that is beyond me. Like I said, awkward and clunky are the two words that come to mind, but slow is another one that fits here. Removing animation canceling from certain ultimate's, changing block so that block canceling certain skills takes longer, and even just using some skills (such as poison injection) seems to take longer. The fast paced competitive combat of this game is the best thing it has to offer imo.

@ZOS_GinaBruno what is the goal with these changes? Is it literally just to slow combat down? Clearly I am not seeing the bigger picture.

Major_Lag

Personally I think the general slowing down of combat is a thing that ZOS decided to do purely because they know they will never be able to make the game properly playable again in terms of performance.

I've been playing for a year+ now, and currently the "performance" is laughable, worst that I've ever seen thus far in ESO - or in any other game, for that matter.

ricklaverd

seriously when i ride my mount with rapids or just move fast , i feel the same way id feel if id spin in circle for a minute. im not the only one on console. its making my forehead sweat and feel nauseous. i hate this patch

dazee

TBH the only clunkiness I feel in combat at all is the normal unresponsiveness the game has had for years.

oXI_Viper_IXo

Their goal is to raise the floor, lower the ceiling, and make combat as potato-friendly as possible.

They said as much when they insisted on keeping cast times on ults, claiming they were "just too powerful" despite the feedback to them being overwhelmingly negative.

dazee

Combat being clunky does the opposite of making the game potato friendly. For a game to be potato friendly it has to not require the player to compensate for the shortcomings of the games own controls.

Narvuntien

There can be a huge gap in dps between the top dps and the average player. This is a serious problem for designing content, particularly end game content.

So I... a slightly above average player... manages 30K dps but the top dpsers are what 50-70 K dps? (depending on what buffs and class etc.)

That makes normal content ridiculously easy and veteran content often unplayable for most players.

They are trying to smooth out animation cancelling so that your character just doesn't spaz out all their animations and instead smoothly transitions between skills.

I still think the animations are still too grandiose and exaggerated which is just adding to the clunkiness.

MartiniDaniels

dazee wrote: »

Combat being clunky does the opposite of making the game potato friendly. For a game to be potato friendly it has to not require the player to compensate for the shortcomings of the games own controls.

This. If we look at most popular games, they are all very fast, responsive, intuitive, all animations are easily cancelled etc... and "potatoes" in them doesn't care much that they never reach high MMR despite unlike ESO their MMR/league as well as account statistics are absolutely transparent and can be viewed in one click or even shown directly near nameplate.
Though looking at all questionable marketing decisions made by Bethesda/Zenimax last 2 years I won't be surprised if they are trying to remake ESO into WoW (despite fact that engine and core gameplay are absolutely different).

llElLoboll

If ever there was a time for good, consistent communication between the devs and the ESO community now would definitely be it. For three patches now things have been getting consistently worse in ways that really don't make sense. There has been a ton of feedback from players, content creators, and stream team members that things are not going well but still horrible changes are being made that make the fun, unique combat of ESO super clunky and awkward. The seemingly complete disregard for PTS feedback is severely reducing the amount of players that want to test out new things because the perception is that it's pointless since the devs will just ignore problems anyways. The really bad part of it is that I don't think quite a few of the consequences from recent changes were intended, but they won't revert things that are breaking the game for a large portion of the community. It's sad...

LadyDestiny

ricklaverd wrote: »

seriously when i ride my mount with rapids or just move fast , i feel the same way id feel if id spin in circle for a minute. im not the only one on console. its making my forehead sweat and feel nauseous. i hate this patch

I've noticed that mount speed feels like it had a stealth nerf. Feels like running through sludge now.

mocap

currently i don't see any clunky combat. Sure it was right after Update 25 launch, saw it with tank. But now it seems ok. Maybe it's just me or they reverted it back with hotfix or something.

Khumbu

The mount speed nerf bothers me more than the combat tbh. As a trial player for years the combat has always been janky and unresponsive in big crowds. It’s an issue yes, but complaining about it now is like complaining that the sky is blue. I’m not surprised that Update 25 didn’t fix much when it’s a poor base engine issue mired by years of spaghetti code on top (though I’m fortunately one of those that benefitted).

The mount speed though? What happened?! All my maxed out characters now feel capped at roughly 40% with Rapid on, 30% without. I literally came back to this game to escape crawling around on the ground slowly in WoW (yes we can’t fly here, but we could sprint and train this game’s “Daze” away). If they nerf the mounts to be as trash as WoW, I’m moving on.

MEBengalsFan2001

Major_Lag wrote: »

Personally I think the general slowing down of combat is a thing that ZOS decided to do purely because they know they will never be able to make the game properly playable again in terms of performance.

I've been playing for a year+ now, and currently the "performance" is laughable, worst that I've ever seen thus far in ESO - or in any other game, for that matter.

Slowing the game down will help the server out as most things in this game are on the server.

Shantu

With real revenue coming in with other parts of the game connected to the Crown Store, combat is beginning to feel like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. For many of us who have enjoyed the game for its combat over the years, fun has become collateral damage from the onslaught of nerfs and standards.

Major_Lag

llElLoboll wrote: »

The seemingly complete disregard for PTS feedback is severely reducing the amount of players that want to test out new things because the perception is that it's pointless since the devs will just ignore problems anyways.

There. I fixed that for you.

LadyDestiny wrote: »

ricklaverd wrote: »

seriously when i ride my mount with rapids or just move fast , i feel the same way id feel if id spin in circle for a minute. im not the only one on console. its making my forehead sweat and feel nauseous. i hate this patch

I've noticed that mount speed feels like it had a stealth nerf. Feels like running through sludge now.

Ah, so it wasn't just my imagination, then.
I had a feeling that something was off about the mount speed, but I didn't have a solid point of reference - since I've been barely playing ESO at all for the last few weeks before U25 launched.

I bet that the mount speed nerf is ZOS' answer to the issues with buildings, objects and NPCs not loading fast enough when riding at max speed.
For the record, despite this mount speed nerf - for me, these delayed loading issues are now severely worse, it was already quite bad before U25 but it's even worse now.

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

Major_Lag wrote: »

Personally I think the general slowing down of combat is a thing that ZOS decided to do purely because they know they will never be able to make the game properly playable again in terms of performance.

I've been playing for a year+ now, and currently the "performance" is laughable, worst that I've ever seen thus far in ESO - or in any other game, for that matter.

Slowing the game down will help the server out as most things in this game are on the server.

Correct. And many (if not most) of Cyrodiil's performance/stability problems are caused by the server(s) being severely overloaded.

Raudgrani

It feels like LA weaving is slower now. I don't remember that I had to kind of "micro pause" between LA -> ability, like I need to do now. THAT'S probably intentional, just as they have messed up block on purpose. But the delay/lag of firing off abilities can't be, because it's way worse in Cyrodiil than in non-PVP zones.

Basically, I think they want to "slow down the game", like they have since like Morrowind. Nerfing sustain multiple times was clearly not enough, now they take direct action to reduce the fluidity/speed, because I think part of the problem with performance has to do with this. Servers can't handle it, probably mainly due to bad coding. That an Xbox One/PS4 or a new PC wouldn't be able to handle a basic game such as this, is frankly a laughable statement.

NoodleESO

TBH don't expect this to be fixed anytime soon, the world is dealing with a pandemic and ZOS employees are people too. The ESO community needs patience and understanding now more than ever. I say this as a pvper who is very frustrated with this patch.

There are now real world problems on top of their technical problems and it probably won't go away for a few months.

Somers23

On PS4 I was having some bad issues with skills half casting, I deleted the game again and reinstalled. It was like night and day the next day I woke up. I'm still getting half cast sometimes but I think it's due to other people stuck in this error. Any possibility that it errored during the download

llElLoboll

NoodleESO wrote: »

TBH don't expect this to be fixed anytime soon, the world is dealing with a pandemic and ZOS employees are people too. The ESO community needs patience and understanding now more than ever. I say this as a pvper who is very frustrated with this patch.

There are now real world problems on top of their technical problems and it probably won't go away for a few months.

I'm sorry but patience and understanding is something you give when failures happen and communication is given. After a year of the game getting consistently worse each patch I think most people's patience is wearing very thin, especially with the minimal communication that the community is given. Also, we haven't even gotten to the big performance adjustments on the server side yet...

Major_Lag

NoodleESO wrote: »

TBH don't expect this to be fixed anytime soon, the world is dealing with a pandemic and ZOS employees are people too. The ESO community needs patience and understanding now more than ever. I say this as a pvper who is very frustrated with this patch.

There are now real world problems on top of their technical problems and it probably won't go away for a few months.

[Snip]

But seriously - I doubt that ZOS will ever properly fix the performance, pandemic or not - there haven't been any major* pandemics in the last few years, yet the promised performance improvements are nowhere to be seen.

(*): not counting the Ebola epidemic in 2019 (or thereabouts) - since that was geographically rather limited in its scope.
(edit: proofreading fail)

[Edited for bait]

NoodleESO

llElLoboll wrote: »

NoodleESO wrote: »

TBH don't expect this to be fixed anytime soon, the world is dealing with a pandemic and ZOS employees are people too. The ESO community needs patience and understanding now more than ever. I say this as a pvper who is very frustrated with this patch.

There are now real world problems on top of their technical problems and it probably won't go away for a few months.

I'm sorry but patience and understanding is something you give when failures happen and communication is given. After a year of the game getting consistently worse each patch I think most people's patience is wearing very thin, especially with the minimal communication that the community is given. Also, we haven't even gotten to the big performance adjustments on the server side yet...

Unfortunately this is how most of the pvp community feels right now, in hindsight an investment in communication with the pvp players of ESO would have avoided this train wreck. People want fixes and communication all at the same time and Zos is now in a tough spot to deliver that.

llElLoboll

@NoodleESO agreed, good communication from devs goes a very long way typically in relation to how much communities will put up with.

precambria

"we can't fix lag, so we just made the game run like 200 ping all the time, YW"

Tigerseye

eso_lags wrote: »

Or are you just trying to dumb it down to the point that its a completely new combat system that is more about button mashing than skill, timing, or knowing how the game works.

slow is another one that fits here.

I don't really understand how you can say it's "slow", but at the same time "more about button mashing"?

Surely, it's one, or the other?

Personally, I have found that if you want to weave, now, you have to go slower than you did.

So, you get to choose:

Button mash, or go slower if you want to weave (for more DPS); not both, anymore.

Tigerseye

Raudgrani wrote: »

It feels like LA weaving is slower now. I don't remember that I had to kind of "micro pause" between LA -> ability, like I need to do now. THAT'S probably intentional, just as they have messed up block on purpose. But the delay/lag of firing off abilities can't be, because it's way worse in Cyrodiil than in non-PVP zones.

Basically, I think they want to "slow down the game", like they have since like Morrowind. Nerfing sustain multiple times was clearly not enough, now they take direct action to reduce the fluidity/speed, because I think part of the problem with performance has to do with this. Servers can't handle it, probably mainly due to bad coding. That an Xbox One/PS4 or a new PC wouldn't be able to handle a basic game such as this, is frankly a laughable statement.

Nerfing sustain was never going to work, as most people won't pace themselves, they will just fire everything off and then run around like headless chickens with no resources left, lol.

TheRealCherokeee3

NoodleESO wrote: »

llElLoboll wrote: »

NoodleESO wrote: »

TBH don't expect this to be fixed anytime soon, the world is dealing with a pandemic and ZOS employees are people too. The ESO community needs patience and understanding now more than ever. I say this as a pvper who is very frustrated with this patch.

There are now real world problems on top of their technical problems and it probably won't go away for a few months.

I'm sorry but patience and understanding is something you give when failures happen and communication is given. After a year of the game getting consistently worse each patch I think most people's patience is wearing very thin, especially with the minimal communication that the community is given. Also, we haven't even gotten to the big performance adjustments on the server side yet...

Unfortunately this is how most of the pvp community feels right now, in hindsight an investment in communication with the pvp players of ESO would have avoided this train wreck. People want fixes and communication all at the same time and Zos is now in a tough spot to deliver that.

But one they pigeon holed themselves into by disregarding the community countless times. To say they cherry picked our feedback would be an overstatement:/ They can no easier use this defense than I could by saying my mortgage company needs to be patient with my continued late payments or no payments because "There are now real world problems". and "probably won't go away for a few months". This is exactly why the community is in such uproar. Its been a long time coming and the last straw-that we said would be the last straw-was lowkey getting rid of block cancel (or effectively changing it to where it's essentially useless). I do agree with you "in hindsight an investment in communication with the pvp players of ESO would have avoided this train wreck". Not that communication with them would have reverted even 20% of their imposed changes, as many class reps have relayed to us:/ But! I could, at least respect them for open mature and upfront communication that "they were going to do what they've decided to do regardless of feedback but appreciate our involvement".

Lylith

Narvuntien wrote: »

There can be a huge gap in dps between the top dps and the average player. This is a serious problem for designing content, particularly end game content.

So I... a slightly above average player... manages 30K dps but the top dpsers are what 50-70 K dps? (depending on what buffs and class etc.)

That makes normal content ridiculously easy and veteran content often unplayable for most players.

They are trying to smooth out animation cancelling so that your character just doesn't spaz out all their animations and instead smoothly transitions between skills.

I still think the animations are still too grandiose and exaggerated which is just adding to the clunkiness.

a.men.

Tigerseye

Shantu wrote: »

With real revenue coming in with other parts of the game connected to the Crown Store, combat is beginning to feel like the proverbial red-headed stepchild. For many of us who have enjoyed the game for its combat over the years, fun has become collateral damage from the onslaught of nerfs and standards.

I don't really get this argument, to be honest.

Most people, who buy some stuff in the Crown Store, also play combat parts of the game.

Partly because it's virtually impossible to make any gold, if you don't.

Almost no one logs on, buys some stuff from the Crown store, equips/places it, then logs off again.

For example, you really would have to be some kind of highly eccentric multi-millionaire/billionaire, to buy all your houses with Crowns and then proceed to decorate them all with Crown Store furnishings and nothing else.

Doing that would cost a fortune.

Raudgrani

Tigerseye wrote: »

Raudgrani wrote: »

It feels like LA weaving is slower now. I don't remember that I had to kind of "micro pause" between LA -> ability, like I need to do now. THAT'S probably intentional, just as they have messed up block on purpose. But the delay/lag of firing off abilities can't be, because it's way worse in Cyrodiil than in non-PVP zones.

Basically, I think they want to "slow down the game", like they have since like Morrowind. Nerfing sustain multiple times was clearly not enough, now they take direct action to reduce the fluidity/speed, because I think part of the problem with performance has to do with this. Servers can't handle it, probably mainly due to bad coding. That an Xbox One/PS4 or a new PC wouldn't be able to handle a basic game such as this, is frankly a laughable statement.

Nerfing sustain was never going to work, as most people won't pace themselves, they will just fire everything off and then run around like headless chickens with no resources left, lol.

Yes, or pop a potion, or heavy attack a few times with lots of points into Tenacity. But I have a feeling this is still the case, I can't see why anyone would like to lower the speed/skill ceiling in a game, just for the sake of doing it. Noobs grow up one day too, at least those who keeps playing.

Royaji

Pretty simple:

1) Players who actually want to get involved with combat and are eating all the server capacity leave out of frustration.
2) Whales stay and keep on buying their $100+ houses and $200+ worth of furnishings once a month because who cares about combat, right? And that Cyrodiil place should have had a PvE instance long ago anyway!1!
3) ZOS uses all that freed up server capacity to increase furnishing limits by 50 once in 6 months or so.
4) Elder Housing Online players buy even more houses and furnishings.
5) PROFIT. Lot's of it.

dazee

Narvuntien wrote: »

There can be a huge gap in dps between the top dps and the average player. This is a serious problem for designing content, particularly end game content.

So I... a slightly above average player... manages 30K dps but the top dpsers are what 50-70 K dps? (depending on what buffs and class etc.)

That makes normal content ridiculously easy and veteran content often unplayable for most players.

They are trying to smooth out animation cancelling so that your character just doesn't spaz out all their animations and instead smoothly transitions between skills.

I still think the animations are still too grandiose and exaggerated which is just adding to the clunkiness.

The animations tbh arent cool looking enough, most of them, especially weapon animations are pretty lame. especially noticeable on 2h.

I want flashier spells, not lamer ones. The animations should be short, but FLASHY and cool.

I won't be surprised if they are trying to remake ESO into WoW (despite fact that engine and core gameplay are absolutely different).

If this is their goal, then the end of ESO is in clear sight.

ESO succeeds soley becuase of what it does DIFFERENTLY and in many ways BETTER than the WoW copying MMOs.