PTS Combat Test - Discussion Thread

drokisannathb16_ESO

I can see how the people who have played the game for a long time might see it as a huge shift in an unrecognizable direction but while I think while the current iterration is obviously experimental, it attempts to tackle a core problem facing weapon attacks :

-They are counter-intuitive, charging high-commital big attacks is a dps loss, mindlessly spamming is a dps gain. Even as an immersive aspect, the lightattack versus heavy attack makes no sense, why doing a heavier attack would make you recuperate ressource. I hit so hard that my muscle are less sore ? Bigger, riskier, more commiting attacks should be more rewarding. Low stakes, mindless attacks should reward less.


-They produce some uninteresting gameplay. Weaving is fine, some forms of weaving are really not that great ; the way we basically spam left click while casting skills and spells, basically being a dot tick that needs to be manually triggered by a mouse click is not a "strength" of TESO's combat.



I think that some of the changes proposed go in the right direction but they do not fully adress the problem. Make this change and we will still light attack for ressource and weaving, we will still not have any meaningful reason to heavy attack unless there are good synergies with it in skills. More than that, it might actually make the skill-gap even wider as if maintaining light attack ressource buff is the main reason to light attack post patch, min-maxing would mean weaving only when its about to counter the buff fading, leading to an even harder-to-read optimization for the low-end of the apm ZOS wants to level up a bit.

I see some changes trying to adress the very obsolete system about mandating magicka characters to use staves and only staves

All Light, Medium, and Heavy Attacks now scale with your highest offensive stats.

And the next line basically destroys the hope.

All weapon-based Light Attacks will restore 200 Stamina or Magicka per hit, depending on their type.

Experiment more ZOS, find some meaningful path through the light-attack conundrum but be mindful about the fact that a lot of players are in love with the combat of TESO, and that even if there was a better and funnier system on every front, overhauls like those has a chance to alienate resentful stupid players (The players who think that nothing is balanced, while rejecting every and any attempt to adress it) and veteran players alike if it is not done well.

I think it's a bold change, as if it's botched, the game will be significantly less fun to play.

Vevvev

danthemann5 wrote: »

I think it's fairly safe to assume these changes will go live exactly as they are written. Typically, when ZOS puts something out there to get "feedback", they've already made up their minds.

Her's my feedback for ZOS to ignore:

It makes sense for heavy attacks to do more damage from a risk versus reward standpoint. However, changing a core mechanic so drastically throws the entire game off balance. Why not leave light attacks alone and implement a sliding scale for heavy attack damage and resource restore based on charge time?

Not that it matters since the game is broken beyond repair anyway.

Agreed, even if these changes don't go live if they had a sliding scale like you mentioned for heavy attacks that'd be a pretty nice change.

oXI_Viper_IXo

danthemann5 wrote: »

Why not leave light attacks alone and implement a sliding scale for heavy attack damage and resource restore based on charge time?

Get out of here with your logic and reasonable ideas, Dan! This is no place for that!

Royaji

mpicklesster wrote: »

Royaji wrote: »

mpicklesster wrote: »

Also--what about skills and classes that depend heavily on light attack damage? Like Elemental Weapon and Night Blades, respectively. I saw no mention of either in the patch notes.

We should probably argue objectively regardless how we feel about the change. I don't see how anything about this change specifically affects NB or Elemental Weapon. The incentive to weave a LA every skill and get your Grim Focus stacks is still there. 200 stam/mag every second is nothing to scoff at. For the same reason nothing changes for Elemental Weapon and its damage is completely unrelated to LA damage itself.

1) I agree that the LA changes won't change the motivation to weave for NBs. Grim Focus is too large of a chunk of their DPS. The LA nerf, however, will disproportionately affect their DPS because LAs make up a larger portion of their DPS than it does on other classes. (Except for maybe magplars?).
I wish ZOS had buffed NB's spammable to compensate for the inevitable DPS loss to LAs.

2) I understand that Ele Weapon adds a flat value, so its DPS in isolation won't change. However, with the substantial nerf to LA damage, it seems like there's little incentive to run Ele Weapon any more. Wouldn't another spammable be more powerful? So my qualm is essentially that Ele Weapon could likely become a dead skill. Which is a real shame for those of us that took the time to learn how to properly weave it.

I see your point about NB.

I don't thing anything changes about Ele Weapon even in comparison with other spammables. Weaving is still there. So situations where it was preferable to other spammables on live will stay the same on PTS.

realboi

Them making light attacks restore resources sounds like they're appealing to the Skyrim crowd once the expansion drops

Surazel

Heyho guys!

First of all a big thanks for putting those notes online to get feedback.

I'm a so called PvE progress player and I spend most of my time in ESO in raids/trials and in addition to that I spend a lot of time learning rotations and perfecting my weaving (including bash weaving).

In regards to the changes, This is a joke right? The concept that "LA Weaving, Skillgap and fast fluid combat" is the reason why I love this game so much! We had a heavy attack meta in the past -- it was called Morrowind -- and we all hated it, it sucked, and thank god you changed it. Why revert back to that? Leave those things as they are.

And to all the weaving haters : L2P :P

Greetz
Sura

Princess_Ciri

Not sure why ZOS is bringing in massive changes when the game is almost unplayable.

What's the point of testing when anything that makes it to live won't work anyway.

That's even before considering how these changes seem to gut fast-paced dynamic gameplay. Heavy attacking isn't fun, the current gameplay rewards players with good timing, it's not difficult it just requires practice. But as always ZOS likes to make changes with a sledgehammer while the game can barely run on the dying servers.

When is Necromancer going to be fixed? Half the skills don't work. I did a raid this week in vMOL that was so laggy our skills wouldn't go off. I wondered if we had stumbled into Cyrodil but nope, seems even PvE is struggling these days.

My feedback to these changes is just: Please don't do this. It isn't a good idea and doesn't make sense - I swear this time last year I read a post about how you wanted to reward dynamic gameplay. Well this change ain't achieving that.

Kilcosu

would absolutely ruin werewolf playstyle unless I'm missing something.
they even wanna hit blood moon and kena?

I do not think it's a good Idea.

Tommy_The_Gun

We’d like to emphasize the possibility of these changes never actually going into the game – we are simply testing and gathering feedback right now

"if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

Let's hope those changes won't go live...

pma_pacifier

Hi, so I don't have to LA or HA now? So instead of LA weaving, does this mean HAs are required in your rotation? LAs are still required for rotation too right for sustain? Or they don't matter too much now, hence lower ceiling? Does this mean I need good trail gear to do good dps?

Or perhaps instead of smashing LAs, you'd have to do HAs to do decent dps in vet content? Would it be easier to do that while avoiding game mechanics? I think it will require some skill too to HA weave and commit to charging it up while avoiding vet mechanics.

JinMori

So, if they do this as it is intended on the patch notes i will never play this game again.

But i have a compromise, it's not really a compromise, it's just a better option in my opinion.

Iv'e already made this point on other threads, but basically, the damage we lose from light attacks put it back to abilities, so basically this will be just a bit of a sustain buff, and if you wanna go full damage with little sustain just go heavy attack.

I think it's by far the best solution.

To reiterate: buff abilities for the damage lost from light attacks, so now we can choose either to go full damage with no sustain, or do a light attack rotation just like now, with about the same damage thanks to the buffed abilities.

Or, you could do light attack, and do the occasional heavy for that little bit more damage, maybe during an off balance, this way you would add another layer of skill.

You would also reduce the skill gap this way as you like, and you would retain the fast combat, right now though, light attacks do far too little damage, iv'e heard reports of less than 2 k crits with good gear.

But as it is intended, no! A big fat no, i will never play this game again no! And i am serious, i left this game a couple of times for long periods, this will be the final if it does happen.

Be very careful zos, because this could make or break....

Ysarie

Can we go for just one patch without you guys completely changing combat zos? This game has been live for how many years now? These are the kinds of changes you test in beta, then you ship and live with whatever you decided on.

Quit yanking us around.

5cript

I cant breathe, what is this? I think I got hit by dizzy swing.

Too much light attack animations for your servers?

Savos_Saren

Hmmmm… so did I read this incorrectly? Heavy attacks no longer restore resources UNLESS you're wearing full heavy armor? (from the Revitalize passive)

codierussell

"Quick we need an idea to take people's minds off of the failed performance update!"

This is absolutely insane. That combat system is what makes eso fun and why I play it. Why would you make such a drastic change to how combat works 6 years into a games life? At some point there are going you will run out of new players to come to the game and all you will have left is the players that have been around forever. This is going to absolutely dismantle what is left of the endgame community. You think people were upset with you just changing skills because they would have to learn new rotations, this will be far worse. If this ever makes it to live myself and most of my guild already said we would be gone. This change makes it very clear ZOS does not care about long time players, all they care about is bringing new people in to buy their stupid crown pets and give free cosmetics away to hide the fact the game doesn't work.

There are plenty of ways to deal with this issue without completely ruining the game. If you guys actually read the forums the suggestions are everywhere. Not to mention this probably won't even do what is intended, great players will still be leaps and bounds better than newer players because THAT IS HOW A GAME WORKS! You find a new game, play that game for a significant amount of time, you master that game.

Not only am I extremely upset that they would come out and do something like this, why are these resources not being used to actually fix the damn performance! Go back to the drawing board, come up with a new system for cp so everyone is on the same level and fix the game that is boarder line unplayable at times.

Oh also, I have no way to test these changes because I am on console which is awesome. We are at the mercy of PC players which for anyone who has played on both, they are completely different playstyles from controller to mouse and keyboard.

Mayorz

This is one of the worse updates/changes proposed i have ever seen in my years playing this game, the entire reasoning behind it and why you think this is what players want shows exactly how little you play/interact with the players of your own game. what a joke.

MentalxHammer

I think this change will actually discourage new players.

What about all the new players who have recently mastered LA weaving? They will feel like they have been wasting their time, their enthusiasm for the game will diminish.

What about all the players considering getting into ESO, reading the forums, seeing that major game mechanics are changing 6 years into the games conception. It makes the game look unstable, and undermines the developers.

ZOS... you made us a promise that this year would be focused on performance; yet, we have seen vast changes to core gameplay mechanics. The sweeping changes are being implemented vigorously, yet performance has been diminished by this recent patch. Make good on your word, FOCUS ON PERFORMANCE.

Kadoozy

MentalxHammer wrote: »

I think this change will actually discourage new players.

What about all the new players who have recently mastered LA weaving? They will feel like they have been wasting their time, their enthusiasm for the game will diminish.

What about all the players considering getting into ESO, reading the forums, seeing that major game mechanics are changing 6 years into the games conception. It makes the game look unstable, and undermines the developers.

ZOS... you made us a promise that this year would be focused on performance; yet, we have seen vast changes to core gameplay mechanics. The sweeping changes are being implemented vigorously, yet performance has been diminished by this recent patch. Make good on your word, FOCUS ON PERFORMANCE.

They are focusing on performance by driving players away.

Less players = less impact on servers.






xD

ValueDrift

Heavy-attacks are slow, clunky, unresponsive and the opposite of fun. They are frustrating to use even when you need them rarely, making heavy-attack weaving a requirement would make all of combat slow, clunky, unresponsive and the opposite of fun. Worst parts of the combat system shouldn't be emphasized.

SeaUnicorn

Omg please, you broke block by "optimizing" it, now light attacks and heavy attack will take a hit too. Please fix what it broken, not break what works!!!!
Everyone and their mother hates heavy attacks. Unless they fit into 1s GCD nobody in their right state of mind will ever opt to use them at their own will.
Remember how we lost half of end-game raiding community and half of pvp community because you were flip-flopping meta 3 patches in a row. Can we please not repeat the experience again?

WreckfulAbandon

So... yet another damage nerf that's being implemented because I guess something else just needed to be changed, right?

Sophieous

"There are, however, several drawbacks to this model as well. First, it tends to reward players for pushing buttons as quickly and efficiently as possible. Players with high Actions Per Minute (APM) significantly outperform those with low APM, as they have better up-time of abilities, higher mitigation, much higher DPS, and can simply move around the battlefield better in both PVE and PVP. "

This is beyond shocking, i cannot believe i am reading this from a company who owns the actual game.

ESO's combat was unique and good for a reason, and you're literally trying to flip it on the other side, since last patch.

You're essentially saying you're changing it to cater to worse players, so.... they dont feel and PERFORM as badwhen competing against better players?

If they wanna get better, they should simply.... PLAY BETTER?

What in the name of god am i reading dude, this is the worst change ive seen since launch and i cannot believe you actually had the nerve to post that online.

And the sad thing is, this is actually going live cus, like all other times, like the recent change in combat, like the bg queue being only solo, you never listen to the playerbase even if there's a huge uproar. It's very sad.

Lot's of new games are coming out and greymoor is not gonna save eso this time. You're driving people away.

ZOS_Volpe

Greetings,

We have recently had to remove a handful of non-constructive and bashing comments from this thread. Feedback is a very important function of our forums, but we do ask that all feedback remains civil and constructive.

Thank you for your understanding.

bol

I applaud the idea of changing LA to sustain and HA to damage, as it simply makes more sense. But the change does not achieve the desired effect of lowering the skill GAP. What it does is:
- it nerfs DPS accross the board of all classes (which is actually a good thing)
- it increases the skill gap for healers, as they are now required to LA weave their skills for sustain, before they did not
- it still keeps those unable to weave properly with lower DPS since they will be having sustain issues

HA in the current form will remain pointless in PVE at least, as you can not buff its damage so high that it could compete with skills, as that would make skills look underperforming and pointless. What you need to do is make HA a useful part of rotation, although that does require more work, but it could function as a sort of finisher of combos for classes. I mean that in a way that HA could interract with debuffs on target that were placed there by previous skills and cause them to break and explode, or apply whatever possible effects. Maybe even change proc-sets to then proc of heavys in this way. So that HA would be used situational and with purpose inside the rotation and not just spammed when you dont have the skill to do anything else. Although that still does not achieve the desired effect of decreasing skill gap it does make the combat more tactical and non-monotonous.

And when you talk about APM, these changes don't change the fact that you still need 120APM to be at the top. Even if you removed weaving altogether you would change that to 60. The current skill gap is not as much the result of weaving, and those 60 la's extra, as much as it is that many players are unable to achieve even 30 spell casts per minute, and even if they do, they are not a rotation but same spell being cast to often, dots not being refreshed, or being refreshed way to often, etc....

To achieve top DPS in this game, you need to cast 60 skills/spells every minute, and they need to be the correct ones in each second. Every mistake causes loss of DPS. There is where the skill gap is coming from. Not from weaving.

But I still agree with the current changes. Weaving for sustain, and dps nerf accross the board that impact mostly high-end players is a good thing.

Caelc

so regen food would be dead
Regen races would be dead.

if they do this, i expect about 10 race changes.

Antirob

From the other thread

Also from a development point of view, the work behind these changes could potentially be a massive waste. It would have been far more effective to ask representatives from all parts of the game for their thoughts on this. Why spend work hours on these changes when a one-hour meeting would have revealed a very clear response of "no". I get that this is entirely focused on casual players, but they are not going to notice a difference. The only people that are going to notice a difference are those who use weaving to improve their gameplay.

I know yourself and others on the community team used to reach out to players for these kinds of things, why was this not used.

iaminc

So basically here’s the patch notes in plain speak:

We screwed up the last patch so bad that instead of trawling through the code we made to address lag and de syncs in combat we are just going to remove the need to weave LA entirely and hope it helps.

Also because we don’t care about our end game PvE or PvP community , we want to make it easier for the casual and new players because they throw more money at us.

satanio

sad geralt of rivia doing hmm.

Thedragonlolitucker

bet its still gonna go through even though 99 percent of people disagree

raegun

After doing several initial parses on the pts i have tentatively concluded that 1) its soooooo hard to test this with the skill dropping bug. I'm getting inconstant numbers because my skills are randomly not firing and therefor have no constant with which to test my numbers. I've been getting a 5k variance between tests with the same rotation. 2) on parses with a low skill drop quotient I have been getting lower dps adding in heavys than with my normal light weaving rotation. My first dummy where i had the lowest number of drops I only dropped 2k dps from live with my normal rotation. where as im losing around 5k dps adding in two heavys per rotation.

these parses are on a magdk in perfected false gods, elfbane, Zaan, maelstrom fire staff. I didn't think to log but i will be next time i go to test.

a suggestion for another way to fix this issue: optional auto attack set up an auto attacker to do .75 light attacks per second. if you can hit higher than that great! light attack manually if not turn on the auto attacker and get boosted to a decent level of damage. still gives advantage to higher skilled players but boosts up lower skill players significantly.