Let's help ZOS figure this out. Skill gap thread.

SidraWillowsky

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Just IMO, but you shouldn't have to spend hours and hours in front of a dummy to "git gud" at this game - you should just "git gud" by playing the game and becoming a more experienced player, and by doing so, gaining access to a wider variety of stronger sets. Then, learning to execute mechanics, particularly in endgame content should separate the good from the great players.

I do agree that this shouldn't be the only way to get high DPS. I personally enjoy LA weaving and sitting in front of a dummy practicing, but I'm fully aware that that's not everyone's idea of fun. AND THAT IS OK; I don't think some sort of character judgment should be made against players who dislike it. Different strokes and all. And this is a video game that we all play for fun. No one should have to suffer through something to be able to fully enjoy the game.

That being said... I prefer LA weaving. Why can't there be multiple ways of attaining decent DPS numbers so that a variety of playstyles can be happy? Instead of decimating the current meta, why not just make it so that it's still viable, along with other rotations? I don't get why this seems to be so all-or-nothing for ZOS. Instead of a 78% Nerf to LAs, why can't it be 20% or something? Or add some sort of give and take... The vMA staff could add a substantial amount of LA damage but remove the resource return, or decrease other damage. Not saying that example should be viable because it's the first thing I thought of, but stuff like that...

I'd have no problem with them preserving light attack weaving as an intentional build choice. What I object to is that LA weaving/animation cancelling is a foundational DPS mechanic that all DPS characters must learn how to do regardless of build. There's a difference in having to do LA weaving/animation cancelling as a basic foundational DPS mechanic and having a build that is specifically intended to emphasize light attack weaving by design. For instance, if your champion points are skewed towards maximizing light attack damage output and your using Queen's elegance, your build is clearly geared towards getting more damage output from Light Attacks - and in those scenarios, no beef whatsoever with Light Attack weaving. That is how your character was built. But as it currently stands, LA Weaving and animation cancelling is a basic foundational "feature" that's required of any DPS regardless of build if you want to achieve top tier DPS numbers, which IMO, is a mistake, and its the primary cause of frustration for many of the players I play with and that I've encountered over the past 2-3 years of playing this game.

Oh for sure... in case my reply wasn't clear, I absolutely, 110% agree with and support this. An LA-weave should be a choice in a sea of viable builds, not the ONLY way to get DPS high enough to participate in certain endgame content.

BXR_Lonestar

[/quote]
Oh for sure... in case my reply wasn't clear, I absolutely, 110% agree with and support this. An LA-weave should be a choice in a sea of viable builds, not the ONLY way to get DPS high enough to participate in certain endgame content.
[/quote]

Makes sense and I think we're both on the same page then! I think it would actually INCREASE build diversity to make LA/HA weaving a build choice rather than a forced DPS mechanic. There's already sets in the game that appear to be geared towards this concept, and yet, LA weaving and animation canceling is a fundamental part of DPS at present. I'd welcome combat changes that would change this dynamic while still preserving the option to make a build premised on heavy/light attack proficiency.

tului78

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Just my two cents, and its probably not a popular opinion, but...

Honestly, I think the "skillgap" in this game shouldn't come from spending hours and hours and hours in front of the parse dummies so that you can better execute the light attack weaving and animation canceling. I've always thought that build strength alone is where the real skillgap should come from in a game like this. Putting X set with Y set to get a combination of perks and abilities, and then setting up your skill bar with skills that maximize your build's strengths rather than its weaknesses. That would separate the lower tier players from the average to good players.

Then, at the top end of things, ability to execute mechanics (rather than burn through encounters) should be the ultimate skill gap barrier between the good and great players. However, the perception with this game right now is if you don't have enough DPS to burn through things, your a substandard player, and I just think that is a backwards mindset. After all, if you have the ability to repeatedly execute mechanics, aren't you an equally skilled player?

Just IMO, but you shouldn't have to spend hours and hours in front of a dummy to "git gud" at this game - you should just "git gud" by playing the game and becoming a more experienced player, and by doing so, gaining access to a wider variety of stronger sets. Then, learning to execute mechanics, particularly in endgame content should separate the good from the great players.

So what you are saying is that if someone that installed the game yesterday has the same build as a top dps pve Player that played for years they should do the same Damage?

Pareto distribution. They should do about 80% of the damage. The other 20% can come from practicing keeping DoTs and buffs and debuffs up while rotating spammables and LA/HA while not running out of resources

idk

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Just my two cents, and its probably not a popular opinion, but...

Honestly, I think the "skillgap" in this game shouldn't come from spending hours and hours and hours in front of the parse dummies so that you can better execute the light attack weaving and animation canceling. I've always thought that build strength alone is where the real skillgap should come from in a game like this. Putting X set with Y set to get a combination of perks and abilities, and then setting up your skill bar with skills that maximize your build's strengths rather than its weaknesses. That would separate the lower tier players from the average to good players.

Then, at the top end of things, ability to execute mechanics (rather than burn through encounters) should be the ultimate skill gap barrier between the good and great players. However, the perception with this game right now is if you don't have enough DPS to burn through things, your a substandard player, and I just think that is a backwards mindset. After all, if you have the ability to repeatedly execute mechanics, aren't you an equally skilled player?

Just IMO, but you shouldn't have to spend hours and hours in front of a dummy to "git gud" at this game - you should just "git gud" by playing the game and becoming a more experienced player, and by doing so, gaining access to a wider variety of stronger sets. Then, learning to execute mechanics, particularly in endgame content should separate the good from the great players.

APM in any game has a considerable effect on the skill gap.

Granted, Zos did make broadened the skill gap in ESO by emphasizing LAs as they did in Morrowind. It was a bad idea from the start, and it is good to see it just might be coming to an end. But APM and practicing one's rotation on a dummy to perfect it will still be a significant contributor to the skill gap in ESO, and it should be.

BTW, top players do practice and test things. They got gud because they put effort into it. Granted, practicing in a trial is still practice but many of the top players have spent time plenty of time before a dummy. It is what separates them from the rest.

Brovah

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

Rukia541 wrote: »

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

AinSoph wrote: »

To be fair, making a tutorial for something like weaving would be just silly. "Quickly, hero, click the left mouse button in between your number keys as quickly as possible, but not too quickly because you want the attack to still go off". Talk about lore breaking lol, how the heck would they explain that in-game?

Looking back on it, I think the reason they've never created a better tutorial is because they've been low-key ashamed of how they just accepted weaving as a legitimate gameplay feature, and this is their first step in undoing that and becoming more of a proper MMO where managing timers / resources and skill usage is what determines damage.

I have always asserted the opinion that being skilled in weaving is just being skilled in a nonsense minigame and should not reward higher dps numbers. Honestly, this is making me consider playing again, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

ngl, the concept as a whole is handled very oddly in the official's eyes, like it definitely debuted as a bug/glitch but it was fine so they left it there but then continued to just leave it as is while making vContent harder. It's honestly the reason the community is massively divided as it is.

I agree. It was a weird flex to base vdifficulty around assuming players were weaving. That has caused a ton of grief down the line. If they had just nipped the whole thing in the bud years ago and created a global cooldown that can only be overridden by blocking, or made it so that cancelling an animation early cancelled the damage too, they would have a much healthier game today.

I used to try and get my friends to play ESO, but they'd get to endgame and I'd explain weaving and they'd quit. Like, no normal sane young adult with a life and a job is into the idea of weaving - no one.

So eso should just be like every cookie cutter WoW clone? Nice anecdotal lie at the end there mixed with some juicy hyperbole.

As if literally left clicking between skill usage would be the reason to drive someone away. This change doesnt remove weaving by the way..lmao

Why fix something if it ain't broke? Most people like WoW mechanically, it's just the graphics / story / some of the features they've added that have been unpopular in recent years. Look at how well WoW classic is doing. ZOS tried to reinvent the wheel by not having a global CD and inadvertently created some sort of weird cookie clicker-esque combat that rewards rapid, skittish button pressing on top of normal MMO mechanics.

And that wasn't an exaggeration. Every friend I've convinced to play ESO has quit shortly after reaching endgame. They regarded weaving as a dumb chore that didn't really add anything to their enjoyment of the game, and because their dps was always relatively low as a result of not weaving, they eventually exhausted the content they were able to do and stopped playing.

I have NEVER explained weaving to a person IRL and had them react with "sounds like a fun mechanic!" or "that should be in more games!". It's normally a lot of winces and the phrase "garbage game" being thrown around.

Just wow..

So they didn't like the game because they couldn't play how endgame should be played.. so now because of these slow mmo players we have to change the game dynamics.
This is literally the world backwards.

Dusk_Coven

mpicklesster wrote: »

In short, ESO actually rewards build specialization and punishes jack-of-all-trades builds. Conversely, jack-of-all-trades builds are totally feasible in all previous TES games. ZOS needs to find ways to teach new players the importance of specialization. The OP has some good, lore-friendly ideas for doing this.

Depends on what you call "specialization". Is a vMA build "specialization"? Or a multi-role (jack of all trades?) build that specializes in solo play?

Even roles of tank-healer-dps are extremely blurred for most content. The tank and healer roles are basically deprecated to the point where very few dungeons actually need a tank or healer, hence the prevalence of fake-tanks and fake-healers in the queue -- because even with fakes, runs are still successful. Only when a boss can do overwhelming damage do you need a real tank. Even then you might not need a real healer when there are so many self-heal options everyone can slot some kind of emergency shield or heal.

ESO's framework in fact supports jack-of-all-trades and predominantly solo PvE play encourages that.

For new players who just want to learn as they go, ESO tries to provide guidance with their https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Level_Up_Advisor but that probably needs more documentation in-game such as talking about when and how to use each of the skills recommended. And it's still up to the player to integrate the skill lines outside of the level up advisor.

And although ESO touts scaling as facilitating playing with your friends, PvE outside of dungeons and trials just keeps you from exploring and learning your character when you do play with your friends. How much are you forced to contribute if the pair of you just mow everything down with the basics, because there are two of you? When you aren't forced to tank the entire mob? When your buddy is high-level and obliterates everything with their skills and gear sets before you can throw out more than a couple of skills and light attacks?

idk

Brovah wrote: »

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

Rukia541 wrote: »

Crafts_Many_Boxes wrote: »

AinSoph wrote: »

To be fair, making a tutorial for something like weaving would be just silly. "Quickly, hero, click the left mouse button in between your number keys as quickly as possible, but not too quickly because you want the attack to still go off". Talk about lore breaking lol, how the heck would they explain that in-game?

Looking back on it, I think the reason they've never created a better tutorial is because they've been low-key ashamed of how they just accepted weaving as a legitimate gameplay feature, and this is their first step in undoing that and becoming more of a proper MMO where managing timers / resources and skill usage is what determines damage.

I have always asserted the opinion that being skilled in weaving is just being skilled in a nonsense minigame and should not reward higher dps numbers. Honestly, this is making me consider playing again, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

ngl, the concept as a whole is handled very oddly in the official's eyes, like it definitely debuted as a bug/glitch but it was fine so they left it there but then continued to just leave it as is while making vContent harder. It's honestly the reason the community is massively divided as it is.

I agree. It was a weird flex to base vdifficulty around assuming players were weaving. That has caused a ton of grief down the line. If they had just nipped the whole thing in the bud years ago and created a global cooldown that can only be overridden by blocking, or made it so that cancelling an animation early cancelled the damage too, they would have a much healthier game today.

I used to try and get my friends to play ESO, but they'd get to endgame and I'd explain weaving and they'd quit. Like, no normal sane young adult with a life and a job is into the idea of weaving - no one.

So eso should just be like every cookie cutter WoW clone? Nice anecdotal lie at the end there mixed with some juicy hyperbole.

As if literally left clicking between skill usage would be the reason to drive someone away. This change doesnt remove weaving by the way..lmao

Why fix something if it ain't broke? Most people like WoW mechanically, it's just the graphics / story / some of the features they've added that have been unpopular in recent years. Look at how well WoW classic is doing. ZOS tried to reinvent the wheel by not having a global CD and inadvertently created some sort of weird cookie clicker-esque combat that rewards rapid, skittish button pressing on top of normal MMO mechanics.

And that wasn't an exaggeration. Every friend I've convinced to play ESO has quit shortly after reaching endgame. They regarded weaving as a dumb chore that didn't really add anything to their enjoyment of the game, and because their dps was always relatively low as a result of not weaving, they eventually exhausted the content they were able to do and stopped playing.

I have NEVER explained weaving to a person IRL and had them react with "sounds like a fun mechanic!" or "that should be in more games!". It's normally a lot of winces and the phrase "garbage game" being thrown around.

Just wow..

So they didn't like the game because they couldn't play how endgame should be played.. so now because of these slow mmo players we have to change the game dynamics.
This is literally the world backwards.

More that they are returning at least part of their change 3 years ago back to how it should be. It makes more sense that the damage of a basic attack should increase the longer one charges it. That change in Morrowind was backwards.

Further, skilled players will continue to outperform those they outperform now. It is not like the average player will all of a sudden become good.

Dusk_Coven

Brovah wrote: »

So they didn't like the game because they couldn't play how endgame should be played.. so now because of these slow mmo players we have to change the game dynamics.
This is literally the world backwards.

It's not about slow. It's about fun, and probably about whether it's intuitive or not and how the game looks.
If fast is the only consideration, go play a tap clicker. But since all those people who insist on "fast" are not off playing a tap clicker instead of staying to complain over and over, there's more to ESO than how fast you have to click for combat.

Grianasteri

milllaurie wrote: »

Warning: long post.

After reading the new light/heavy attack concept yesterday I was really angry. Angry not because I hated the concept (well I kinda did) but because the skill gap solution is out there. No need for drastic gameplay changes that will drive veteran players (which pay you money each month) away.

The problem with the skill gap is not that it is hard to press light attack button every second or so, the main problem is NEWCOMMERS DO NOT KNOW THAT THEY SHOULD.

I remember myself trying to do my first 4 man dungeon - me, along with my wife, my brother and his girlfriend were all levels 32-44 when we found The Banished Cells. Yes, we knew the basic concept of roles: we had a healer, 2x damage dealers and a tank. And you know what we were doing? My bro was throwing himself among the npcs and blocking and I was spamming throwing blade while my wife spammed lethal arrow and light attacks. We had to give up our first run and make the lower level healer (lvl32) the team leader so the dungeon scaled to her to complete it (note: this was 2016, before One Tamriel). And of course we were shamed and kicked and called names first times we used dungeon finder to complete pledges. Because we had absolutely no idea what we are doing.

First time in Cyrodiil I was just sneaking around the vast planes with my brother completing cyro delves (they were pretty hard back then for a lvl40 since they were all scaled to v16). My first keep defence was in Fort Ash as AD Nightblade. I was so happy when I got my first stone treb because I killed a person with it. My funnel health was doing little damage as a stamina nightblade. I liked the concept of the skill (healing while doing damage) but I had no idea I should use stamina skills. My attribute points were scattered all over the place because I was doing that in Skyrim. When I noticed I keep dying in Cyrodiil a lot, I thought I should invest more into health recovery so I changed my jewelery glyphs to that (faceplam). I had no concept of pro-active healing and avoiding damage in general since I came from TESV:Skyrim. And how in the hell should I have known that my heals are scaling to my freaking weapon damage? That makes absolutely no logical sense to a new player.

Do you see the problem here? Because I sure do. Players have to figure out the game concepts and mechanics on their own. No new player is going to browse forums or watch youtube tutorials because they are enjoing the immersiveness of the game. A new player could not care less about DPS, LOS, META or other stuff when he can just go and kill stuff. I hate to compare the following two games because they are so different but this will lead us to the main topic: even Runescape has combat tutors. So let us talk about how we could teach players the game while playing it. I will be discussing both PVE and PVP.

Main concepts I want to discuss:

1. General ESO math and mechanics
2. PVE roles and mechanics
3. PVP roles and mechanics

General ESO math and mechanics

First of all I realise everything must be consistent with the lore. So I will try my best to suggest lore - friendly solutions for every concept I introduce. Also my idea is making all these tutorial MANDATORY unless they were already completed on other characters. You can introduce the tutorials in various situations: for example when switching a role in party window for a first time a pop-up could appear saying: "You just changed your role, do you want to explore the secrets of combat in Tamriel?". The pop-up could also appear in the first few death recaps after, say, reaching level 35: "It seems you are having some trouble fighting stronger foes. A wizard Whatever in some secret lore place can help you learn some tricks". If you want even more lore-friendly solution to this: the wizard Whatever could appear in front of the player who just resurrected and teleport the said player to his secret library in the magical forest.
The wizard Whatever should teach the player:

• The difference of stamina and magicka builds
• How even the best armour can only mitigate 50% of the damage
• How one can penetrate the said armor
• How the resource pool affects your tooltips and scales to weapon/spell damage
• Separate part about healing scaling (the stronger you are in general the healthier you are)
• General scaling of stuff in Tamriel (i.e. how one can be a great at healing and affect a healing tooltip on his armour)
• The importance of food/drink buffs (Are you really travelling all those distances hungry? Are you mad, Adventurer?)
• Some differences about PVE and PVP and about critical damage and resistance
• Some rumours about Monster sets which are aquired only by the most worthy warriors

Important: in-game ui equipment window or character stat window should be expandable to see different stats. Such as block cost, block mitigation, overall mitigation, sprint cost, roll cost etc. This is important because the wizard Whatever likespointing at numbers very much and he would love to show you how higher magicka pool means higher damage or how much of a difference the armour buff makes.

PVE tutors

Before making a player one of The Undaunted after getting the invitation, players would have to complete a mandatory tutorial dungeon. It could be narrated or moderated whatever you call it by the undaunted quest givers or main quest heroes or whatever. In this tutorial dungeon a player could practice various excercises while learning new concepts. If some skills are not unlocked by the player they would be given to him just for this tutorial (similar to WW quest). Let me create 3 fictional characters for this part of the post:

• A healer Corona
• A damage dealer Rambo
• A tank Sherman

The healer Corona would teach you the basic concept of a healer: "Your job is to make sure noone dies. But to do that first of all you mustn't die yourself".
Corona would also make a point about how healing scales, show a couple rotations with her staff utilizing buffs (ie Major mending from a resto heavy attack).
A 3-part excercise would follow:

1. A npc boss and a friendly npc team killing it(1 tank, 2 dds). The point of the mini-game would be using HOT skills to keep the npc hp bars up.
2. Same situation, but boss has a very well telegraphed special attack. Use a burst heal to get the bars up as quick as possible.
3. This time the special attack is a very large AOE which the player has to dodge before healing his teammates.

Then Corona would add that a healer can contribute to the team even more if the HP bars of the teammates are up and you have some spare time. She would note that a healer can also contribute important buffs to the damage like Wall of Shock and off-balance.

Rambo would explain the concepts of direct damage, damage over time, area of effect damage and how all of it scales. Rambo would also name a few great skills to use: "You can cast volley and forget about it for some time while you are fighting the foe. If you also poison it you will kill it and be home celebrating before you know it!". He would also give some tips about dealing damage: "Light attacks inbetween the skills are basically free damage! You can even start casting a skill while doing a light attack it is so easy! Here, let me show you:"
A 3-part excercise on a dummy boss follows:

1. Cancel a light attack with a skill. Great, let's make it more difficult.
2. Complete a 1 bar rotation on the dummy boss: wow, you are really good at this.
3. Complete a 2 bar rotation on the dummy boss and roll dodge from a big AOE at the end of rotation.

Rambo would also note that weaving some heavy attacks would help your sustain if you get tired. He would also agitate the player to explore various weapons, skills and rotations and practice on a dummy once in a while.

Now we got to Sherman our beloved tank. He would explain about armour and shields, buffs, heavy attacks, self sustaining. He would also note the importance of magicka pool and options of blocking using magicka. Sherman would teach you the basics of being a tank: "You must be big and scary. With that many hitpoints you could not tank a fly. Okay, you can try. When adventuring and fighting powerful foes they will always fight back. Your job is to make sure you are the one taking all the heat and making damage dealers' job easier.". He would then explain basics of melee and ranged taunting, pulling and immobilising. "Here, let me show you:"
A 3-part excercise follows:

1. Taunt a boss and turn it around so the conal attacks face away from your teammates. Great, you did it!
2. Now taunt a boss, turn it around and pull 3 adds to the friendly aoes (ie silverleashing).
3. Taunt a boss, turn it around, pull adds, immobilise them and interrupt a special attack. You really did it? I can't believe it. I was wrong after all.

Sherman would then explain debuffing for the player. He would note that the quicker they defeat the boss, the faster they can get to the tavern and celebrate.

Now I know that this tutorial does not make one a great PVE content player but bear with me. It's all about lessening the gap. This tutorial would put all the players at the same ground and maybe would make them want to learn even more. If I would have had this kind of short minigame before I started doing pledges, I would not have been a hedless chicken that gets killed, kicked or quitted all the time.

PVP tutors

Now we do have some version of that in game. The one that let's you shoot ballistas at the dummies. But there are some critical points that we are not taught before entering PVP. I will create one more character for this part: Leet Pwner. The first thing he would say: You want to fight real people? Not in that armour - you will melt like butter! and would explain that people can crit and the importance of crit resistance. He would also make some good points about how people want to kill you just as much as you want to kill them: "This is not a brainless monster anymore it is a real person fighting for his life. He will try to kill you by all means. Avoid getting outnumbered, KEEP MOVING ON THE BATTLEFIELD. Find some place to cover against enemy sorcerer spells and archer arrows. Cooperate with your alliance players.". Then he would explain about wearing your enemy down and then bursting. He also gives some tips how you can buff your weapon/spell damage before your burst using sets or glyphs or skills.
Leet Pwner would explain how to conserve resources, how to heavy attack to get them back, how to use DOTs to apply pressure and he would explain how to do a burst combo.
We can add a pvp combo minigame right here.
Leet Pwner also has some great points about attacking and defending keeps, how to focus siege fire into the breach, how you always have to apply pressure if you want to do a push. He would then remind the player to keep moving and keep buffing yourself all the time because you cannot know if there is an enemy nightblade behind you just waiting for you to make a mistake to get your head. He would also mention that HOTs is what makes you tanky, not the armour. Leet Pwner also mentions that wandering alone and fighting in group are totally different playstyles.

I know this by far is not the perfect version of the tutorial. But this solution would achieve several goals:

• Teaching new players play
• Veteran players do not get annoyed by dramatic gameplay changes
• Veteran players like how the overall player skill is improved
• The skill gap is lessened

I would love to hear your suggestions and if I missed some key points. But keep in mind, this should be a ROOKIE tutorial, not a Spartan workout.

TLDR; teaching a new player to play is a better option than changing the game's core concepts to fit the needs of new players.

I have to say props for the time and effort put into this! Well done, well thought out. Basically I love it. It would certainly have sped up my development in that 1st year or or 2 of playing.

I would add that the monumental skill gap between average players and the elite end gamers, cannot just be put down to a lack of in game tutorials, its complex and there are a variety of interlinked reasons and while "get gud", "ltp" are part of it, that certainly isnt the whole story.

TheFM

Heimdarm wrote: »

Weaving is neither hard nor easy, it is just not fun. If you can weave easily and you are a master of it, it is not called skill, it's called dexterity and good muscle memory reflexes. A skill is what requires your intelligence as well. Weaving is brainless, repetitive, and irritating key/button pushing. A stupid mechanic for ZOS should get rid of. Easiest solution is to get rid of light attacks and make heavy attacks restore resources again.

Maybe to you it is, maybe don't crap on other people's play style ? Why not just introduce other playstyles instead of neutering ours? And muscle memory and dexterity are skill, that is the premise of practicing everything. Instruments, sports, archery, everything. Saying learning muscle memory and dexterity through practice isn't skill is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.