Way Too Wordy Feedback And Suggestions On Intended Goals And Realization Of Basic Attack Changes

Faulgor · March 2020

I didn't plan to engage with this topic much further, but after reading code65536's great post and everyone's thoughtful discussion in the comments, some concepts and issues seemed to rise to the top that compelled me to write up some thoughts and suggestions of my own. I'll preface this with a disclaimer that I am an idiot who knows nothing about ESO in particular and game design in general outside of playing since beta and being with the franchise since Morrowind. While I participate in all content, I'm not excellent in any of them. If you agree with any of this, know that you agree with a fool.

ZOS' Goals

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. While we believe it’s good to have a skill gap that promotes mastery, we also believe the gap as it currently exists is too wide, and that many players aren’t finding satisfaction in the climb.

Fact of the matter is, depending on the content, there's a lot going on in your game!
Short of removing those gameplay mechanics and nerfing encounters - having to dodge or block in time, keeping your buffs up, etc. - there is little that can be done for non-DPS roles. One option is to increase buff times across the board (ESO has very short ones as is), but that would conflict with a fast-paced, resource-based gameplay in some ways. It might be best if we concentrate our efforts on DPS roles for now, which most players have to engage with anyhow for the majority of the game's content.

APM is not really something most players think of when considering ESO's combat. There is a limit to how many actions you can perform, and it is centered around the 1-second global cooldown. Higher APMs are only possible in conjunction with the priority system and animation cancelling, which admittedly many people seem to struggle with. Most of these priorities, however, are set up in service to the player, to help them remain in control when they can use blocking or dodging at any time they need to. It seems to me the relevant stumbling block are not these defensive animation cancels, but the offensive one in the form of basic attack weaving, which we'll get to later.

However, what I want to draw attention to is that not all low-APM players are created equal, and all these groups might require different solutions to help them narrow the skill gap.

For one, it does not mean you are casual. You can be very engaged with the game and want to play at a high level, but struggle physically or mentally with too many things going on at once. In the past you might have had success with heavy attack builds, but since the shift to a light-attack meta, you couldn't keep up anymore.
A specific yet very common subsection of those players are the ones that do play light attack rotations, but struggle with consistent weaving in particular. These are often referred to as the "middle class" players - not at the top, but trying to emulate their playstyle.
Another common set of low-APM players are the so called light-attack spammers. People who are either new to the game, do not care to improve their gameplay because it is sufficient for the content they do, or the classic "casuals". Sometimes, they might be used to relying on basic attacks from other games (even Elder Scrolls games), and approach ESO in the same way. Most of these currently prefer light attacks over heavies because they are instant, deal more damage in the same time, and thus heavy attacks don't feel very fun to use.
The last group, which seems less common, largely ignores basic attacks altogether and just wants to cast skills all day. For the new or learning player, this is like a stage between the light-attack spammer and becoming a middle-class player, when they realize they have a lot of skills at their disposal and want to try them out, but don't have the hang of weaving or rotations yet. Those hard-casting Crystal Fragments, for example.

Additionally, we believe the over-reliance on a specific mechanic (light attack weaving) leaves less room for playstyle diversity, including lower-APM options.

I wholeheartedly agree on this. Virtually every RPG I've played had differences in attackspeed across various classes and roles, but in ESO, everyone is playing with the same 1-second global cooldown speed. This makes even apparently very different builds - magicka vs stamina, for example - feel very similar. Unless we'd want to go faster and burn a hole through the servers, the only option is to have slower, lower-APM playstyles.
Note: This is not just about giving an option for players who "can't keep up" or are still learning. It's about playstyle diversity in a role playing game, and I'm happy ZOS acknowledges this.

This is particularly evident in veteran content and PvP.

PvP is a very different beast than even veteran PvE, and it will be difficult to offer lower APM options when you have to react (or rather, pro-act) to a lot of things outside of the control of even the designers of this game. Offensively, it might be done by strengthening DoT builds again (uh-oh), so low-APM players wouldn't have to remain engaged continuously. Another option could be to improve heavy attacks in general. I'll try to consider impacts on PvP in my suggestion.

Finally, the concept of using light attacks for damage and heavy attacks for restore is, quite simply, unintuitive – especially for less experienced players.

I still recall when this change has been made, and I said as much back then. Resource restore made sense on Restoration Staffs (it's right there in the name), but it never should have been expanded to other heavy attacks. Channeling a heavy-hitting ability, exerting yourself while doing so, cannot feasibly restore my stamina within the logic of the game world.
The other change, coming with Summerset, that saw a shift to damaging light attacks and merely restoring heavy attacks seemed equally unintuitive, but was a response to the reality of the game at the time. Nobody at the top wanted to use heavy attack rotations anymore, because the sluggish feel did not make them very enjoyable. Relegating them to a utility might have made many people content, but it remains unintuitive and diminishes the playstyle diversity of the game. Regardless, we shouldn't repeat the mistakes of Morrowind that required the Summerset changes in the first place, that is, making heavy attacks a necessity.

Does It Work?

We believe these changes will broaden the usage of Light, Medium and Heavy attacks for all players. In this new dynamic, Heavy attack builds will be more viable, giving low APM players opportunities to compete in both PVE and PVP.

It is rather difficult to envision who besides top-end players are still going to use light attacks in this environment. To the new or inexperienced player, they now feel entirely ineffectual, dealing significantly less damage than most overland enemies' basic attack. While I've asked for a more challenging questing experience, I don't think this it, and will only serve to discourage newcomers.
Medium attacks, granted, might no longer be the disaster they used to be. But it is unlikely they will be used deliberately instead of an instant light attack, or the full benefit of a fully charged heavy attack. Which, admittedly, is fine - we struggle right now finding a use for heavies.
Heavy attacks are more damaging now, which might help low-APM players that can't or don't want to use a lot of skills. But their exceedingly long charge up time still makes them unenjoyable to use, which means they won't engage many newcomers either. This change mainly seems to serve low-APM players already highly engaged with the game, and even they deserve better. At the top end, people will (begrudgingly) use them if they yield the best DPS - but as said above, that would be repeating the mistakes of Morrowind.

High APM play is still rewarded as the absolute highest DPS and requires a mix of both Light and Heavy attacks, interacting with Off-Balance as optimally as possible.

That's the rub: People don't want to have to mix light and heavy attacks. Most are happy with fast-paced light attack rotations and don't want to stop and slow down. Others have trouble weaving and don't really want to rely on either. Inexperienced players want their attacks to feel effective without having to memorize tight combos. And freaks like me are longing for viable heavy-attack playstyles that don't overshadow others.

Another concern is that putting resource gain on light attacks (which, of course, is not any more intuitive than heavy attacks restoring resources) gives the dominant light attack rotations even more sustain than they have now, which disadvantages sustain races like Bosmer, Redguard, Breton and even Khajiit further. Why should I chose Bosmer for 258 Stamina Recovery when I can gain more with a simple light attack?
There is also not a lot of room left where people could forego sustain bonuses they currently use for damage ones by using light attack rotations, e.g. replacing recovery glyphs with damage ones. Because they already do that and sustain (mostly) fine with potions, passives, active skills like Spell Symmetry, synergies, various group support, etc. There are some trade-offs that can still be made for certain builds, e.g. changing buff food, but in the end those will mostly benefit top end players that can weave perfectly.

Overall, where can these changes actually close the skill gap?
Low APM players that use heavy attacks see a slight boost, while those predominantly using light attacks see a heavy nerf.
Those mostly relying on skills are largely unaffected.
Middle class players that weave imperfectly will be closer to top end players, but both will see less DPS overall. And it's also not clear the gap will be lowered significantly, due to the much higher sustain for perfect-weaving top end players.

So we raised the floor for a very narrow subsection of players, lowered it for another, and lowered the ceiling for everyone. I don't think we can call this mission accomplished.

What Is To Be Done?

Let's draw up a cleaner list of goals we have for these changes

Narrow the skill gap by decreasing the importance of light attack weaving
Provide viable options for low APM players of all varieties
Encourage playstyle diversity through these options
Make relation between light and heavy attacks and their effects more intuitive

#1 In effect, we want to raise the floor for players struggling with light attack weaving and players who are capable of fewer APM using either mainly basic attacks or skills, while not bringing down the ceiling and discouraging mastery in rotations.
Decreasing the importance of light attack weaving is simple in principle: Lower light attack damage. That works, but it would bring down the ceiling considerably, especially with a nerf of 78%. Consider that currently (at least in my parses), light attacks make up 15-20% of DPS. Lowering that by around 80% decreases overall DPS by up to 16%. If we decrease light attack damage, that damage has to come from somewhere else.
Further, as we have seen, decreasing basic attack damage excessively hurts some groups of low APM players we actually want to help with these changes. This is something we'll have to keep in mind.

#2 Middle class, light-attack weaving players are served by point 1. Lower skilled, low APM players can be helped by improving heavy attack rotations as we have already seen. We should also keep those in mind who mainly use basic attacks or skills at a lower experience level.

#3 However, heavy attacks are still not very engaging. And if we are serious about playstyle diversity, heavy attacks can't just be slower light attacks. They are already qualitatively different by having a cast time, so they need to have a qualitatively different effect - not just the same, but stronger.

#4 Light attacks being simple and instant, and heavy attacks being slow and damaging is a concept most TES players are familiar with and seems quite intuitive. However, it remains to be seen how active resource gain through basic attacks factors into this.

Let The Armchair Developing Begin

With these goals in mind, I would suggest the following changes in relation to LIVE. In descending order of my support for these changes.

Lower Light Attack damage by 30-50%.
Your successful Light Attacks increase the damage of your abilities by 5% for 8 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.
Reduce Heavy Attack cast time for all weapons to 0.8 seconds.
Increase Heavy Attack damage by an indeterminate amount (to be on par with Light Attack rotations).
Medium and Heavy Attacks now deal damage and restore Ultimate on a scale based on how long you hold the attack.
Fully charged Heavy Attacks no longer restore resources.
All basic attacks on an off-balance target return resources. For Medium and Heavy attacks, this amount is increased based on how long you hold the attack.

The changes to light attacks should be the least controversial ones (once more thanks to code65536 for inspiring me with their suggestions).
The idea is not to reinvent the wheel, but give the Hawk Eye passive from bows a more general application. Lowering light attack damage directly is an obvious change to decrease the dependency on weaving, but we still want to keep that damage on our DPS sheet. With this change, we put that damage on a stacking buff, that is trivial to keep up for top end players and very forgiving for middle-class players: While the numbers may vary, the key is to have an uptime that allows us to miss a light attack here or there and still keep all stacks throughout the rotation. This would considerably narrow the gap between top and middle class players without lowering the ceiling.
Depending on whether the buff affects light attacks themselves, this could lessen the nerf for light-attack spammers, and it would certainly boost their occasional skill use. Likewise, low APM players that mainly use skills will see them increased by an occasional light attack.
Note: The buff could also apply at a different point in the damage calculation, e.g. as weapon / spell power. That part is largely irrelevant to the concept, although I'll say I put the value deliberately slightly higher because of the calculation with other damage-done buffs.

So, why don't we just increase skill damage across the board and be done with it? That would be another (maybe simpler) option, but by ZOS' words, we still want to retain a sense of mastery in light attack rotations, and we keep this here with maintaining a stacking buff. Further, a general increase in skill damage would also impact PvP heavily (do we want +15% damage on all ultimates out of the blue?), as well as heavy attack rotations which we want to feel distinct.

Indeed, a key factor in increasing playstyle diversity is to differentiate between the fast-paced, continuous onslaught of light attack rotations which we've come to know (and love) from ESO and a contrasting concept of slower, hard-hitting and burst-focused heavy attack rotations. Keeping a stacking buff through effective weaving defines the first kind, but how do we flesh out slower rotations?

First off, heavy attacks, to become enjoyable, need to be sped up significantly across the board, as was done with Uppercut and Flurry. 0.8 seconds like Uppercut seem like a good place to start testing this. Many people are already fine with using those skills, and making heavy attacks a similar channel merely flips the script: Instead of a charged up skill weaved with an instant basic attack, we have a charged up basic attack most of the time followed by an instant skill.
Second, naturally, the damage has to be increased to be appropriate for the cast time as well as in relation to light attack rotations. It's difficult to give precise numbers here because so many other variables are involved, but the current PTS changes seem in the right area.
Third, and most controversially, I think Ultimate gain would fit perfectly into this concept of charging, heavy-hitting ability rotations. I'm not going to lie, I was very fond of the initial concept of "Finesse" that charged your ultimate faster based on your combat performance, which we later came to know as dynamic ultimate generation (sadly it was mainly relegated to ultimate on critical hits, which made all builds feel very similar). It's a fine trade-off, using a cast time now to have an ultimate up sooner, and would let low-APM players who can't use a lot of skills in rapid succession fall back on their ultimate, either offensively or defensively. I think it would also entice newcomers and people who are still learning when they get to use their cool ultimate more often. Yes, this has several implications for PvE (such as Warhorn uptime) and PvP (especially ranged heavy attacks might build ultimate too fast), but I'm optimistic these could be managed through fine-tuning.
Note: Of course, all of the other changes would still work without Ultimate gain on heavy attacks. But heavy attack rotations would be less interesting, less distinct, and ultimately reserved for low APM players instead of offering something in their own right.

Lastly, the issue of resource gain. Intuitively it should not be possible, by the logic of the game world, to gain resources from non-magical basic attacks, and ESO's setup (which was mainly an emergent mechanic and not a deliberate design) has caused a lof of raised eyebrows and head-scratching. However, there are good reasons why we have active resource gain through universal means outside of passive recovery and skills on our skill bar, and I suspect ZOS will want to keep this feature in some fashion (a good summary by code65536 can be read here).
One possibility is to introduce a wholly new combat ability like dodge, break free, etc. that simply serves to "catch your breath" and regain some resources, but that in itself comes with several issues. Ultimately, we might not want to change too much, and the idea of gaining more resources from off-balance targets has already been part of the game for quite some time.
Retaining resource gain in this condition would help to keep a somewhat reliable source of active resource gain in the game while leaving basic attacks in most instances intuitively "clean" from secondary effects. It also streamlines light and heavy attacks for resource gain without making them generally too similar.
But as I said, the support was ranked in descending order, and we might come up with a better solution eventually.

Summary

Overall, we set out to introduce more viable and enjoyable playstyles that serve low-APM players of all experience levels and aspirations, narrowing the skill gap by lessening the importance of light attack weaving, and keep top end players mostly unaffected by raising the floor instead of lowering the ceiling. The roles and effects of light versus heavy attacks should also become more intuitive.
With these changes, I hope this can be accomplished.

Top end players should continue to have the best sustained DPS in most circumstances by light attack weaving reliably.
Middle class players that struggled with weaving before will have a very accommodating mechanic that helps them get closer to the higher end, even when missing some light attacks.
Low APM players that rely on basic attacks will see a moderate drop in light attack damage for a boost in heavy attacks and their occasional skill use.
Low APM players that rely on skills will receive a boost from occasionally using light attacks.
Low APM players that want to avoid light attack weaving altogether can aim for viable heavy attack rotations instead, which keep newcomers engaged by getting to their big punch ultimate sooner.
Light and heavy attacks are differentiated more intuitively, with instant light attacks used in continuous damage rotations (high APM) and heavy attacks in charged up, burst damage rotations (low APM). This also encourages builds of varying "attack speeds", an RPG staple.
PvP should remain mostly unaffected in regards to weaving, as the lower light attack damage is merely transferred to the weaved skill and outside of weaving, skill damage remains unchanged.

I can still foresee some possible issues, e.g. it might still become META to include some heavy attacks in light attacks rotations, which is what I'd like to avoid. But the finer points of balance will have to be addressed regardless.
There have also been some other great suggestions that could accompany these changes, like making Empower affect all basic attacks instead of just light, which I didn't include in this already way too wordy post.

TL;DR: Decrease light and increase heavy attack damage, Hawk Eye on light attacks for everyone, heavy attacks return ultimate, resource gain for basic attacks only on off-balance.

Now let the stone throwing commence. Or worse, don't reply at all.

Banana · March 2020

You must be quarantined to write such a novel

Faulgor · March 2020

Banana wrote: »

You must be quarantined to write such a novel

I'll let you know that I was the one who clicked agree there.