Update 26 Combat Preview

AlayneStone

The rng is terrible. Completely unfair to do this. This is old content that we have completed multiple times and now you want us to rerun it multiple times more ? Seriously ? You guys sure are good are angering your player base. You knew what this was going to do, yet you don't care and are going to do it anyways.... wow.

First chest we open should be a choice of what weapon we want, least you can do, if you have any care for your veteran players left.

foreverloyalty

This is no where near fair to those like me who have farmed up so many weapons for 15 plus toons an now our old ones will not get upgraded please change this @ZOS_GinaBruno

goldenarcher1

"In this pass, we are making a few adjustments to ALL Arena weapons to meet standards"

Kingslayer513

DjMuscleboy02 wrote: »

I imagine the limits on upgrading weapons has to do with the naming of them. When they removed the spell damage and stuff from vma weapons in the past, the names remained the same. Since there are normal and perfected versions now - we all currently have what will be normal versions - the names would need to be changed for every existing weapon. I don't think it's as feasible as we would like to think.

It's not the name of the item but the item ID that ties to the database backend. I'm sure ZOS added new item IDs for the new perfected weapons, and considers it too much trouble to go swap everyone's old weapons to the new item IDs.

Not that it would be difficult at all; it would be a trivial SQL script I can picture right now. I chalk it up to laziness tbh.

MissBizz

Just adding my voice that not upgrading our current weapons is BS. We put in the time farming VETERAN maelstrom, our weapons should be perfected.

pod88kk

Will there be a perfected version of the Craglorn sets next?

colossalvoids

So we're playing "good developer" card now? And no word after the actual backlash, waiting for reaction.

No one praised moving back from abhorrent light/heavy attacks rebalance but hated the very idea of wasting time for that and you thought it would be nice to have some bad decisions covered by "nice devs" to be probably solved in a matter of days. Brilliant.

[Edited for discussing moderator action]

MurderMostFoul

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

My question:

Current 7 gold Impenetrable provides 1806 Crit Resist. How much Crit Resist we get from will 7 gold Impenetrable + base Crit Resist in U26?

newtinmpls

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

Let me say that I avoid VMA and DSA - vet or non-vet.

I'm sad that the items that some people have farmed so long for are now reduced in value.

D0RID0RI240

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

[snip]. I know this content is 4 years old now, but man you literally have no clue how to retain veteran players.

[edited for baiting]

Alienoutlaw

This is an absolute outrage, players have spent months not only farming VMA weapons but battling the bugs and crashes that came with that grind to get weapons that the average player could not it was a reward for completing hard content, now you are reducing that reward to a participation medal, what will be next? monsters helms dropping in normal dungeons? the standards you speak of are what exactly? i'll take a guess by saying the easiest way to balance the power gap between new/casual players and the vet/top end players is to simply cripple the top end.

BennyButton

No amount of “Hey Gang” will fix this dumpster fire of a thread you caused @ZOS_BrianWheeler and I think maybe it’s time for you to listen to the end-game community, or even maybe just your class reps.

JinMori

If you are gonna do this, at least give us a way to combat rng, like a token we can use to directly buy equipment from the arena after we have done a couple runs we get a currency that allows us to choose the piece that we want. You could even extend this to other content.

By the way, i still haven't got an inferno staff of succession and i am not happy about it.

Major_Lag

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

I'm not personally affected (since I'm starting over on PC-NA after abandoning my now-unusable PC-EU account) - but this effectively amounts to flipping your veteran playerbase off with a middle finger the size of the White-Gold Tower!

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Lastly, in this update we are making some small adjustments to Critical Resistance and Healing affecting PvP specifically. (...)
This isn’t just 1 ability that causes this type of health bar swinging, so we are making adjustments to Battlespirit which now reduces healing taken by 60% instead of 50%.

While I admire the apparently newfound idea of making relatively small changes - it's effectively a 20% nerf, not quite small, but certainly much better than 68% or something else insane like that.
But once again this is a (missed) shot in the dark, because it does not address the root of the problem, which is the extreme stacking of crosshealing in large groups.

Nerfing all healing by 20% will hardly put a dent in the ballgroups, which already had insane overhealing to begin with.
It also won't affect zergs a whole lot, either. But it will certainly badly hurt solo/smallscale players.

This issue has been discussed repeatedly, many times over, with various constructive solutions proposed, and yet you still decide to go with the sledgehammer approach. For shame.

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Gearing up for PvP isn’t a simple task because of the need for Critical Resistance. The other issue regarding itemization in PvP is that it’s very limiting due to the need for building Critical Resistance. This means other popular traits and builds aren’t as viable in PvP unless you’re a glass cannon or top-end player. To bring more viable stat and set combinations into PvP play, we are now granting a baseline Critical Resistance. In conjunction with that change, we are making several adjustments to item sets which grant Critical Resistance. We also are making changes to the Impenetrable trait by reducing the value.

A very interesting change - which is also a big indirect buff to new "green" PvPers, who frequently give PvP a try despite lacking all-Impen gear (usually using their regular PvE gear, which ends very poorly to say the least).
Anything that helps new PvPers not get horribly destroyed right off the bat is a positive change in my opinion.

On paper, it will also certainly allow more build diversity, which is always a good thing.
But I'm quite concerned about the possible unintended side effects of such a change.

1H+S with all Sturdy looks like a prime suspect here - it's currently not viable outside of "permablock" builds, due to giving up too much crit resist, but with the addition of baseline crit resist this might well become the new "tank meta" to bring the current tank meta to shame.

EDIT:
To emphasize my initial point about the Impen trait changes - IMO the current problem with the Impen trait is that it's far too strong in what it does, far eclipsing pretty much all the alternative options.
It's so strong, in fact, that it's pretty much mandatory unless your build specializes in avoiding damage in other ways (bombing, kiting via extreme mobility, permablocking).

Currently in low and medium tier PvP, Impen is an absolute must-have - to the point where usually the very first "build check" question being asked is "do you have impen on all armor pieces".
As Brian has indicated in his comment, this is indicative of a lack of available build diversity and heavily limits the viable options.

KingMagaw

This made me laugh

kojou

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

This will be a very unpopular choice for 2 reasons...

• First there is the task of re-farming VMA that you just gave us. I can do VMA relatively quickly, but its not content that I find fun.
  
• Second there is the diminishing of the weapons we have by giving them in normal.

Now, if you also said you are adding a duo mode of VMA that will scale up the difficulty, but will accept 2 players and drop the perfect weapons then you might appease a few people since then we can at least have a new playing experience when we get them.

Playnice

Gee that's a nice way to *** people. Stop doing stuff like this

SoulAffliction

I believe someone mentioned earlier getting rid of RNG for both vMA & vDSA...

I’d go one step further and would suggest that upon completion of vMA or vDSA, you should get a choice of what weapon you want (like how you choose the Fighter’s Guild Prismatic)...

However; maybe leaving the trait as RNG, leaving transmutation viable.

Thoughts?

ThePlayer

So players who have never passed even the first level of the MA in veteran will be rewarded with the normal version of the MA weapon (just do it in normal), while all the players who have done countless runs in the veteran take it in that place .. ZOS you are evil geniuses.

Rehdaun

SaltySudd wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

Perfection Stones coming to the Crown Store soon?

Since the combat team appears to just blindly throw darts at the wall and go with whatever sticks, figured I'd do the same.

Your post reminded me of this..

Inklings

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

If it was new content or even a harder version of the arena id be stoked to farm the new perfected versions of these weapons. What im not looking forward to is farming 5 year old content with the added bonus of the extreme poor performance we have seen for the last year now for a unerfed version of a weapon i already had months ago before it was changed.

And im saying this as someone who clears vMA in under 30 minutes. Farming wont be that much of an issue for me if i chose to do so, but taking a step back, and looking at this from outside my own shoes, i feel so bad for the people who struggle with the arenas to get back something that was taken from them months ago pre nerf.

Faulgor

Wow, I think I'm the only one who's actually looking forward to a reason to run vMA again, lol.

I mean, it's the only content that requires a few brain cells outside of 4/12 player groups. I might actually play the game again instead of just feeding my horses and playing dress-up!

jhall03

If you give everyone base crit resistance, but decrease the Impen trait, then won’t everyone still run Impen?

Serpace

The only way this would be accepted by the player-base is if the current weapons (which were dropped in vet version by the way) were perfected. And a weaker Normal version was released separate of the current weapons.

It is only fair that people shouldn't have to re-farm the EXACT same content.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

What happened to the PROMISES you made to your community that you would spend this year FIXING YOUR GAME? Instead you slap veteran players in the face once AGAIN by forcing us to refarm something that should be rightfully ours? How dare you. Actually how dare you. ENOUGH with these changes! Please do as you promised and stop betraying your loyal players!

joshmcglade8ub17_ESO

Please do not adjust healing through battle spirit. This is a blanket nerf, and will have negative impacts. Some people like to play the game as a healer and they should not be punished for this and there are other players who are not doing insane healing that are just getting nerfed for no reason. If there are specific issues that are being seen, address them individually. If the problem is healing large groups of people with one skill then address those skills. Perhaps limiting the amount of players these skills impact, or making healing only affect your own group members. Blanket nerfs are NEVER the right way to fix an issue. I've been in the game since beta and have watched blanket nerfs happen time and time again and they are never successful at achieving better balance.

Unknown_Redemption

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

"We have the technology to change existing sets in the game! Need Valkyn Skoria and some Spell Penetration? Boom. Done!"

Hey can you update existing vMA weapons as we already completed them in the same environment that Perfected will come from?

"Whats that now?"

Can you please update vMA weapons with the other queued item sets?

"......"

Hello?

"Please wait while we connect you to a specialist."

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We hope these updates enhance your day to day adventures in ESO, and we’ll see you in Tamriel!

Right.

ZekenRambo

Will write up a theory thread later, but would you guys entertain the idea of maybe buffing the gear sets that exists in these two dungeons to better match the current trial meta and make these truly worth the regrind? Example is like VMA - ele succession and VDSA Footmans fortune. Y’all could make “perfected” versions of these sets and maybe buff the set stats and make it very viable options for end game content like they used to be. Just a thought.

realgoodspaghet

Horrible changes. The PvP battle fatigue change is a disaster that will just punish classes already struggling and take maybe 1k off the total healing of a stamcro/stamden/stamDK. You NEED to stop using a hammer to try and fix every change and maybe get the tweezers out and try to accurately fix the REAL problem. Every change you seem to make as of the last year or so is a sweeping change across the board that hits everybody - that's not how you balance things. If I have 20 cakes and my friends have 10, reducing the amount of cakes we all have by 10% means they have 9 and I have 18 cakes. Sure, I have less but so do they - it's the EXACT same logic you apply to your game and the changes.

Don't even get me started on the vMA and vDSA changes. The idea of perfected weapons is fine - great. But not making current weapons perfected? What the hell? [snip] Absolutely crazy change, all current vMA weapons need to become perfected.

I was already debating taking my leave from the game with all the changes in recent times - constantly having to relearn my class every few months, tri-achievements from dungeons now rewarding just a title, etc. I'm a end-game vet trials and dungeons player and you've worn me down - I've tried to remain loyal and trust in the developers but you guys are so out of touch I honestly do believe you don't play your own game outside of questing and maybe testing new dungeon mechanics with godmode on.

If current vMA and vDSA weapons don't become perfected that will be the final straw for me and I will quit, which is a shame because I do like the fundamentals of the game and the setting very much. The gear and class circle has worn me down. It's just change after change after change going in circles for no good reason. I'll find something better to play, such as Minecraft - new nether update is cool and doesn't invalidate anything I already have, unlike here.

Please listen to us, your community. Given we have to request a forum ID, you can bet that most people who bothered to get their ID and post here know what they're talking about or at the very least actually play your game, which is something I don't think can be said about you, the developers.

[minor edit for bashing]

x48rph

Honestly adding perfected versions and not upgrading the ones players have is bad enough but the fact you literally stripped these same bonuses off the weapons in peoples inventory back then and now your adding them back but refuse to even put the bonuses back on the very same weapons you took them off of is just a really low blow.