Update 26 Combat Preview

Dusk_Coven

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

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

You forgot to rename and reskin them. If you had, people wouldn't complain about grinding for new loot.
[Edited for baiting]

mobicera

Are you serious right now?
You actually expect us to refarm vdsa and vma weapons when the perfect versions only drop in vet which we did anyways to acquire it first?
Generally I take most changes with a grain of salt but this one is so absurd and out of touch that I actually had to re read it multiple times...
I don't enjoy vma I got my weapons I needed with way to much damn farming...
I will not go back and do it again, I WILL NOT.
I don't care how its become easier in 2 years I still will not do it
I will leave before I am forced down that path.
Reconsider this nonsensical change.
You want to have perfect great fine awesome.
But old weapons NEED to be updated if acquisition is the same, otherwise its just a very disrespectful slap in the face.
Could lead to being the straw that broke the camel's back for many people...
Careful...

Derra

Anyway - regarding the healing changes in cyrodiil.

I think that doesn´t get enough attention over the outrage about not upgrading arena weapons just to waste peoples time.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Healing is not overperforming per se.
A magDKs healing in an offensive build (lets say succession + nma) is not overperforming.
A stamNBs healing in an offensive build (lets say ancient dragonguard + nma) is not overperforming.
Not even a templars healing in an offensive builds (les say draugrkin, overwhelming) can be labeled really OP.

The healing that is overperforming:
All Crosshealing.
Stamden, Stamcro, StamDK on high wdmg builds.
Twilight matriarch.

Your healing changes will have no effect on those. A stamDK that lost 60% of their healing due to their HP already being full will not care about losing 10% healing.
A build that already struggled to refill their HP on the other hand will be massively impaired by your changes.

You´re using the wrong tools to adress the issue. In the end this will have the opposite effect you hope to achieve - because players will flock even more to the classes and builds that achieved (and will still achieve) high overhealing - while the ones that can´t get left in the dust.

RangeRaider

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Greetings Gang!

We’d like to take a moment to share a preview of combat updates coming with Update 26 (Greymoor). The full list of changes will be revealed with the patch notes next week, but for now we’d like to provide some insight on our goals. This update is primarily focused on reinforcing itemization standards, improving quality of life for werewolves, and a few adjustments regarding PvP balance. As many of you are already aware, the team recently experimented with some significant changes to Light and Heavy Attacks. We’d like to again thank everyone who participated in the off-cycle PTS test of those changes, and remind you all that those changes will not be included with Update 26. Today, we’ll be focusing on the other changes that will be appearing next week on the PTS for Update 26.

U26 not only has Vampire updates, but Werewolf updates as well! We want to keep the “in your face” action of the Werewolf and also want to add rotation options when you’ve transformed into this ferocious form. For example, Pounce now has a follow up attack afterwards that also has an execute scaled on Bleed. We’re also making adjustments to allow buffing and debuffing to give a sense of being a pack leader. Sustain for werewolves is also something we noted needs an adjustment, so Hircine’s Bounty now has some added functionality if you’re already at full health and don’t need the heal from the ability. We believe these changes will keep the Werewolf playstyle competitive and entertaining for all players!

About a year ago, we started our standardization pass and we’re finishing that off in U26 with Monster Masks/Shoulders. Remember standards aren’t written in stone, but we now have equal measures of power and performance from these 2 piece sets; some are having their 1 piece adjusted to better suit the function of the set. Valkyn Skoria, for example, now gives Spell Penetration rather than Max Health as this is a damage-based set.

Other sets are receiving functionality adjustments (damage values, trigger conditions, cooldowns, etc.) to follow their intended functionality based on their sourcing. A good example of this is Tremorscale: enemies hit by the damaging effect of this ability are no longer snared, but instead have their Physical Resistance reduced. To help with performance, some sets are having their “chance to proc” removed and instead now have a cooldown. Again, we’ll look at Tremorscale as an example: we are removing the proc chance from this set and increasing the cooldown damage. Note that because the cooldown is increasing, the damage is also increasing.

Continuing on itemization, we are also introducing Perfected Veteran Maelstrom and Perfected Dragonstar Arena weapons. This has been a long standing request by the players, and it finally brings these two arenas up to par with others that add Perfected versions. These are earned by completing Veteran mode in each of those arenas and will have additional bonuses much like other Perfected sets. Completing Maelstrom or Dragonstar Arena will now grant Blue versions of the non-perfected weapons from these arenas. In this pass, we are making a few adjustments to ALL Arena weapons to meet standards. One example of this is the BRP weapon set Spectral Cloak: this item set now increases your damage done and reduces your damage taken whenever you deal damage with Blade Cloak, rather than granting Major Protection for 3 seconds after casting. This fits the concept of Blade cloak as it deals with damage as well as protection.

Lastly, in this update we are making some small adjustments to Critical Resistance and Healing affecting PvP specifically. Over the years, we’ve seen healing become quite volatile in PvP with the ability to negate a high amount of damage in just 1 ability cast for many players at once. 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%.

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.

We hope these updates enhance your day to day adventures in ESO, and we’ll see you in Tamriel! We look forward to your feedback regarding the changes above, as well as item sets and your general playtesting experience when Update 26 hits PTS next week!

Let`s see how your team will destroy our combat experience once more or make it worse then it is at the moment if thats even possible.

heaven13

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Lol at some of the comments here. Nobody’s weapons are being “downgraded”, they will be the same as before patch in name and function. Nobody is being “forced” to farm the new version, it will be a very small difference especially on the most commonly used back bar weapons (vMA Inferno and bow).

It’s also not a matter of returning the extra set bonuses these weapons once had. Back when they had these, you could not apply an enchant to the weapon. The extra set bonus was removed when they became enchantable (without removing the primary effect), for most builds this meant giving up one set bonus to gain a Berserker enchant (452 Weapon and Spell Damage with infused). The previous change to remove the set bonus was a buff, and the new change to add them back is again a buff (this one just requires a little effort from the players).

These reactions are why we can’t have nice things. The devs are not aiming to give us a gift of free DPS buffs, they are trying to revitalize content that is largely dead (when was the last time anyone ran Dragonstar?), while hopefully increasing build diversity with some new viable gear options (Master or Maelstrom Daggers coming back?). Make use of the opportunity or don’t, it doesn’t really matter.

By making all live weapons, that were obtained on vet, equivalent to the now normal mode weapons they are essentially being downgraded.

Let's be real: the difference between vMA and nMA are leagues apart. By leaving vet-obtained weapons as is on live (or whatever the adjusted version will be), the devs are telling everyone that the time they spent farming was worth a normal clear. They'll have to repeat the same old content, at the same difficulty, to get a new weapon while people who clear normal will get the weapon that could previously be earned only on vet. My time is my most precious commodity. And this decision is a spit in the face of my time.

xaraan

One more thing: You do realize MA weapons used to be essentially perfected anyway right? They used to have one line bonuses and you took that away to make Asylum weapons look better and sell more DLCs.

And some of those guys that earned them didn't get the drops we have now. You used to have to do MA and you might not even get a weapon at the end, and there was no transmuting, etc.

price101610

Check out my poll on the general pages. Give zos feedback with raw data, so they know they need to find an alternative to the changes as they are currently proposed.

HEBREWHAMMERRR

ZOS has lost their marbles if they think I’m gonna regrind vdsa or vma for some perfected gear when I’ve already grinded the content. Lmao.

BennyButton

I know everyone is upset and utterly astounded at how stupid of a decision it is to not upgrade the vMA/vDSA weapons, but also don't forget to continue keeping an eye on patch notes. [snip]

[Edited for bashing]

SpacemanSpiff1

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

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

are you guys trying to drive people away?

jecks33

I did 400 vma runs (more or less) to find all the weapons my chars needed.
I can't wait to do other 400 runs for perfected versions! (Ironic)

Ragnaroek93

Not upgrading these weapons is so absurd. I have flawless conq on all of my chars (and the people who I play with have that too), it's absolutely no problem at all for me to get the new version (if I really want to have them), it's just about wasting my time. You don't even introduce a hardmode to get these new weapons, it's just the exactly same content which we did already beat. Have a bit more respect towards our free time WTF

Nerfing healing in PvP won't change the meta at all, my Nb will get rekt with 20% less effective healing while stamcros and stamdens with 8k wpndmg won't notice it. Nice.

SteamKitten01

I think this is an absolutely horrendous idea to not upgrade weapons to perfected versions for those of us that have spent countless hours and countless runs farming these arenas on vet and praying to the RNG gods at the end that we get our needed drop at the end. We HAVE put in the hard work to get our weapons so why shouldn't we be rewarded instead of being forced to farm the same arenas we've already been in hundreds of times before to get perfect versions of our existing drops.

I've done vMA and vDSA enough time that neither are hard any longer but they do take time when you have to farm and farm and farm again because you can't get the drop you need (or in the case of vDSA, none of your 4 members get the drop you need). I would much rather spend time doing the new trial or questing or searching for antiquities than having to spend days upon days farming those arenas again for the drops that I've already worked so hard to get.

x48rph

Derra wrote: »

Anyway - regarding the healing changes in cyrodiil.

I think that doesn´t get enough attention over the outrage about not upgrading arena weapons just to waste peoples time.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Healing is not overperforming per se.
A magDKs healing in an offensive build (lets say succession + nma) is not overperforming.
A stamNBs healing in an offensive build (lets say ancient dragonguard + nma) is not overperforming.
Not even a templars healing in an offensive builds (les say draugrkin, overwhelming) can be labeled really OP.

The healing that is overperforming:
All Crosshealing.
Stamden, Stamcro, StamDK on high wdmg builds.
Twilight matriarch.

Your healing changes will have no effect on those. A stamDK that lost 60% of their healing due to their HP already being full will not care about losing 10% healing.
A build that already struggled to refill their HP on the other hand will be massively impaired by your changes.

You´re using the wrong tools to adress the issue. In the end this will have the opposite effect you hope to achieve - because players will flock even more to the classes and builds that achieved (and will still achieve) high overhealing - while the ones that can´t get left in the dust.

This in a nut shell. An across the board nerf to everyone's healing will change nothing except to further hurt builds that were under performing in that department. Builds that were overperforming will remain the same. Crap like this is exactly what's wrong with all the combat changes lately. Everything is across the board with no regards to how it affects individual classes and builds and so the same imbalances continue to remain. This change will literally fix nothing at all. You will see the exact same complaints being made after it as you do now.

Brovah

Man..

1. Changing the vma stages to regular staves.. this destroys the entire idea of the vma. Making the current vma staves non-perfected is a slap in the face. Vma, boring content and now we have to run this again? Come on..
2. Changing the healing and critical resist etc in pvp? The problem with this is that we're only thinking about the cp campaign. Balances are completely fine in the non-cp campaign imo. If you want to change stuff then you need to setup a baseline for each variant. Maybe nerf healing in cp because of the overkill on healing in cp's.
3. Where did the class reps go? Maybe ask the vet players or even some exp players that have good ideas before implementing things you have to change later on. This have always been the case since you guys tried to make this game. Devs that don't play the game, make the rules. Doesn't make sense.

Stop making [snip] changes and focus on performance. When people get the chance to react to stuff in game rather than just dying because skills don't work then the nerfs and changes will not be necessary.

Stop talking about making changes so that top tier players have less of a chance to come out on top. [snip

Sorry for the long post.
This player that has been around since the start of the game is getting very agitated about the way the Devs throw around our imaginative world that we know and love.

[edited for bashing]

Can you please stop changing posts? I thought Brian said he was liking the feedback given by the community? When someone tries to make a point without swearing etc, just leave it and read it. Maybe you learn something from the community..

Enodoc

What's the functional difference between a Perfected set and a non-Perfected set?

bayushi2005

Ok, so let's do some maths here. While introducing vMA you've set the time-dependent scoring - 1h is a baseline here. While top players can complete vMA in roughly 30 mins, these at the bottom part of leaderboards should complete it in roughly 45 mins, an average player will need 1h - 1h 20 mins to finish vMA.

My RNG sucked and I needed close to 100 runs to get the staff I needed (before re-traiting was introduced). But let's say that an average player would need 25 runs to get that particular item they're after.

This means that an average player will need to spend 20 to 30 hours in order to re-grind ONE piece of gear. Re-grind in the old, unchanged content. I literally feel nauseatic thinking about re-running vMA even once. I am literally FED UP with it. And I think I am not alone...

Are you serious folks?

sneaky_t

So we grind the maelstrom weapons when they have the set bonus plus the additional bonus (wep/spell damage etc) then take that bonus away. Now they add it again and make us grind for the gear all over? Even after running it up to 100 times just to get the weapons/traits we wanted (before transmuting was around). This really is screwing over vet players who worked very hard to achieve them - players that helped get the game to where it is today. I hope this is a joke... for the sake of many players mental health...

kylewwefan

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

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

The rapid response. You had it in the chamber. You already knew. And I’m sure you knew that was gonna get some blood boiling.

Nicely done.

What it means to me? I don’t care. I can go farm VMA some more.

But can you make it worth it for me though? I mean like give the perfected version 7,000 extra weapon damage or something.

I want something that gives you like the Amulet of Kings kind of OPAF.

TheHsN

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

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

It is not cool At All... I farmed 100s of times there and do not wanna be play again the same dungeon over and over again. Atleast 1 in 2 items we have should be upgraded to the Perfected version. Please do not push us again to farm the same things we did before. When you put us in "HAVE TO" situation it makes me at least get cold with the game also if this have is the same thing that i did before MANY times..

VaxtinTheWolf

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

You are risking that people will simply stop doing content (grinding gear) as it will be risky to invest time, knowing that you can do something like that in the future. In fact, something similar already have happened not so long ago - Iceheart monster set was nerfed, just to make new dungeon dlc monster set look better.

If you will do that again, it will be the last straw that breaks the camel's back, so to speak.
@ZOS_BrianWheeler

The camel's back was already broken. Now it's just being buried with more weight.

Madhatten512

You do know that that 10% healing reduction is next to nothing for group healing it doesn't fix your problem in anyway. Like every change this combat team makes it only hurts solo/small scale players. Group healing won't be changed in any way, shape, or form. You want to fix healing in this game change the way off healing works. Make heals only stack inside groups. Lower the healing on rituals ground AOE, and bring defile back into the game.. This change will literally change nothing.


Also while your messing around with gear traits how about you take a look at sturdy. So maybe we wouldn't have so many plebs running around with right click taped down. I swear I don't think anyone at Zenimax actually plays the game. I know for sure none of you go into cyrodiil.

you also have spoken of the skill audit. Could you maybe think about making a couple dots actually worth using again. Maybe if we could pressure some of these perma blocking healbots stam bars and cut into their hots with actual working dots healing wouldn't be so out of control. Just a thought.

brandonv516

Neverending cycle lol.

In the case of the weapons:
-Nerf their bonuses
-Buff them to their pre-nerfed state (or make better)
-Set restrictions so players must play stale content again

My money stopped funneling into this game a long time ago. Confusing decisions all around.

drSMEAGOL

Hello!

So regarding the VMA/ VDSA weapons, I honestly think this is an awesome change! But PLEASE don’t just give perfected weapons from the same arena we have had for years vet or not. Add a Hard Mode like no sigils or more damage to at least make it interesting and new. Would really hate to farm the same content that’s been out for years.
@ZOS_BrianWheeler

My Preciouses

RecktrithiusOediphitry

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

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

You've got to be kidding me. So I have to farm the same damn content AGAIN for HOURS to get what I already deserve and EARNED? [snip]

[edited for bashing]

WeerW3ir

How about no? Its not just unfair, but idiotic too. Like completly ignoring the past few years, the time we spent inside. The rage and salt what we had inside for failing or not getting loot. This is just backstabbing the remaining players in the whole *** game.

SirPilky

Hope you change your stance on the maelstrom weapons not auto upgrading to perf, they put in the time and effort required for it, people here are saying those complaining are so entitled, well so they should be considering it's not so easy to get them for the majority, after the update, people that are just starting to do it will get the perfected ones, putting in the same amount of effort but will be better off than someone that up to 100 times for the weapon they needed and just can't take going into there again, please please rethink this guys.

Universe

Any news on Sanguine's Rose and Auriel's Bow Artifacts ?

Tanis-Stormbinder

Just NO! I don't want a token system nor do I want to redo countless runs of VMA for all my toons. Upgrade our current version of weapons or don't change the current system at all. For those of us with multiple toons that have multiple weapons each, this would be madness! JUST NO!

Kingslayer513

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Awesome changes! Thanks for posting.

To anyone complaining that they don’t get free upgrades to perfected arena weapons, nothing is changing with your current weapons, and farming perfected will not be mandatory. It’s just an option for those that want to squeeze a few hundred more DPS out of their build and don’t mind returning to vMA or vDSA. Incentive to do old content is a good thing IMO. New patches should gradually release better gear, and putting a little effort into getting it is part of the fun.

Also glad to see PvP adjustments being done through battle spirit so PVE healing is unaffected. And looking forward to seeing the rest of the monster set changes (please let Zaan work on large enemies like dragons).

I hope you are right, but to my knowledge ZOS has not confirmed how the new perfected versions will work. Will they be simply 1 extra stat line for a tiny bit more dps? Or will they reduce the effect of current nonperfect weapons and only perfect weapons will be the full power we are used to? Or will perfect weapons have their power increased in comparison to current nonperfect weapons, thus making them a new necessity to be competitive?

There's a lot of questions and I wouldn't assume anything quite yet.