A founder and magplars desperate plea

qwjr8989_ESO

Hi there! I have a plea about the new AOE changes.

I started ESO in January 2014.A very early beta tested. From the beginning I planned on leveling stam dk in heavy armor and a 2H sword just like my main in Skyrim. First beta test she was made. 2nd beta test she was made. Once game launched I level'd it all the way to vet 10. i hated it. I wanted a new alt so I made a stamplar. A female imperial named Nelsarana. Puncturing strikes? What's that! Puncturing sweeps heals?! Omg. All of a sudden this was my new favorite ability in any game I had ever played. I have over 20 thousand hours into MMOs and I had never experienced anything like it in my life! An AOE. It heals. It damages. It looks great. The light attack weave is perfection.

Flash forward a few months and I bring my wife into the game. She had never played an elder scrolls game. She fell in love. I was dumping 100s of hours into this magplar. I loved it. it was all because of sweeps. It was all because of how much I loved this one singular ability.

Flash forward to early 2015. My daughter is born in January and we decide on a name. Tamriel. My wife and I spent every waking moment in the game because of our love for it so we named our daughter after our favorite Past time. January 15th Tamriel Rilenge was born. Flash forward to that summer and we drove 20 hours to quake con to meet our favorite developers in person.




Baby Tamriel, my wife, Myself, and @ZOS_GinaBruno herself. I met every dev. I had brought an ouroboros book I bought from the bethesda store and had them all sign it. I talked to every dev at length. At quake con they had announced imp city. It was still months away and woebel was telling me about what would become my favorite set julianos he said he had just finished and would be released in the following dlc after imp city.

The devs fell in love with baby Tamriel. Gina bruno had us come with them to the dev dinner the night after the event. I sat across from woebel. I was so excited. I'll never forget Woebel looks me in the eye and goes "You know I designed every ability in the game. What's your favorite one?" "Pokey Sticks" "Pokey sticks?" "Yea you know *makes jabbing motions*" "....Are you referring to...puncturing sweeps...?" "yea...you know...Pokey sticks!"

He then proceeded to turn and I don't believe he talked to me the rest of the night lol. I didn't care I was ecstatic. 2 patches later the nerfs man. Nerf the heal. Nerf the major mending. Take the major mending away. Don't add the heal back when the mending goes away. Nerf magplar sustain. Sweeps fell out of favor. Elemental weapon comes. Ranged magplar.

I didn't care. I loved the ability. I right now play with 7 friends. I got them all into the game. We play multiple times a week. They make new toons. They do new things. I also play Nelsarana. Always sweeps.

Flash forward to last month and I bought my 5 year old daughter Tamriel a copy of the game. She is leveling a stam warden because she wants the bear. I couldn't wait to introduce her to this game as she grew up.

I have sat through a lot of stuff in this game. I got the tiger mount. I have spent 1000s on the game. I have recruited dozens of my friends all of which have spent upwards of 100s in the game. I named my CHILD after this game.

Here is the sad truth. If these AOE changes come to sweeps. I will have to part ways. It will all have been for naught. This isn't a threat. It's not a demand. It's a plea. Please consider the ramifications of changing the game so utterly. I have devoted so much money. So much time. So much energy and effort for it to all be thrown away. I do not want to lose this game. I do not want to lose sweeps. I plea for you to reconsider. I get it. PvP lag sucks. It hurts. It is unfun. But to lose everything I have worked for for literally no reason to but to fix lag in such a small section of the game just seems unfair. I feel like sweeps shouldn't even be considered in this if we are being honest. It's my literal class spammable. No other aoe is your class spammable. It has been this way unchanged since the beta.Why take it away now?

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

the1andonlyskwex

It's really hard to believe that a run-of-the-mill balance change could possibly be the thing that would cause someone as devoted as you appear to be to leave. Maybe you're just burned out and in need of a change.

qwjr8989_ESO

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

It's really hard to believe that a run-of-the-mill balance change could possibly be the thing that would cause someone as devoted as you appear to be to leave. Maybe you're just burned out and in need of a change.

To be able to only cast sweeps once every 3 seconds would ruin my entire enjoyment of this game. No longer would I be able to challenge myself on world bosses, Soloing dungeons, Solo farming sewers. I played other things all the time. I am playing albion all the time. But I keep 3 subs going at all times to show support.

It is no joke that the ability sweeps is the reason I fell in love with this game. I don't use ele weapon. I don't use fire staffs I use lightning staffs. I rock war maiden. I am the sweeps guy. It's a meme between all my friends. It's a meme in my raiding guild. I'm the yee old melee magplar in vet raids. This ability is my enjoyment. I have made builds where I pull 35k+ dps on 30k Dummy with ONLY sweeps. I love this ability man.

qwjr8989_ESO

6mil dummy not 30k where is my brain lol.

driosketch

It's just a test condition, not even a pts patch note. It's also PvP only, and would not effect soloing a world boss.

qwjr8989_ESO

driosketch wrote: »

It's just a test condition, not even a pts patch note. It's also PvP only, and would not effect soloing a world boss.

Where does it say it will seperate pve and pvp with different conditions? Also will it effect imperial city as thats where I spend easily 80% of my game time.

driosketch

qwjr8989_ESO wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

It's just a test condition, not even a pts patch note. It's also PvP only, and would not effect soloing a world boss.

Where does it say it will seperate pve and pvp with different conditions? Also will it effect imperial city as thats where I spend easily 80% of my game time.

In the original post:

To do this, we will need to first do some analysis, and we can only do this on the live servers. As much as we try to avoid running tests on live servers, they are the only place where the combination of player behavior, specific builds, and mass battles happen. So, starting the week of August 24, we will be running a series of tests on the live PC servers – both NA & EU, only in Cyrodiil. Please note that we will not be running these tests on any Console servers. Each test should take about a week, but if needed, we will extend the testing time.

Joxer61

What did you find? Also, why yea, it could suck, but you arent the only dedicated player. Bottom line its an MMO, things change as should the people that play them.

qwjr8989_ESO

driosketch wrote: »

qwjr8989_ESO wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

It's just a test condition, not even a pts patch note. It's also PvP only, and would not effect soloing a world boss.

Where does it say it will seperate pve and pvp with different conditions? Also will it effect imperial city as thats where I spend easily 80% of my game time.

In the original post:

To do this, we will need to first do some analysis, and we can only do this on the live servers. As much as we try to avoid running tests on live servers, they are the only place where the combination of player behavior, specific builds, and mass battles happen. So, starting the week of August 24, we will be running a series of tests on the live PC servers – both NA & EU, only in Cyrodiil. Please note that we will not be running these tests on any Console servers. Each test should take about a week, but if needed, we will extend the testing time.

That's for the test not for the final changes. They have said many times they will never seperate pvp and pve changes.

qwjr8989_ESO

Joxer61 wrote: »

What did you find? Also, why yea, it could suck, but you arent the only dedicated player. Bottom line its an MMO, things change as should the people that play them.

This ability has remained almost unchanged since nearly 2013. There is no reason to change it now.

Drdeath20

I mained and only'd a magplar for years but there is just no reason to use that character in content for anything other than as a healer.

I have a fully leveled magplar, stamplar, magsorc, magblade, magdk and stamcro. Its not that you cant complete content as a magplar dd its that just about every other class is all around more valuable as a dd.

Might be time for all of us to retire the templar class, Its just badly designed. Try a magblade its leaps and bounds better. No channels, very active rotation and overall the strongest dps character in the game for all situations. This is before the buffs they got to merciless and being able to summon shade without a target.

Vaoh

qwjr8989_ESO wrote: »

Joxer61 wrote: »

What did you find? Also, why yea, it could suck, but you arent the only dedicated player. Bottom line its an MMO, things change as should the people that play them.

This ability has remained almost unchanged since nearly 2013. There is no reason to change it now.

^^^

driosketch

qwjr8989_ESO wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

qwjr8989_ESO wrote: »

driosketch wrote: »

It's just a test condition, not even a pts patch note. It's also PvP only, and would not effect soloing a world boss.

Where does it say it will seperate pve and pvp with different conditions? Also will it effect imperial city as thats where I spend easily 80% of my game time.

In the original post:

To do this, we will need to first do some analysis, and we can only do this on the live servers. As much as we try to avoid running tests on live servers, they are the only place where the combination of player behavior, specific builds, and mass battles happen. So, starting the week of August 24, we will be running a series of tests on the live PC servers – both NA & EU, only in Cyrodiil. Please note that we will not be running these tests on any Console servers. Each test should take about a week, but if needed, we will extend the testing time.

That's for the test not for the final changes. They have said many times they will never seperate pvp and pve changes.

There is only the test, unless you have some patch notes you can post.

PS, they say a lot of things that change later on. You are litterally afraid they are changing something that's been in the game forever, but fall back on old comments like they were written in stone.

Vaoh

Other games have made the same mistake ESO may soon make. Fundamental changes to the most core mechanics of the combat system.

In ESO’s case, adding cooldowns to abilities.

The scale of players who leave may not be as widespread because luckily it seems this is only planned for PvP (the vast majority of PvPers already quit). But if it comes to PvE..... rip

Ryuvain

People will leave over jabs/sweeps? Best spammable in the game imo.

Vaoh

Ryuvain wrote: »

People will leave over jabs/sweeps? Best spammable in the game imo.

They're referring to the potential changes to combat where you can only use an AoE every 3 seconds.

Wouldnt be much of a spammable at that point....

Somewhere

I think you're overreacting here.

These are just tests. Looking at the 4 tests available, the 3 second aoe cooldown is clearly designed as an extreme. It's for the developers to establish an extreme.

I seriously doubt that would be their solution, and everyone thinking there will be a global 3 second cooldown on aoe need to relax.

Test 1 - 3 sec cooldown establishes if the devs are even correct in their assumption that aoe chaining is causing lag. If we still lag even after this change that means they are wrong. Further, this test establishes the degree to which aoe chaining is causing lag.

Each subsequent week is a lesser extreme. They are trying to determine what the sweet spot is. Basically, how much do they need to limit aoe usage in order to gain better performance? How much can the servers handle?

After they determine to what degree they need to limit us, then skill changes come.

I seriously doubt the case is that they need to limit us to the degree of test 1. It's not elegant, and no one likes it. So just relax.

Ryuvain

Vaoh wrote: »

Ryuvain wrote: »

People will leave over jabs/sweeps? Best spammable in the game imo.

They're referring to the potential changes to combat where you can only use an AoE every 3 seconds.

Wouldnt be much of a spammable at that point....

Somewhere wrote: »

I think you're overreacting here.

These are just tests. Looking at the 4 tests available, the 3 second aoe cooldown is clearly designed as an extreme. It's for the developers to establish an extreme.

I seriously doubt that would be their solution, and everyone thinking there will be a global 3 second cooldown on aoe need to relax.

Test 1 - 3 sec cooldown establishes if the devs are even correct in their assumption that aoe chaining is causing lag. If we still lag even after this change that means they are wrong. Further, this test establishes the degree to which aoe chaining is causing lag.

Each subsequent week is a lesser extreme. They are trying to determine what the sweet spot is. Basically, how much do they need to limit aoe usage in order to gain better performance? How much can the servers handle?

After they determine to what degree they need to limit us, then skill changes come.

I seriously doubt the case is that they need to limit us to the degree of test 1. It's not elegant, and no one likes it. So just relax.

I was about to say this: it's only testing right now. They never said any of this is permanent.

If anything I doubt they would have jabs follow this cooldown rule if it was passed. Too many play templar for that ability alone.

I think it does way too much but thats just me.

the1andonlyskwex

Ryuvain wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Ryuvain wrote: »

People will leave over jabs/sweeps? Best spammable in the game imo.

They're referring to the potential changes to combat where you can only use an AoE every 3 seconds.

Wouldnt be much of a spammable at that point....

Somewhere wrote: »

I think you're overreacting here.

These are just tests. Looking at the 4 tests available, the 3 second aoe cooldown is clearly designed as an extreme. It's for the developers to establish an extreme.

I seriously doubt that would be their solution, and everyone thinking there will be a global 3 second cooldown on aoe need to relax.

Test 1 - 3 sec cooldown establishes if the devs are even correct in their assumption that aoe chaining is causing lag. If we still lag even after this change that means they are wrong. Further, this test establishes the degree to which aoe chaining is causing lag.

Each subsequent week is a lesser extreme. They are trying to determine what the sweet spot is. Basically, how much do they need to limit aoe usage in order to gain better performance? How much can the servers handle?

After they determine to what degree they need to limit us, then skill changes come.

I seriously doubt the case is that they need to limit us to the degree of test 1. It's not elegant, and no one likes it. So just relax.

I was about to say this: it's only testing right now. They never said any of this is permanent.

If anything I doubt they would have jabs follow this cooldown rule if it was passed. Too many play templar for that ability alone.

I think it does way too much but thats just me.

I don't think it's anywhere close to happening, but I would be very interested to see a meta where Dark Flare was the preferred magplar spammable.

qwjr8989_ESO

I don't even know how I would play my class anymore. I have to choose between using breath of life, pokey stix, ritual, or sun fire, once every 3 seconds.

Doubling the cost would still screw me for spamming sweeps anyways. It's my spammable I can't sustain a spammable with doubling costs.

FlamingBeard

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Ryuvain wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Ryuvain wrote: »

People will leave over jabs/sweeps? Best spammable in the game imo.

They're referring to the potential changes to combat where you can only use an AoE every 3 seconds.

Wouldnt be much of a spammable at that point....

Somewhere wrote: »

I think you're overreacting here.

These are just tests. Looking at the 4 tests available, the 3 second aoe cooldown is clearly designed as an extreme. It's for the developers to establish an extreme.

I seriously doubt that would be their solution, and everyone thinking there will be a global 3 second cooldown on aoe need to relax.

Test 1 - 3 sec cooldown establishes if the devs are even correct in their assumption that aoe chaining is causing lag. If we still lag even after this change that means they are wrong. Further, this test establishes the degree to which aoe chaining is causing lag.

Each subsequent week is a lesser extreme. They are trying to determine what the sweet spot is. Basically, how much do they need to limit aoe usage in order to gain better performance? How much can the servers handle?

After they determine to what degree they need to limit us, then skill changes come.

I seriously doubt the case is that they need to limit us to the degree of test 1. It's not elegant, and no one likes it. So just relax.

I was about to say this: it's only testing right now. They never said any of this is permanent.

If anything I doubt they would have jabs follow this cooldown rule if it was passed. Too many play templar for that ability alone.

I think it does way too much but thats just me.

I don't think it's anywhere close to happening, but I would be very interested to see a meta where Dark Flare was the preferred magplar spammable.

Exchanging cooldown spammable for cast times that are interruptible...? Why do you think Dark Flare isn't slotted unless you're in a huge ball group? It's too risky and exploitable by enemies to be used on a magicka build when solo or in a small group, especially when using light armor. You're basically giving the enemy free and obvious windows of exploitation due to how pronounced the casting animation is and how slow the projectile is.

You sound like someone who doesn't play Templar.

Puncturing Sweep is almost never used in PvE rotations on Magicka Templar because all the ranged options are superior, and none of them involve Dark Flare, because cast times are always worse than instant casts, period.

The appeal of Jabs/Sweep in PvP is that it's undodgeable, which is extremely useful for a class with no mobility and no unblockable or undodgeable crowd control. The class would lose all its identity in PvP as a damage-dealer without Jabs/Sweep.

Not to mention Burning Light would be a totally pointless passive without Jabs/Sweep, as if they haven't nerfed it enough already.

the1andonlyskwex

I wasn't really commenting on the current viability of Dark Flare.

That said, I played a MagPlar a lot a couple years ago and Dark Flare was actually pretty good in battlegrounds. It's basically a mag version of Snipe with AoE major defile. As long as you stay at range and only use it to burst down people who are otherwise occupied fighting your teammates (or the third team) it works awesome.

Mariusghost84

qwjr8989_ESO wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

It's really hard to believe that a run-of-the-mill balance change could possibly be the thing that would cause someone as devoted as you appear to be to leave. Maybe you're just burned out and in need of a change.

To be able to only cast sweeps once every 3 seconds would ruin my entire enjoyment of this game. No longer would I be able to challenge myself on world bosses, Soloing dungeons, Solo farming sewers. I played other things all the time. I am playing albion all the time. But I keep 3 subs going at all times to show support.

It is no joke that the ability sweeps is the reason I fell in love with this game. I don't use ele weapon. I don't use fire staffs I use lightning staffs. I rock war maiden. I am the sweeps guy. It's a meme between all my friends. It's a meme in my raiding guild. I'm the yee old melee magplar in vet raids. This ability is my enjoyment. I have made builds where I pull 35k+ dps on 30k Dummy with ONLY sweeps. I love this ability man.

Awsome post. You seem very devoted! These crazy balance changes are the reason i leveled all classes mag and stam. If this goes live, i can no longer main a stamplar. Ive tried all classes and stamina templar is by far the most fun spec to play. This is mostly to jabs, a skill that i really enjoy. Like you said yourself, a 3 sec downtime between jabs is a dealbreaker and i cant even imagine how the playstyle would look. If this goes live i will definetely go Nightblade as main and with a heavy heart abandon my stamplar.

MincVinyl

Great post, but i think it is silly to over react this much. Considering the amount of changes they are doing to templar as is they are thinking of alternatives.

My best guess is they will look to change jabs to be a better flurry, make it an exception to whatever aoe rule they decide on...if they do.

---

On a side note about the proposed mechanic changes, it is sad to see zos try to do another blanket change that will be rejected by the community much like the aoe caps from before. There are plenty of layers they could have messed with before messing with how aoes work.

1. cp (remove the extra proc bonuses and remove the % round down system)
2. proc sets (do we really need sets like venomous smite?)
3. multiple additional tacked on effects to abilities (dots/hots/buffs/debuffs/cc/etc) It would be better if zos stuck to a rule like a single direct damage ability can get 2 bonus mechanics like aoe+dot or buff+debuff or cast+damage....an example of how out of control this has gotten, just look at how complex dizzy swing has become. How complicated is blast bones?
4. seige meta (persistent ground effects, mainly catapults)
5. Large group interactions (out of group cross buffing/healing/set proccing)
6. How over time effects stack (before it was that they didnt stack, not everyone would be running rapid regen on every build)

---

We could keep brainstorming, but it all comes down to zos not looking at every aspect of what is actually happening. There are many layers/variables at play here that all affect how strong the other variables are at causing performance issues. Ideally they would go down the list of what can be gutted from the game with the least impact to player enjoyment/notice. I mean this is basic problem solving skills, figure out your variables, knowns, unknowns, how they interact, and where you want to get to.

Going straight to limiting core game mechanics would be a yikes from me.

Ryuvain

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

qwjr8989_ESO wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

It's really hard to believe that a run-of-the-mill balance change could possibly be the thing that would cause someone as devoted as you appear to be to leave. Maybe you're just burned out and in need of a change.

To be able to only cast sweeps once every 3 seconds would ruin my entire enjoyment of this game. No longer would I be able to challenge myself on world bosses, Soloing dungeons, Solo farming sewers. I played other things all the time. I am playing albion all the time. But I keep 3 subs going at all times to show support.

It is no joke that the ability sweeps is the reason I fell in love with this game. I don't use ele weapon. I don't use fire staffs I use lightning staffs. I rock war maiden. I am the sweeps guy. It's a meme between all my friends. It's a meme in my raiding guild. I'm the yee old melee magplar in vet raids. This ability is my enjoyment. I have made builds where I pull 35k+ dps on 30k Dummy with ONLY sweeps. I love this ability man.

Awsome post. You seem very devoted! These crazy balance changes are the reason i leveled all classes mag and stam. If this goes live, i can no longer main a stamplar. Ive tried all classes and stamina templar is by far the most fun spec to play. This is mostly to jabs, a skill that i really enjoy. Like you said yourself, a 3 sec downtime between jabs is a dealbreaker and i cant even imagine how the playstyle would look. If this goes live i will definetely go Nightblade as main and with a heavy heart abandon my stamplar.

Kind of shocking that people only devote themselves to jabs. Doesn't seem healthy for the class imo.

At least they aren't forced to dswing I guess?

MincVinyl

Ryuvain wrote: »

Mariusghost84 wrote: »

qwjr8989_ESO wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

It's really hard to believe that a run-of-the-mill balance change could possibly be the thing that would cause someone as devoted as you appear to be to leave. Maybe you're just burned out and in need of a change.

To be able to only cast sweeps once every 3 seconds would ruin my entire enjoyment of this game. No longer would I be able to challenge myself on world bosses, Soloing dungeons, Solo farming sewers. I played other things all the time. I am playing albion all the time. But I keep 3 subs going at all times to show support.

It is no joke that the ability sweeps is the reason I fell in love with this game. I don't use ele weapon. I don't use fire staffs I use lightning staffs. I rock war maiden. I am the sweeps guy. It's a meme between all my friends. It's a meme in my raiding guild. I'm the yee old melee magplar in vet raids. This ability is my enjoyment. I have made builds where I pull 35k+ dps on 30k Dummy with ONLY sweeps. I love this ability man.

Awsome post. You seem very devoted! These crazy balance changes are the reason i leveled all classes mag and stam. If this goes live, i can no longer main a stamplar. Ive tried all classes and stamina templar is by far the most fun spec to play. This is mostly to jabs, a skill that i really enjoy. Like you said yourself, a 3 sec downtime between jabs is a dealbreaker and i cant even imagine how the playstyle would look. If this goes live i will definetely go Nightblade as main and with a heavy heart abandon my stamplar.

Kind of shocking that people only devote themselves to jabs. Doesn't seem healthy for the class imo.

At least they aren't forced to dswing I guess?

or forced into years of waiting for incap spectral bow just to get blocked/dodge rolled

FrancisCrawford

Vaoh wrote: »

Other games have made the same mistake ESO may soon make. Fundamental changes to the most core mechanics of the combat system.

In ESO’s case, adding cooldowns to abilities.

The scale of players who leave may not be as widespread because luckily it seems this is only planned for PvP (the vast majority of PvPers already quit). But if it comes to PvE..... rip

If they make this drastic change, a LOT of people won't bother restarting with what will be a fundamentally new game. That's true in PvE, if they make the change there. That's true in PvP, if that's the only place they make it.

This contemplated change can only be a good decision for ZoS if they're willing to part with a large fraction of their current player base.

Lughlongarm

qwjr8989_ESO wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

It's really hard to believe that a run-of-the-mill balance change could possibly be the thing that would cause someone as devoted as you appear to be to leave. Maybe you're just burned out and in need of a change.

To be able to only cast sweeps once every 3 seconds would ruin my entire enjoyment of this game. No longer would I be able to challenge myself on world bosses, Soloing dungeons, Solo farming sewers. I played other things all the time. I am playing albion all the time. But I keep 3 subs going at all times to show support.

It is no joke that the ability sweeps is the reason I fell in love with this game. I don't use ele weapon. I don't use fire staffs I use lightning staffs. I rock war maiden. I am the sweeps guy. It's a meme between all my friends. It's a meme in my raiding guild. I'm the yee old melee magplar in vet raids. This ability is my enjoyment. I have made builds where I pull 35k+ dps on 30k Dummy with ONLY sweeps. I love this ability man.

It should be obvious that any permanent solution will not result in 3 sec CD on skill like Puncturing Sweep. In one way or another.

Tanis-Stormbinder

These are truly game changing changes it will affect all classes some more than others. And the pvp only won't stand if Zos doesn't start balancing pvp and pve separately, something that is not likely to happen.

Nemesis7884

to op: magplar myself....wouldnt worry too much... in case they have to overhaul some classes, skills will be changed accordingly....

Joxer61

FlamingBeard wrote: »

Puncturing Sweep is almost never used in PvE rotations on Magicka Templar because all the ranged options are superior.........
.

Hahahahaa......ha