Remove the changes to armor

Scolopendra

Seriously, these changes are bad and this needs to stop. I main a tank and I am absolutely sickened and disgusted with whatever twisted vendetta your developers have against tanks. First, you needlessly nerfed our damage output by reducing the damage on pretty much all tank skills. That was awful enough, but tolerable since tanks don't really need to be able to do much damage. This made the solo play experience as a tank absolutely miserable though, seeing as taking out trash packs takes forever, something that remains to this day. Now, you are making changes that are going to make tanking far more difficult just because some short-sighted planner decided that they think this feels better. Have they ever had to tank veteran content before? Absorbing more damage is nice, but your dev team has an absolute obsession with having bosses drop AoE one-shot attacks that aren't survivable even for a blocking tank. Now we have to worry about running out of stamina because we have to dodge roll repeatedly to avoid getting gibbed by attacks you absolutely cannot stand up to. This is made even worse because you are upping the damage that these AoE attacks do, since it feels like the vast bulk of them are magicka rather than physical damage. Can you please PLEASE PLEASE actually consult tanks who run the content you make before you decide to move forward with these downright stupid and unfair changes?

ealdwin

Here's my two-cents.

The idea behind adding some passive attributes to each armor type based on what benefits/penalties that armor type should have in combat is not an inherently bad idea, and actually a fairly common one in the single player Elder Scrolls titles.

The problem, is that the implementation of such has too many un-needed benefits/penalties, such that it makes certain armor types undesirable in specific content. The goal should be affording players choice based on what benefits they want, not punishing them for seeking what is best for their character. Ie. Mag specs should be encouraged to run Light Armor, unless the player specifically wants the benefits of Medium or Heavy and doesn't care too much for the benefits of Light.

There are, roughly, four aspects to what armor currently provides via passives or the Armor value on the tooltip Defense, Mobility/Movement, Damage, Sustain.

Sustain is already achieved through the passives, reflecting improved resource management for those experienced using the armor type. No need to address it through benefits/penalties.

Damage is again, achieved through passives. Heavy Armor should have no benefits or passives increasing damage (and it has none), and Medium and Light have passives that reflect increased efficacy in combat or casting spells through experienced use of the armor type. No need to address it through benefits/penalties. If anything, the passives for Medium and Light need to provide more damage, further increasing the divide between them and Heavy. (Malacath's Band is a separate issue that needs addressed as well).

Defense is already touched on, both through passives where Heavy Armor benefits most, and where Light Armor gains some protection against spells. But also through the nature of Armor. If I recall the numbers correctly (correct me if I'm wrong), using Heavy Armor pieces as a base, providing 100% Armor_Value, Medium Armor pieces then provide somewhere between 75% and 66% the Armor_Value of Heavy Armor pieces, and Light Armor pieces provide somewhere between 25% and 20% the Armor_Value of Heavy Armor pieces. There's no reason to build further onto the defense provided by each armor type through benefits/penalties, because the benefits and penalties already exist, baked into the nature of each armor. Going further only serves to make Light Armor even more undesirable.

Mobility/Movement. I like the idea of the benefits/penalties touching on this aspect. In previous Elder Scrolls titles, the nature of your worn armor type affected defense oppositely from mobility. Armors with more defense hindered movement speed, as it should be. If you seek defense through withstanding damage, go Heavy. If you seek defense through evading it, go Medium or Light. Baking these values into the nature of armor via benefits/penalties makes sense as well as doing so in reverse strength of Defense.

One further point, before my proposal, to be fair to Heavy Armor, and not deprive them of any benefits or leave them with only penalties, I'll go back to touch on Defense. I mentioned the idea previously of withstanding/evading damage. For that purpose, Heavy Armor should benefit from the ability to block more damage than the other armor types.

Here are my suggested changes:
The bonus are calculated along a 100%/75%/25% calculation. Rather than using 4%/3%/1%, the numbers are decreased by -2 to put the midpoint at 0 rather than 2, resulting in 2%/1%/-1% equating 100%/75%/25%. The targets of the benefits are also uniform, so that they are more comparable to one another. There are 2 aspects of mobility and 1 aspect of damage, because the primary aspect of damage (Armor Value) is addressed by the nature of each piece of Armor.
Light Armor Benefits/Penalties:

• Reduce cost of Sprint by 2% per piece. (+2% reduction = 100% mobility bonus)
• Reduce cost of Roll Dodge by 2% per piece (+2% reduction = 100% mobility bonus)
• Reduce the amount of damage blocked by 1% per piece (-1% increase = ~25% defensive bonus)

Medium Armor Benefits/Penalties:

• Reduce cost of Sprint by 1% per piece (-1% reduction = ~75% mobility bonus)
• Reduce cost of Roll Dodge by 1% per piece (-1% reduction = ~75% mobility bonus)
• Increase the amount of damage blocked by 1% per piece (+1% increase = ~75% defensive bonus)

Heavy Armor Benefits/Penalties:

• Increase cost of Sprint by 1% per piece (-1% reduction = ~25% mobility bonus)
• Increase cost of Roll Dodge by 1% per piece (-1% reduction = ~25% mobility bonus)
• Increase the amount of damage blocked by 2% per piece (+2% increase = 100% defensive bonus)

Note, any redundancy in armor benefits and passives is fine, as it represents further mastery of that armor type. (Potential conflicts: Grace - cost of sprint (LA), Athletics - cost of roll dodge (MA).

Note II: I've also posted this in the main feedback thread, for increased visibility by ZOS.

Scolopendra

I actually find Ealdwin's suggestions way better than the current PTS plans. Increasing cost of sprint is way better an idea than slowing movement speed on heavy armor. As it stands, the changes that ZOS has made for heavy armor are going to have a brutal effect on encounters like veteran Cloudrest. In the final boss fight, the tank has to move around a lot to avoid escalating damage from thing like Crushing Darkness. In general, walking around at the current movement speed matches the rate that Crushing Darkness pursues you. The reduction in movement speed means that it will keep catching up to you and ticking damage. You would need to sprint to avoid it. Sitting there and blocking it on normal may still work, but it's even less of an option on veteran since now the tank is going to have to take even higher damage than previous because of the increased magicka damage taken penalty. That is bad, but there is also the problem that the tank has to usually cross the entire arena in a very short time to get to Z'Maja once she moves so that she doesn't start blasting the entire trial group with enough damage to one-shot most players. With the reduction in movement speed in heavy armor, that becomes a bit harder, which means a largely unavoidable spike in damage to the entire trial group. And that's just one trial instance that would be badly affected by these poorly thought out changes. I can think of quite a few others that this will very negatively affect, like Maw of Lorkhaj and Halls of Fabrication. And for what? To satisfy the vague feelings of the PvP design team once again? Please actually think this through and ask the players about such things rather than a development team that doesn't seem to play the game in the roles they are breaking.

dcmgti

Scolopendra wrote: »

I actually find Ealdwin's suggestions way better than the current PTS plans. Increasing cost of sprint is way better an idea than slowing movement speed on heavy armor. As it stands, the changes that ZOS has made for heavy armor are going to have a brutal effect on encounters like veteran Cloudrest. In the final boss fight, the tank has to move around a lot to avoid escalating damage from thing like Crushing Darkness. In general, walking around at the current movement speed matches the rate that Crushing Darkness pursues you. The reduction in movement speed means that it will keep catching up to you and ticking damage. You would need to sprint to avoid it. Sitting there and blocking it on normal may still work, but it's even less of an option on veteran since now the tank is going to have to take even higher damage than previous because of the increased magicka damage taken penalty. That is bad, but there is also the problem that the tank has to usually cross the entire arena in a very short time to get to Z'Maja once she moves so that she doesn't start blasting the entire trial group with enough damage to one-shot most players. With the reduction in movement speed in heavy armor, that becomes a bit harder, which means a largely unavoidable spike in damage to the entire trial group. And that's just one trial instance that would be badly affected by these poorly thought out changes. I can think of quite a few others that this will very negatively affect, like Maw of Lorkhaj and Halls of Fabrication. And for what? To satisfy the vague feelings of the PvP design team once again? Please actually think this through and ask the players about such things rather than a development team that doesn't seem to play the game in the roles they are breaking.

I agree and its obvious that the devs don't play tank in vet end game content. I understand the the pvp woes as I spend just as much time in Cyrodiil, maybe more. There are plenty of trials and dungeons where the tank needs to get around quickly due to the developers mechanical design of the fight. There is also a high amount of hard hitting magic damage and high amount of one shot mechs on tanks if they do not roll dodge. This isn't because the tank is a bad tank, this is put in place by devs.

Like many people have stated pve and pvp need to be balance separately somehow.

Xebov

Scolopendra wrote: »

I actually find Ealdwin's suggestions way better than the current PTS plans.

It might be better, but it suffers from the exact same issue.

1.) ESO is a game that has 3 armor weights, but every armor weight is linked to a specific role through passives (in case of tanks the armor values are important additionally). Only one weight fits the role while the other 2 offer no suitable bonuses. This results in a design where role specific gear only drops in the role specific weight (with a few exceptions). This results in a lack of choice. Per design you have no choice what to wear. Your role dictates hat you have to use.

2.) ESO has 4 deffensive moves. Block, Dodge, Sprint and Bash. All of them get used in Boss and Trash fights in different levels based on the fight. They are not freely interchangeable. Some mechanics allow for different moves to be used while other mechanics have only 1 valid move to resolve them. This means that all roles (that are linked to their armor weights already based on 1.) have to use all moves. This also means that balancing requires a base line of cost and efficiency for them to work in the needed mechanics without putting extra preasure on specific roles during that fight.

These 2 points make it impossible to create a penalty system that enforces choice and links armor weights and defensive movements together.

StarOfElyon

dcmgti wrote: »

Scolopendra wrote: »

I actually find Ealdwin's suggestions way better than the current PTS plans. Increasing cost of sprint is way better an idea than slowing movement speed on heavy armor. As it stands, the changes that ZOS has made for heavy armor are going to have a brutal effect on encounters like veteran Cloudrest. In the final boss fight, the tank has to move around a lot to avoid escalating damage from thing like Crushing Darkness. In general, walking around at the current movement speed matches the rate that Crushing Darkness pursues you. The reduction in movement speed means that it will keep catching up to you and ticking damage. You would need to sprint to avoid it. Sitting there and blocking it on normal may still work, but it's even less of an option on veteran since now the tank is going to have to take even higher damage than previous because of the increased magicka damage taken penalty. That is bad, but there is also the problem that the tank has to usually cross the entire arena in a very short time to get to Z'Maja once she moves so that she doesn't start blasting the entire trial group with enough damage to one-shot most players. With the reduction in movement speed in heavy armor, that becomes a bit harder, which means a largely unavoidable spike in damage to the entire trial group. And that's just one trial instance that would be badly affected by these poorly thought out changes. I can think of quite a few others that this will very negatively affect, like Maw of Lorkhaj and Halls of Fabrication. And for what? To satisfy the vague feelings of the PvP design team once again? Please actually think this through and ask the players about such things rather than a development team that doesn't seem to play the game in the roles they are breaking.

I agree and its obvious that the devs don't play tank in vet end game content. I understand the the pvp woes as I spend just as much time in Cyrodiil, maybe more. There are plenty of trials and dungeons where the tank needs to get around quickly due to the developers mechanical design of the fight. There is also a high amount of hard hitting magic damage and high amount of one shot mechs on tanks if they do not roll dodge. This isn't because the tank is a bad tank, this is put in place by devs.

Like many people have stated pve and pvp need to be balance separately somehow.

They straight up said that they made sure people would still be able to clear the content by having teams do it, with no-cp no less.

honey_badger82

OtarTheMad wrote: »

PTS isn't even live yet and people be like:

Sure it's not live but there is a reason people are all upset over it. Everytime ZoS does changes like this the community of players on the forums give their opinions and dislikes. And each and everytime ZoS goes "oh so absolutely no one likes x,y and z of what we are proposing? well there is only one logical course then.... Too bad we are doing it anyway!"

I was going to make my own post about things in this round of knee jerk changes that bothered me but I realized it was not worth the time and effort because it will fall on deaf ears anyway. From what I have seen the test server and forum exists only to provide a free source of laborers to find and tell them all their programming bugs and glitches all while pretending they give 2 f*cks about what their players actually think. Perhaps we should quit telling them their program errors until they actually listen to us.

I for one have 13 characters all with unique builds and playstyles so equipment is not easily shared across characters so drastic changes like this hurt the time I can actually play and not grind new gear or gold to buy upgrade materials since I almost always have to at best change at least 1 set for each character. If they are going to do garbage like this then the least they could do is drop each player half a stack of legendary upgrade mats to make it sting a little less. Only ones who would be crying about that is the gold farmers.

mc_gijoe

If the intent of these changes is to encourage diversity of builds, then perhaps there are a couple of options available to the changes. To mitigate the penalties of both heavy and light it would see that you could wear and equal number of each weight. 3x heavy and 3x light would negate the bonuses and weaknesses for each. the obvious issue with this is the specific armor skill still requires 5pcs. so harness mag would require a 5 light build.

so my question for @ZOS_BrianWheeler is:

A) can we get the cap for these specific skills lowered from 5pc equipped to 4pc? it would still require more than average weight equipped to utilize the skill. so someone could run 3 heavy and 4 light to have the harness mag skill.

is there any thought to having the sets drop in all different weights much like trainee and the sets from hews bane? that would allow for more use of sets and utilizing the different weights to their advantages. more choice/diversity.

C) how will the intent of these changes affect the Undaunted passives? if the META will be to run 5-2 instead of 5-1-1, then the undaunted passives will have inadvertently taken a hit.