My day 1 review of update 29

Ceejengine

I exclusively play tanks. I have a nightblade, dragon knight and Warden at max level. I have a sorcerer I'm still leveling.

I do vet dungeons and consistently clear whatever I run. I do battlegrounds as well and usually score between 2400-2800. I think my teams tend to win more than we lose.

That said I'm probably awfully close to the bottom of the barrel. I'm a fairly dumb person in general and I don't have a lot of time to devote to gaming, so my experience is probably far less than others.

Overall, I like the new stuff. I enjoy the new CP system. I'm glad I have a grind I care about. I actively look forward to gaining new CP points. I feel the new system creates tangible improvements I can immediate see and feel.

I think the movement penalties on heavy armor are more of a hindrance to the rest of my team in pve than anything though. It doesn't create any dynamic events or tactical decisions.

If I sprint with everyone else to the boss, I'm the last to arrive and I'm at half stamina. If we want to go into a boss at 100% we have to stand around while I regen. It consistently takes the gusto out of my friends and I.

Personally, I think that is the only penalty I'd like to see being reconsidered for outright removal. Maybe have it so while a member of your party is in combat (or a member of your faction within x meters) then your speed is reduced. Outside of combat its just goofy and annoying.

I also noticed that my resistances are down across the board on all 4 of my tanks, and by increasing the magic damage I take, I'm very quickly shredded in battlegrounds by casters, which I believe are the most prominent builds.

That shoehorns me into using the Lady, which is fine, but I sacrifice a lot of damage to be able to survive and slow others down while my team succeeds, and now I feel as though that role that I enjoyed filling has closed permanently.

I personally find it weird that tank armor increases damage suffered, but I do understand the rock-paper-scissors style you're going for.

My major issue is that magic shreds me, and mages are at a range by default, and I move slower and require more resources to sprint.

Again, if you drop the move speed penalty, or increased the base resistances that heavy armor gives then it probably wouldn't be such a hard counter.

As it is right now, tanks are

1.) The slowest
2.) Most vulnerable to magic damage,
3.) Most resource-dependant

I do understand the need to remove immortal tanks for pvp because it is a nightmare to play against, but I believe that the increase in magic damage suffered is significant enough to counter tanks.

I personally think that the extra damage in tandem with severe mobility restrictions, mitigation reduction, and increased resource dependence altogether create a very negative play experience for tanks.

And I think that might be a big point of contention: you definitely considered how unfun it is to play against tanks, but also try to think about the folks playing as tanks too. Thats not to say you didn't, but it does kinda feel like maybe you were more focused on one side than the other.

Pick one of the things and stick with that, and maybe apply that theory across all armor types.

I also don't understand why there are no medium armor penalties? Giving medium armor a block bonus also makes no sense to me... In heavy armor I can just rely on the plates on my body to protect me, but in medium armor that is not available.

It just seems weird to me to have 2/3 armor types having both perks and drawbacks, and the middle ground is just perks and some perks thematically fit other armor types.

What if we did something like

Light Armor: Highest mobility, magic damage bonuses, magicka focus

Bonus per piece worn
* 1% dodge roll cost reduction
* +x magicka recovery
* 1% spell damage increase
Drawback per piece worn
* Low Armor
* 1% direct damage taken
* +x break free cost

Medium: Average mobility, physical damage bonuses, Stamina focus
Bonus per piece worn
* 1% sneak and sprint cost reduction
* +x Stamina recovery
* 1% martial damage increase
Drawback per piece worn
* 1% damage over time effects suffered
* -x Reduce damage you can mitigate w/ Block
* +increase cost to buff abilities

Heavy: Low mobility (dodge roll cost), damage reduction, CC reduction, health focus.
Bonus per piece worn
* High Armor
* 1% block cost reduction
* -x CC suffered duration
Drawback per piece worn
* 1% Sprint speed reduction
* -x Light and heavy attack damage
* -x max range to ranged attacks and abilities reduction

These changes do not overly penalize any form of armor, but still create distinct advantages and disadvantages. Also, none of the bonuses or penalties directly counteract each other, allowing a greater deal of customization.

Light armor are ranged and have the tools to stay at a distance and do work. They can get out of AoEs and dodge to create distance. But if you get ahold of them, they are susceptible to getting crushed in close range, if they can't dodge roll away.

Medium armor can get to where they need to be and operate in that area. Whether with a bow or melee weapon. However, if they're careless and get caught in some nastiness, it will shred them. They can boost their prowess as well but must sacrifice precious resources to do so.

Tanks need to get close to you to get to work and have a hard time doing so. They aren't there to deal damage, but they can jump in the middle and start locking people down. It's difficult to get away from them once they get to you, and so you need to be proactive to avoid them.

Now obviously my suggestion is just a thing I made up on a whim, but I think it better encapsulates a rounded system of checks & balances.

That was all I was able to experience today.

Thanks for reading.

ccfeeling

Sad to tell you , ZOS won't listen player feedback .

They even nerfed one time about the heavy armor passive during PTS period .

Ceejengine

ccfeeling wrote: »

Sad to tell you , ZOS won't listen player feedback .

They even nerfed one time about the heavy armor passive during PTS period .

Hey thats fine with me. Its their game and they worked hard on it. I know how annoying it can be when someone tells you how to do your job without all the context for why you do it the way you do.

I just figure there's so many negative knee-jerk posts out there that maybe some positive constructive feedback would help.

Misty

So you think all the tanks in the game will be seeking new employment?

Ceejengine

Misty wrote: »

So you think all the tanks in the game will be seeking new employment?

Negative. In law enforcement we have a saying "The only thing I hate more than the way things are is the way things are changed."

I think that saying applies for MMO forum goers too.

I'm betting that as we all get more CP it will probably flatten out. People will get over their pity parties and get back onto their tanks.

A lot of survivability is located high up in the trees and its a big investment to access that stuff. I think once more tanks are able to really dip into resistances we will be able to stay in a fight vs mages for longer.

And I really hope someone doesn't quit tanking because they have to stand around for 15 seconds before a boss because sprinting drains their stamina bar.

I'm more interested to see if tanks stick with heavy armor though. I think passively medium armor is superior and if we start really testing medium armor on the body i bet heavy armor loses out and those sets end up as weaps + jewels.

Heavy armor is barely more resistance than medium and medium has none of the drawbacks, plus it boosts your blocking. The difference in direct mitigation is almost null.

In my extremely unqualified opinion, I'm thinking we will see the meta shift to tanks wearing medium armor on the Body and heavy armor being abandoned until its looked at again. I think with the significant drawbacks right now heavy armor is more of a burden than a benefit.

And I'm also willing to bet immortal tanks in pvp will pop right back up in medium + light armor too.

Lysette

maybe you should consider the steed as your sign - speed increase and higher health regen.

Thorley23_ESO

ccfeeling wrote: »

Sad to tell you , ZOS won't listen player feedback .

They even nerfed one time about the heavy armor passive during PTS period .

Well, the central problem (Immortal Tanks in PVP) comes down to the ancient issue of PVE and PVP mechanics needing to be kept isolated from easy other by a 100' wall.... a wall made of tigers. MMO developers keep trying to make universal mechanics that apply to both PVP and PVE, and they continually fail because what works in an PVE raid environment and is fair and reasonable does not work in a PVP environment especially seeing as the numbers work out differently (in a raid you might be beating on something with 10s of millions of hit points while dodging insta-death mechanics, in PVP your dealing with an entirely different situation).

I've also commented a few times that the first thing they need to do in any game with PVP, regardless of the mechanics, is have active policing for cheaters. It needs to be understood that both hackers (you know a game team is incompetent if they think their game cannot be hacked) and exploiters are cheaters and need to be policed. The latter tend to be the more common/bigger problem as in PVP you tend to see a situation in all MMOs where certain combinations of skills and/or gear have a disproportionate effect at that level, or where a perfectly balanced, neigh even mediocre skill in PVE takes on a whole new meaning when used on players (anything with a CC type effect or high burst/low sustain comes to mind). Active policing is needed because when someone is using a skill, or combination of effects that gives an out of proportion advantage they need to be banned/locked out/punished for doing so. In most MMOs it comes down to a situation where you have the exploiters arguing that exploiting is part of the "skill" of PVP (they try and argue it's only an exploit if it's a glitch, whether the way it's working out was intended or not is irrelevent to them), and dominating PVP with very specific builds and techniques, where everyone who isn't might as well not even pllay or compete if they want to get anywhere..... devs want to leave the game to sit back and make money for them, they don't want to have to be logged in actually GMing and policing the school yard..... as a result PVP is hot garbage in pretty much every MMO to ever exist, it always turns out the same way.

But yeah, while I do it occasionally still, I tend to also notice the "immortal" problem in ESO where I've seen players literally soak 10x the hit point cap without their bar moving, most people have. That's by definition broken, whether it's an exploit via a specific build, or an actual hack. It's been going on so long I don't see any fixing it unless the GMS want to sit down and start selectively locking people who are seen doing that out of the PVP queues.... and let's be honest, that won't happen, because as far as they are concerned it's still paying customers, and time has shown the victims usually won't quit the game entirely (and will just avoid PVP). To maximize profits they let the exploiters and cheaters run amuck. Given that PVP is a dumpster fire in pretty much every MMO ever, it's hard to say if actually making PVP balanced and worthwhile would be worth the expense of active policing and quick and decisive action.

Ceejengine

Lysette wrote: »

maybe you should consider the steed as your sign - speed increase and higher health regen.

I think that's a great idea. Its ultimately a balance between the inconvenience of low speed and the desire for mid to high range resistance.

I think it'll take me a couple days to settle on how annoying the movement penalty is to me personally.