Update 30 Combat Preview

Jaraal

Has no one yet noticed the irony that Update 27 removed the vast majority of proc chances in the name of performance, and yet in Update 30 every single proc will have additional calculations based upon character stats?


https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/536538/update-27-combat-preview/p1

Mr_Gallows

Jaraal wrote: »

Has no one yet noticed the irony that Update 27 removed the vast majority of proc chances in the name of performance, and yet in Update 30 every single proc will have additional calculations based upon character stats?


https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/536538/update-27-combat-preview

Truth is they make gameplay suck... whatever excuse they used.

Firstmep

I'm glad i didn't care much for the cp rework.
Honestly this system was set to fail from day 1(of the old system).
There is no sweet spot, where this system provides a meaningful enough power upgrade to make it worth investing into it, while also not making it impossible for new players to compete.
Either the system has too much power, or not enough.

Jaraal wrote: »

Has no one yet noticed the irony that Update 27 removed the vast majority of proc chances in the name of performance, and yet in Update 30 every single proc will have additional calculations based upon character stats?


https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/536538/update-27-combat-preview

Yes Beacuse no proc cyro with reduced population caps is so much more playable now.
The devs already stated thst removing procs had no effect on performance.

merevie

'In PVP, we expect lower efficacy from item set procs as builds for PVP typically tend to focus on several stats that will take away from the potential to deep dive into specializing into specific stats'

Challenge accepted by every theory crafter

I'm sure most of us already see a bunch of moon-sized holes in this idea. May pay to take a second to consider why some sets were total cheese instead.

Are we going to see oblivion damage with update 30 a little more often?

Hurbster

So, no changes to the Green tree then?

colossalvoids

Hurbster wrote: »

So, no changes to the Green tree then?

Pretty sure it's not in combat teams field to begin with, so there is still hope.

XvarleyX

Firstmep

merevie wrote: »

'In PVP, we expect lower efficacy from item set procs as builds for PVP typically tend to focus on several stats that will take away from the potential to deep dive into specializing into specific stats'

Challenge accepted by every theory crafter

I'm sure most of us already see a bunch of moon-sized holes in this idea. May pay to take a second to consider why some sets were total cheese instead.

Are we going to see oblivion damage with update 30 a little more often?

Depends. If you have to reach let's say 6k wpd to have most procs break even, than you likely won't see a lot full proc builds with infinite sustain anymore.
I really hope they won't be too generous with the scaling.

Soul_Demon

hands0medevil wrote: »

Cirantille wrote: »

I'm really glad to hear that I can focus on playing the game rather than grinding cp, thank you

Isn't grinding CP also playing the game? Afaik grinding cp is not cheating or stealing.

Right, its just players intelligently going about game-play. However, with some review by ZOS they decided it made some player feel bad about making other choices that were less rewarding- and impacted their sense of self worth. So, they decided to penalize those making good choices to protect the sense of self worth in the players making less wise ones.

Ranger209

Still hoping for a no proc campaign in update 31. With as little difference as there is any more between CP and no CP that really doesn't matter to me any more. They could really get rid of that feature. The bigger difference will be between procs and no procs for gameplay style. Hoping for a faction locked no proc, I would play that in CP or no CP.

Ippokrates

I am not a fan of magicka/stamina scaling because It destroys idea of hybridization, which IMHO was always one of the strongest aspects of TES Universe.

However, if you want to make move like a baron who moves like this make sets at least to scale with health. This way tank will not turn into dmg juggernauths but instead they could get an advantage in survivability.

MindOfTheSwarm

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Hey gang!

Today, we’d like to share some new features and updates coming your way in Update 30! In this Update, we’re focusing on some concerns regarding item set procs and continuing our Champion System improvements, as well as several fixes for server performance and general bugs/balance. You’ll be able to read the full details in next week’s PTS patch notes.


Proc Sets

The growing concerns over the “proc set meta” for the past few updates has not fallen on deaf ears. We understand the frustration of feeling required to run these types of sets and fighting against them in PVP. These sets are seen as “free” sources of damage, healing and survivability, all of which come with minimal tradeoffs. We want these proc choices to mean something, rather than just the de facto method of building a character without paying for it in some way.

With that stated, in Update 30 we are making all item sets that deal damage or heal scale with player stats. You will need to make a conscious build choice when looking at which item sets to include in your build, rather than simply equipping three proc sets for that aforementioned “free damage”. Damage sets will scale with Spell or Weapon damage, whichever is higher. Healing sets will scale with Maximum Magicka or Stamina, whichever is higher. Other sets that fall outside of that functionality will likely scale with Max Health, as well as a handful of other unique ways. Full details about which sets scale with which stats will be displayed in the tooltips for your item sets.

The effect we expect from this will be an overall buff in PVE territory as many players build for maximum efficiency regarding their stats. In PVP, we expect lower efficacy from item set procs as builds for PVP typically tend to focus on several stats that will take away from the potential to deep dive into specializing into specific stats. This also means that if you opt to run a full build of proc sets, you’ll be trading off a large source of stats for your build and you’ll be limited to gaining them from passives, enchants, and consumables, significantly limiting your ability to build as you could before. It’s possible to get to the values of “proc sets” pre-U30 if you specialize your stats for it, as well as getting higher values than before if you go all in to building around their scaling, but we believe this will lead to a healthier balance of damage and healing versus the “free procs” you get now.


Champion System

In Update 29, we introduced the revamped Champion System and indicated we would build upon it in the future. With Update 30, we are continuing our dedication to this system by adding several new slotted stars for healing and support-focused builds. We also are keenly aware of the passive power this system added in the initial offering and the concerns you all have about getting optimal builds as soon as possible.

To address these concerns, we are reducing the number of stages on passive stars in the Warfare and Fitness constellations by two more stages, to a maximum of 2 stages per passive star. This will greatly lower the number of points required to get to a more optimal build in both of those constellations, while also taking some of the power out of the high-end experience. We’ve also added a new and final sub-constellation (each tree can have up to 3) in the Warfare tree focused on healing, offering new slottable stars that support the healing playstyle, and added a few old favorites from the original Champion System focused on heavy and light attack damage to offer some core damage bonuses for players using their basic attacks.


As always, you can also expect bug fixes and updates to existing item sets that you can read about in the PTS patch notes, along with many adjustments to AE abilities for better server performance. We hope you enjoy your time on the PTS and look forward to reading your feedback for Update 30 next week!

This is great news and appreciate looking into proc sets. The idea that we have to build into things is better for the community as a whole, but regarding cp system. It is quite easy to fill out the stars needed for damage in that everyone has essentially the same stars and passives filled up. This does not promote build diversity. Take Thaumaturge for example, I don’t really have to invest much to make a DoT build and as such I can fill that star out pretty quickly and not lose much elsewhere. Would it not be better if say the Thaumaturge passive along with its sisters offered a higher buff (say 30%) but at a much higher cost point investment to reap the rewards? Some feedback on this would be appreciated. As pretty much everyone is filling out the same stars and having the same passives which limits build diversity. Another option would be to extend from the Thaumaturge node and add new nodes that branch off example: Increase your damage over time effects against enemies affected by a negative status effect/debuff etc etc. This could apply to other damage types too including proc sets. A star that buffs proc sets but requires say 100 points for a single stage and requires slotting is something else that would promote heavy investment into alternative playstyles.

Starshadw

Ippokrates wrote: »

I am not a fan of magicka/stamina scaling because It destroys idea of hybridization, which IMHO was always one of the strongest aspects of TES Universe.

However, if you want to make move like a baron who moves like this make sets at least to scale with health. This way tank will not turn into dmg juggernauths but instead they could get an advantage in survivability.

Sadly, hybridization went out as truly viable a long time ago, though some folks (including me) still strive to make it work. (I'm with you, I really loved the early days, before stat-stacking happened). I don't see them changing this any time soon.

naarcx

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Hey gang!
We also are keenly aware of the passive power this system added in the initial offering and the concerns you all have about getting optimal builds as soon as possible.

To address these concerns, we are reducing the number of stages on passive stars in the Warfare and Fitness constellations by two more stages, to a maximum of 2 stages per passive star. This will greatly lower the number of points required to get to a more optimal build in both of those constellations, while also taking some of the power out of the high-end experience.

I like how the solution to people complaining about the cp grind is just to nerf the power of CP more and more every time... As it was, you only needed 1170 for a full build + all mainstat passives and 2100cp for a full build + all passives. Which honestly isn't so bad--especially given the low cost/point now and all the double xp we just got.

Why even bother having no-cp and cp pvp if we're just going to keep pushing the gameplay between the two closer and closer together every time somebody complains about having to actually play the game to make their characters stronger? People who complain about cp being grindy will never be happy, and will continue to complain no matter how much you "take the power out of the high-end experience."

UntouchableHunter

I'm still trying to figure out what could go wrong with this decision but Ithink it is fair.

In the end of the day I just want my sets back.

And IMO if you invest to be a healer you must be a better healer than someone investing for damage.

Today we have crazy damage dealers that heals their self (with vigor for exemplo and rally) more then a healer and it is ridiculous.

I hope the proc sets can be build in this direction to the game play make more sense.

Ippokrates

Starshadw wrote: »

Sadly, hybridization went out as truly viable a long time ago, though some folks (including me) still strive to make it work. (I'm with you, I really loved the early days, before stat-stacking happened). I don't see them changing this any time soon.

Well, last few upgrades tried to change it. We have LA/HA scaled with max stat, we can see more versatile races. In result we can see that dual daggers are once again viable option for mdps. So maybe cause is not so lost

Joy_Division

Jaraal wrote: »

Has no one yet noticed the irony that Update 27 removed the vast majority of proc chances in the name of performance, and yet in Update 30 every single proc will have additional calculations based upon character stats?


https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/536538/update-27-combat-preview/p1

It's not any different when an actual ability is used; the game needs to calculate the effects based on a characters stats. And the game already had to calculate the damage on the target by looking at their resistance, buffs, etc.

Ironic? I guess. But I just see it as another reason why the laser-focus on calculations as the end all to be all for lag is often counterproductive and misses the forest for the trees.

Parasaurolophus

The change in procs is good news. The main thing, remember -THIS DOESN'T MEAN THAT PROK SETS WILL BE DISAPPEARED FROM PVP. It just needs to be more balanced now that way.
Reducing passive CP in half ... I don't understand why the only thing most players care about is how much time they spent farming at the event?

Jaraal

Hurbster wrote: »

So, no changes to the Green tree then?

colossalvoids wrote: »

Pretty sure it's not in combat teams field to begin with, so there is still hope.

I checked the Crafting sub-forum, no announcements. Looks like addressing the things the player base is actually complaining about is not a top priority for them.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Ironic? I guess. But I just see it as another reason why the laser-focus on calculations as the end all to be all for lag is often counterproductive and misses the forest for the trees.

Since they are unlikely to address the real causes of poor performance (moving more calculations server side, re-routing incoming data to the Akamai server bottleneck, lack of investment in hardware that can handle the increasingly robust server demands), it seems that stripping code to reduce data requirements as well as taking things away from players are the only straws left to grasp at. The "Year of Performance" sadly highlighted their inability to make impactfully positive changes. And the pledge to move to a less aggressive development schedule turned out to be yet another broken promise. To expect miracles at this point would be most naive.

YandereGirlfriend

Ippokrates wrote: »

I am not a fan of magicka/stamina scaling because It destroys idea of hybridization, which IMHO was always one of the strongest aspects of TES Universe.

However, if you want to make move like a baron who moves like this make sets at least to scale with health. This way tank will not turn into dmg juggernauths but instead they could get an advantage in survivability.

Hybrids are much stronger now than they were at this point last year.

Overall, the direction of the last several patches has increased their viability to a significant degree.

There are still problems, of course.

Chief among them are the limited availability of dual-stat sets (despite the fact that ZOS was supposedly in the process of merging Weapon/Spell stats into single unified stats...) and the CP system (which is better than it was before but penalizes hybrids).

Finally, ZOS needs to finish the job of rebalancing the armor passives by having Medium buff BOTH your Weapon and Spell Damage and Light buff BOTH your Spell and Physical Penetration. And there are odds and ends such as the DW Weapon Damage passive and the Sword and Board Weapon Damage passive needing to also be hybridized.

But it is heaps and heaps better than it was.

spacefracking

It's alright by me as long as no one proc is stronger than an ability. VD proccing for 33k is absurd, the size of the heals from crimson etc etc etc

I outlined my thoughts on balance in this thread i started the other day: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/569578/why-procs-need-a-major-rework-before-re-enabling

(And give magblade some proc love , last patch made us last place for pve dps, and pvp isn't much better . )

Rugby_hook

So, by cutting the passives in half, does that mean that mean the value we get from it will be halved, or just the amount of champion points we put into it? I'm hoping its we get the same amount of max health, stam, mag, crit chance etc for only 20 CP instead of the 40 they now require.

Ippokrates

wdawadwadasd

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Hybrids are much stronger now than they were at this point last year.

Overall, the direction of the last several patches has increased their viability to a significant degree.

There are still problems, of course.

Chief among them are the limited availability of dual-stat sets (despite the fact that ZOS was supposedly in the process of merging Weapon/Spell stats into single unified stats...) and the CP system (which is better than it was before but penalizes hybrids).

Finally, ZOS needs to finish the job of rebalancing the armor passives by having Medium buff BOTH your Weapon and Spell Damage and Light buff BOTH your Spell and Physical Penetration. And there are odds and ends such as the DW Weapon Damage passive and the Sword and Board Weapon Damage passive needing to also be hybridized.

But it is heaps and heaps better than it was.

Sure, as I said before, we can already see tendency to support hybridization, but lets be honest, as long as damage will be scaling with "attributes", use of hybrids will be strongly limited. In endgame content, maybe during some trials that required specific settings for team play.

But if stamina and magicka would be used only as a resource, now we can think...

Azurya

Jaraal wrote: »

Has no one yet noticed the irony that Update 27 removed the vast majority of proc chances in the name of performance, and yet in Update 30 every single proc will have additional calculations based upon character stats?


https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/536538/update-27-combat-preview/p1

it is as always a going somewhere, not really having an idea what they(=ZOS) are doing and how it work out.........
as some pvp-addidicted asked for procs to get nerfed they got it, but the majotity did not want that, now the locked campaign is empty, and boring to death........
to solve this, they nerf proc-sets now in pve and enable them again in pvp.... doesn´t make sense but who cares??
can someone explain exactly what problems procs are causing in PVE???????? PLEASE
for a vet-trial you must take in account that it will probably take 2-3 days to get it done, but who cares........
solo dungeons I don´t wanna think about it what this will do to that, without procs or without heals, because that is an decision we have to make then, healing but not proceeding or proceeding and byebye to no death run???
we go back and forth and again and again and again, this is not funny anymore..........
in update 31 they will do a balancing again, this is getting hilarious........
is this worth anymore my money, is what I am asking myself all the time?!!

MashmalloMan

The changes to proc set scaling are fantastic because they typically suck in pve, but rock in pvp, this change will allow more people to use fun proc builds for pve while nerfing the easy route of proc sets in pvp. Greatly apreciated, the alternative solution was to allow proc sets to crit again while lowering their base power which would buff pve, but nerf pvp since crit resist would become important again. This is probably the better solution, but something needs to be done about Malacath if you're not going to change procs from being allowed to crit, crit is by far the weakest pvp stat, especially after the nerfs in U29. Lets not forget, proc sets were nerfed from being about to crit 3-4 years ago when the state of the game was completely different so that decision should really be reconsidered..

That being said, scaling is a great start to fixing their issues. Thank you

Now your CP change ideas are awful. Players are not complaining that CP 2.0 has too much passive power, they're complaining it takes too long to grind it out to reach the same power we had before. CP 2.0 is does not add that much to your player like it did in CP 1.0, so the intent behind raising the power of low end players and lowering the power of high end players was already achieved. We don't want that to be lowered any further.

The obvious solution to players issues is to reduce the amount of CP required to completely unlock the passive stars from 40 to 20/30 like you intended, but keep the power exactly the same. I'm not sure why you're hell bent on nerfing all our invested time in the game and reducing our vertical progression.

Why should I care about a CP passive node that gives me 500 stamina or 1.6% crit. It already felt mildly pointless to grind for the 1k stamina or 3.2% crit and you're cutting that in half?! What about the pve balance of the game and how all new content within the past 2-3 years has been balanced around the previous CP 1.0 power? This is just a bad idea, you heard the issues of the community and you chose the wrong solution to the problem.

TLDR: Issue: Too much cp required to get full passive power from CP 2.0

Wrong solution: Reduce amount of points of passive nodes from 40 to 20, reduce the power in half as well.

Proper solution: Reduce amount of points of passive nodes from 40 to 20, keep the power the same. Add more slottable nodes for horizontal progression and build variety which provides incentive to reach the 3600 cp cap while offering no vertical progression beyond a reasonable point. For the slottables, reduce the points required from 50 to 30 or in some cases, 75 to 50, 125 to 75, etc.

xDeusEJRx

I seriously hope ZoS know what they're doing with this, if it's gonna be super lenient scaling like 3k weapon/spell damage or 33k magicka to make chokethorn/earthgore/crimson/hunters venom run 100% effectiveness or higher. Either go big or go home, if they're super lenient then things could potentially make things worse. A step in the right direction, but I'm not remaining too hopeful because there's been many times where these "changes" don't necessarily fix problems

VaranisArano

Azurya wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Has no one yet noticed the irony that Update 27 removed the vast majority of proc chances in the name of performance, and yet in Update 30 every single proc will have additional calculations based upon character stats?


https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/536538/update-27-combat-preview/p1

it is as always a going somewhere, not really having an idea what they(=ZOS) are doing and how it work out.........
as some pvp-addidicted asked for procs to get nerfed they got it, but the majotity did not want that, now the locked campaign is empty, and boring to death........
to solve this, they nerf proc-sets now in pve and enable them again in pvp.... doesn´t make sense but who cares??
can someone explain exactly what problems procs are causing in PVE???????? PLEASE
for a vet-trial you must take in account that it will probably take 2-3 days to get it done, but who cares........
solo dungeons I don´t wanna think about it what this will do to that, without procs or without heals, because that is an decision we have to make then, healing but not proceeding or proceeding and byebye to no death run???
we go back and forth and again and again and again, this is not funny anymore..........
in update 31 they will do a balancing again, this is] getting hilarious........
is this worth anymore my money, is what I am asking myself all the time?!!

ZOS says: "The effect we expect from this will be an overall buff in PVE territory as many players build for maximum efficiency regarding their stats."

That being said, if this does turn into a massive nerf for PVE, I'd like to remind everyone that the CP 2.0 FAQ included this gem. "The overall goal was to reduce the power of high end damage and efficiency by 15-20% with CP 2.0, as there is a significant delta in power between many players. However, due to the penetration bug we saw on LIVE and PTS, we didn't fully reach that goal, and will continue investigating solutions, such as potentially reducing passive power from the CP system further, as well as looking into more outlying problems."

So ZOS was already planning further nerfs to PVE. Please, remember that when you blame PVP.

olsborg

I dont know how I feel about this tho, seeing as Malacath are still gonna boost proccsets after up30.

Parasaurolophus

What about sustain proc sets? Like Eternal Vogor or Symphony/Grandwolf.

techyeshic

along with many adjustments to AE abilities for better server performanc

What are "AE" abilities?