I don't understand why players complain about frequent changes.

Parasaurolophus

I in no way want to discount the complaints of many gamers, but I'm really interested in knowing by examples.
I often see complaints on the forums from players who say they are tired of the changes in the game. And I don't understand it at all. I play this game almost from the start, and I have never experienced any problems with changes, since in general they always seemed insignificant to me. There are only two moments when I had to relearn:
* When the heavy attack entered the meta in Morrowind
* When we introduced the casting time for the ult. But since I feel good about this change, it did not upset me, although it took me a long time to get used to it.
Otherwise, the principle of the game is the same. You are just an uptime dots/buffs, filling your free time with spam attacks, casting each skill through a light attack. Yes, sometimes some skills come into the meta and others leave. But what is changing? The skills are the same and differ only in numbers, and not in some special control. Even in pvp it hardly changes. And if there are any changes, then this is more a matter of habit.
The same goes for the gear. Relequin, Syroria, PFG, Mother have not left the meta for many years. Bassei recently came to us, who is going through the armor. What's the problem with farming her? Yes, there is also Medusa's inferno staff ... But in the upcoming update, any farming problems will have to leave us. In order to collect all parts of the sets in a dungeon or trial, we need to go through it less than 45 times. Less, because on the way we will come across more chests with weapons.
So yes, change is mostly passive. I do everything exactly the same as before, but with a different result, more balanced, more variety. I see that change is good.
So I ask, give examples of when, because of the changes in the meta, you had a really difficult time.

Tannus15

people just love complaining and they hate that feeling of insecurity that their live build is doing to be bad now. which it won't be.

exactly the same people who will complain about having to change gear setups will complain about the meta being stale.
collections and the RNG changes will make the meta shuffle of the next patch super easy to navigate.

SimonThesis

Try playing pvp in cyrodiil and watch the meta constantly shift from one extreme to another. Procs were not allowed in pvp for months and now you have to have 1 of 3 new proc sets.

lolo_01b16_ESO

I'd say for me there are mainly two things I tend to dislike about changes:
1. Poor communication: A lot of times, when Zos changes stuff, they will only roughly tell us what they did, but won't tell us the details. So we have spent time and effort to figure out stuff like "how exactly did they change the calculations", "what exceptions are there", "are those exceptions a bug that will get fixed soon or intended" The most recent example of this is the current no proc campaign. As far as I'm aware we still don't have a correct official list of sets that work there.
2. Boring gaer farming: I know that long gear farming is intended to keep the players busy. But in other games you often get the gear that is best for a raid by killing raid bosses or doing at least somewhat similar content. In ESO the main way to get your raid gear is queuing as tank or healer for normal dungeons and rushing through them. Which is not really fun for me and most likely not much fun for the people who get grouped with me.

trackdemon5512

Some changes are fine. But drastic back to back changes in a game like ESO makes it very difficult to stay ahead of the curve without significant time investment which is problematic.

When fighting or FPS games introduce balancing adjustments in patches they’re usually done on a bi-annual or annual basis. The reason being is that players train themselves, adjust, and compete knowing the ins and outs.

ESO issues major balancing updates 4 times a year. In addition to that incremental patches can come out between those major updates that also affect gameplay.

This all leads to a chaotic situation, fighting over the best way to approach content from month to month, and the time investment constantly relearning a meta or unique build.

whitecrow

I can only think of a few changes that affected me in a noticeable way (removal of some effects from certain weapon skills, champion points) but I do wonder why after seven years they haven't figured out their own game. It shouldn't require constant adjustment like this, even if you add new elements (gear, skills, etc.)

VaranisArano

Change fatigue is a thing. The Devs tend to target the tallest poppy, so the BIS stuff gets changed periodically.

Eventually you decide whether you'll continue to chase the BIS meta or you'll be satisfied with the nearly-as-good-as-the-meta gear that doesn't change very much from update to update.

It also depends on how you play. If your trials guild cares about the meta, you'll probably be changing your gear or class more frequently that someone who's guild doesn't care. I PVP with a Guild who changes the group composition slowly as the meta changes, so I've been playing my MagDK healer for ages. Someone who plays very competitive Battlegrounds is probably going to change their build more frequently because their opponents are changing.

Kusto

When you got 18 characters, golded gear, many different builds. It takes long time to adjust to changes and then they change again. But people who only play 1 character, 1 role, and only play casually then sure, no problem.

Tannus15

VaranisArano wrote: »

Change fatigue is a thing. The Devs tend to target the tallest poppy, so the BIS stuff gets changed periodically.

Eventually you decide whether you'll continue to chase the BIS meta or you'll be satisfied with the nearly-as-good-as-the-meta gear that doesn't change very much from update to update.

It also depends on how you play. If your trials guild cares about the meta, you'll probably be changing your gear or class more frequently that someone who's guild doesn't care. I PVP with a Guild who changes the group composition slowly as the meta changes, so I've been playing my MagDK healer for ages. Someone who plays very competitive Battlegrounds is probably going to change their build more frequently because their opponents are changing.

I think this is the core of it. PvE changes are slow or irrelevant. Whatever gear you cleared vSS HM in last year will more than likely still work, even if there is something slightly better now.

PvP things can change much quicker depending on which environment you're playing in and how badly you want to exploit the latest OP build. There are plenty of stable PvP builds that still work in all environments, but I think the more competitive you are the more you're going to want to have the latest and greatest.

Thoragaal

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

So I ask, give examples of when, because of the changes in the meta, you had a really difficult time.

For PvE: Many years ago, when I was really trying to enjoy trials, I cared about the changes. Since what happened to me also affected the others in the group, I was trying to stay on top of what was considered "meta". My approach to most things is to either do it right or don't do it at all. Today however I just don't care about trials and I no longer have that specific issue. I've been wearing pretty much the same pve gear since Orsinium was released.

For PvP: Changes in the meta also changes my approach to things.
I don't chase the meta, but if what I'm doing is no longer as effective as it used to be (due to changes) I will try to make it more functional. It can be anything between how I'm attacking a group of people, or a single player, to how I might need to escape a tricky situation. If I'm playing melee (which I really prefer) and I can't even reach my target without dying then I need to change my strategy; What was once working doesn't work anymore -> Change in build.

The "meta" in pvp is changing all the time.
New gear is introduced and a lot of players jump on the bandwagon, causing ripple effects on how I most effectively deal with various situations (attack, defend, escape, buying time etc).
It's the same thing for active/passive skills or even CP; what once worked doesn't work anymore. Having too much of anything (mitigation, recovery, movement speed, healing etc) is a waste and ought to be adjusted to better improve my build. It's the same thing if I don't have enough of something, then I need to adjust it; if I don't have enough recovery, for example, then I will try to get more of it to sustain my playstyle.

Even lag/bugs/latency has a similar effect.
I've completely stopped using CC immunity, for example, because of how unreliable it is. What once worked doesn't work anymore -> change the build.

xgoku1

Because changes are too frequent and seem poorly thought out. Change itself in an mmo is a good thing to keep things dynamic but it's reached the point where the devs seem to change things to "look busy" at their jobs.

Not to mention these changes seem more like live experiments, like an eternal beta test.

Just a small example to highlight my point: in U32 they say critical damage is too much, if they knew that why would they introduce something like the Harpooner's Wading Kilt in U30?

Amottica

I think we can be fairly certain the set will remain in the game. As such I suggest people focus on presenting their thoughts on how they feel the set can be altered so it is more balanced in their opinion.

gronoxvx

Because by the time people can settle into a build theyve spent theory crafting, farming, upgrading or transmuting etc, zos drops the PTS with major changes that in some cases makes their build either redundant (eg the no proc cyro, the dot meta) or not competitive moving into the next patch. So unless youre lucky with RNG, it can sometimes take weeks to get together, to now find out that it can change at the drop of the hat.

Its frustrating as the RNG is terrible in this game. Yes the new update is suppose to change that. But it still adds to the change fatigue people have when it comes to pvp.

At the end of the day, people arent complaining about changes in itself, its the HUGE changes that happen every patch and the constant see-saw of reverting changes, or completely removing something (no proc cyro). Even after zos stating they were going to stop the drastic changes every patch....

JTD

VaranisArano wrote: »

Change fatigue is a thing. The Devs tend to target the tallest poppy, so the BIS stuff gets changed periodically.

Eventually you decide whether you'll continue to chase the BIS meta or you'll be satisfied with the nearly-as-good-as-the-meta gear that doesn't change very much from update to update.

It also depends on how you play. If your trials guild cares about the meta, you'll probably be changing your gear or class more frequently that someone who's guild doesn't care. I PVP with a Guild who changes the group composition slowly as the meta changes, so I've been playing my MagDK healer for ages. Someone who plays very competitive Battlegrounds is probably going to change their build more frequently because their opponents are changing.

This and much more. It always feels like we are flip flopping all over the place when i comes to these changes. I don't mind farming out new gear, I don't mind the learning of new rotations but its the same thing every cycle all over again. Meta will be meta and that is fine.

For me on top of that its the lack of direction. My NB, Templar lost all identity they had with all these cumulative changes. It just doesn't matter anymore. It all feels bland and uninspirering.

EF321

Inventory space is limited.
It takes a lot of resources to properly trait and gold your gear.
Two weeks later, your gear is useless.

It is not like call of duty, where you have everything unlocked and available at all times, and can switch back and forth whenever meta shifts. You can only afford to store so much gear in case it will be ok-ish again next year. Then you have to go and farm new gear instead of enjoying the game, like you did before the changes.

Grandchamp1989

-DOT meta
-Monster set overhaul
-Proc meta
-Buff/debuff overhaul
-Proc overhaul
-CP overhaul
-Crit meta
-Hybrid meta

all within 1-1/2 years.

People got variable time to invest into the game and I dont have time to re-learn the game every 1-2 months.

When FoA patch hit I had to change my setup on 5 characters. Get new gear, Gold it out and change to the new meta.

Im not one of the guys who can parse 100k+
Currently im at 85k which is the lowest entry to play in trial HMs for my main guild.
Next patch I likely will not be able to play the content I enjoy. The patches literally dictate the content I get to play in endgame, and the meta fluctuate like no game I have seen before. This patch I can play what I like, next patch I cant and the patch after I can again.

Same for PvP.
Up until WF patch I was doing great, no problems at all, great balance. Then they introduced these new 3 proc sets to dominate the meta, and now I have to start over.
Next patch they will likely nerf them into the ground… its exhausting for me.

This constant playing cat and mouse with the meta sucks the fun out of the game for me.

I can see how it isnt a problem if you parse 100k+ or only play casual content.

But for endgame progression teams and pvp these meta shifts matter a ton along with performance.

EF321

gronoxvx wrote: »

Because by the time people can settle into a build theyve spent theory crafting, farming, upgrading or transmuting etc, zos drops the PTS with major changes that in some cases makes their build either redundant (eg the no proc cyro, the dot meta) or not competitive moving into the next patch. So unless youre lucky with RNG, it can sometimes take weeks to get together, to now find out that it can change at the drop of the hat.

Oh, and this. They completely changed niche set I've been using (crusader). Like, even proc condition. It used to require dodge roll. Now it requires specific abilities, which I don't even have in that build for that set. And I don't have bar space to fit them. I farmed that set, I spent transmutes and reconstructed some pieces in proper trait. If it still procd on dodge roll, I could live with that, shield is ok tradeoff for extended dodge I guess, but as a bow/bow there is no way I want to charge or pull.

thorwyn

I don't understand why some people are so eager to let the world know that they don't care about changes. It's a bit like vegans at a party. No matter what you say or do, they WILL tell you that they are vegan. If changes do not affect you, be happy and continue playing. We get it, you are cool, free thinking individuals, immune to meta game constraints. Good for you!
But you need to understand that if changes don't affect you, they are not made for you and your type of game play.
There are players out there, who ARE interested in the meta and try to min max their characters. And it is completely irrelevant whether they are doing this because that's their idea of playing a game, or whether they are playing in regions where even small changes are making a difference. For those people, a constantly changing meta IS annoying.

Mancombe_Nosehair

The only change that really annoyed me was when they moved Rapids. Whilst my non crafters all had Caltrops and weren't affected, my 3 fully levelled crafters had to do quite a few battlegrounds to get Rapids back, which they weren't set up for.

They could easily have swapped the healing skill over to the Assault skill instead.

MasterSpatula

Some sort of sense of stability makes it feel like they know what they're doing.

Aznarb

Theory-crafting is fun, I don't mind change.
What is boring is the lack of decent reason to do these change.

What the point nerfing DPS when you release right after Thrassian or Harpooner Kilt item ?
Yeah, that just to sell, not to balance anything.
Antiquity have bring more overpowered item than any other set/monster set, and in all game-mod.

wishlist14

I respect your opinion OP as I also don't mind some of the changes BUT there have been too many changes that don't balance the combat/gear sets/skills cos when they improve something in pve the pvp gets out of balance and vise versa. The only way eso can ever be trully balanced would be to separate pvp from pve but that wont ever happen so.....here we are yet again 😣😣😣😣

I just play eso for the nostalgia now. It's been my favourite game since pre-launch and it has some amazing beauty but I must suck at it cos I never really progress in eso. It's complicated

saar

For PVE sure it could be a lot worse especially for MagDD, which had the same few sets for ages. I think people are entitled to fatigue from meta changes though.Changing gear means... farming it (which can take hours/days/months), re-traiting it usually (more grinding for transmutes), golding it (gold grinding). You waste time and energy doing it all before you can even start to play the game. PvP is worse off as others said as it changes like the wind, proc/no-proc has been a mess and a half and you still need top gear to be competitive.

I've preferred fighting games for pvp since the whole toolkit is available to you, no grinding required, and the outcome of matches (excluding latency) is 100% based on player skill.

wishlist14 wrote: »

The only way eso can ever be trully balanced would be to separate pvp from pve but that wont ever happen so.....

pretty much the only solution, pvp is separated from pve in other games for a reason. I guess we'll need an ESO 2 since it doesn't seem likely they can untangle both modes at this point.

wheresbes

For me mostly because of the costs - I'm not actively looking to make money in-game or stock up mats, I get those from normal gameplay, so, having to change gear or skills, bothers me. Besides, I'm also very frustrated by the fact that whenever I come up with something, IT GETS NERFED in the following patch, it's incredible.

IMO, I guess changes hurt more low level to middle-level players that have fewer resources available and are also getting comfortable with something that suddenly changes.

There are some changes that are good though, I only wish some were less drastic.

Hlaaluna

Generally I don't mind change in game and often look forward to it. The only time I got really dirty about a change was with the vampire skill line some time back.

I guess if people really love their character as is they are going to get a bit salty about change. But yeah things like what is BIS or meta, I am happy to go with the flow.

Beardimus

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I in no way want to discount the complaints of many gamers, but I'm really interested in knowing by examples.
I often see complaints on the forums from players who say they are tired of the changes in the game. And I don't understand it at all. I play this game almost from the start, and I have never experienced any problems with changes, since in general they always seemed insignificant to me. There are only two moments when I had to relearn:
* When the heavy attack entered the meta in Morrowind
* When we introduced the casting time for the ult. But since I feel good about this change, it did not upset me, although it took me a long time to get used to it.
Otherwise, the principle of the game is the same. You are just an uptime dots/buffs, filling your free time with spam attacks, casting each skill through a light attack. Yes, sometimes some skills come into the meta and others leave. But what is changing? The skills are the same and differ only in numbers, and not in some special control. Even in pvp it hardly changes. And if there are any changes, then this is more a matter of habit.
The same goes for the gear. Relequin, Syroria, PFG, Mother have not left the meta for many years. Bassei recently came to us, who is going through the armor. What's the problem with farming her? Yes, there is also Medusa's inferno staff ... But in the upcoming update, any farming problems will have to leave us. In order to collect all parts of the sets in a dungeon or trial, we need to go through it less than 45 times. Less, because on the way we will come across more chests with weapons.
So yes, change is mostly passive. I do everything exactly the same as before, but with a different result, more balanced, more variety. I see that change is good.
So I ask, give examples of when, because of the changes in the meta, you had a really difficult time.

It depends how much you play.
When it's alot adaption time seems less of a stress. If you play less though and want to crack on time to redo fundamentals potentially across 10-12 toons can actually out you off playing.

When I played alot I was annoyed with changes but weathered the storm (despite being vocal here) from top of head for mag sorc
- ultimate nerf to 500 (overload)
- MagDW nerfs (direct & indirect)
- Frag losing stun
- Overload losing 3rd bar and more nerfs
- Need for resistances

As my play time came down I had some duldrum periods with no time to theory craft my way out.

So I do get it. But nuanced changes to keep the game fresh I'm all for. And Procs have been an issue for years. So begone

It all depends how much it messes with how you pla IMHO

HyekAr

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I in no way want to discount the complaints of many gamers, but I'm really interested in knowing by examples.
I often see complaints on the forums from players who say they are tired of the changes in the game. And I don't understand it at all. I play this game almost from the start, and I have never experienced any problems with changes, since in general they always seemed insignificant to me. There are only two moments when I had to relearn:
* When the heavy attack entered the meta in Morrowind
* When we introduced the casting time for the ult. But since I feel good about this change, it did not upset me, although it took me a long time to get used to it.
Otherwise, the principle of the game is the same. You are just an uptime dots/buffs, filling your free time with spam attacks, casting each skill through a light attack. Yes, sometimes some skills come into the meta and others leave. But what is changing? The skills are the same and differ only in numbers, and not in some special control. Even in pvp it hardly changes. And if there are any changes, then this is more a matter of habit.
The same goes for the gear. Relequin, Syroria, PFG, Mother have not left the meta for many years. Bassei recently came to us, who is going through the armor. What's the problem with farming her? Yes, there is also Medusa's inferno staff ... But in the upcoming update, any farming problems will have to leave us. In order to collect all parts of the sets in a dungeon or trial, we need to go through it less than 45 times. Less, because on the way we will come across more chests with weapons.
So yes, change is mostly passive. I do everything exactly the same as before, but with a different result, more balanced, more variety. I see that change is good.
So I ask, give examples of when, because of the changes in the meta, you had a really difficult time.

Ppl complain about changes, because people are stick to the same "past" or "AlwaysDone" metods and ways. So any variation will make them stressed, any progress will make them uncomfortble.

Only few ppl are opened for new features and dont scare abt trying.

(This includes not only players, even developers have the same feelings)

Thannazzar

It comes down to how you dev and test.

The MMOs that do this well have a maximum of 2 system change patches a year, that means players have a full 6 months between balance tweeks on powers, equipment and combat stat effects.

But that only happens when you fully test the impacts of new gear sets, powers and stats, with all permutations of build before you release them.

That appears not to be ZOS's model. They lack both theorycrafting and adequate testing to understand the impacts of changes to both PVE and PVP as part of their release model. Hence the virtually monthly cycle of `Balance' changes.

Artim_X

There are many answers to your question that will vary across the playerbase.

From my experience I did not like losing my 3rd bar as a sorc via the overload nerf. In PvP I slotted all my anti-group skills in there and in PvE I slotted skills that I could not fit on my normal bar especially as a sorc healer. I don't hate the new overload, but the nerf also affected how much damage overload light attacks did in relation to heavy attacks. It essentially deleted overload ganking from Cyrodiil, while making the heavy attacks more fun to use.

I think I can safely speak for most of the playerbase in relation to the madness of cast times placed on damage shields. If no one complained they would still be in the game.

The dot meta was "funny," but at least soul trap survived and is now a decent dot option.

I mostly hate the "revamp" of the vampire skills, but at least mist and the positive passives are good.

I'm still mad that both morphs of the shock version of destructive touch lost its stun making streak the only shock stun in the game. I liked using the stun in overland PvE and was willing to remorph it just for questing, but that's not even an option while fire can still knock back and ice can still lock down.

divnyi

PvP meta shook up pretty wildly, it went from "slot in as many dots as you can & build damage chars" to "build tanks with proc set damage" to "build pure burst sets" to "equip 2 out of 3 new broken proc sets in any combination".

Problem is, it doesn't look like they are good with numbers and QAing what they have done. Dots were overnerfed. Procs were overnerfed. Health recovery was outright killed. New sets are broken and I bet they will outright kill them in next patches, but you need to build them today to be competitive just to dump them out in the nearest future.

They could've used PTS more extensively (extend the PTS duration) to hone the balance out there, with players that want to experiment, but they don't listen to any balance feedback.

It's not even about not liking the shakeups for me, I don't like the outcomes of those shakeups. I immediately see the ways to break the game at the point I'm reading patchnotes, why don't they see it?

AuraStorm43

When you invest in golding out gear every patch, you’d be frustrated too that they keep shaking it up

Last patch i golded out some meritorious gear for PVP only for them to add a set that makes purging bad, so i stopped using it