Update 33 Combat Preview

VaranisArano

ZOS at Launch: Everyone use magicka. Stamina is for flavor.

ZOS by Summerset: Everyone stack Magicka or Stamina.

ZOS now: actually, use whatever you want, limited by cost and your ability to sustain.

Be interesting to see where this goes from here.

Cadbury

VaranisArano wrote: »

ZOS at Launch: Everyone use magicka. Stamina is for flavor.

ZOS by Summerset: Everyone stack Magicka or Stamina.

ZOS now: actually, use whatever you want, limited by cost and your ability to sustain.

Be interesting to see where this goes from here.

I hope this will be the case. Gonna be awesome if so.
As of now I'm cautiously optimistic.

Parrot1986

Be interesting to see how this works but throughout eso history “build diversity” has never really been achieved. From pve side the “meta” is always chased and there will always be a stronger set up that builds will move to. This won’t change this, just means that a wider set of skills and sets ups might work but most classes will still fall on very similar builds.

Elsonso

ZOS... I think you are over-complicating this. You are homogenizing the resources so it does not matter how they are allocated, but trying make it work with the existing skills and gear. Those things were written for opposing resources. They need to be rewritten with one resource in mind, and merged as necessary to reduce the number of actual skills and gear in the game. Include classes, weapons, and races in this, as well. Make it comprehensive. Sure, the player may see the same number of classes, weapons, races, skills, and gear items, but under the covers, there is a ton of room for consolidation and reuse. All that needs to happen is unique naming and art to differentiate between them.

Zama666

Does this mean everyone does more damage now?
Except for Tanks?

Too simple?

Fuxo

This is awesome news. Hopefully this will open the door to spell (skill) crafting soon.

Vanos444

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Greetings everyone,

Today, the combat team would like to you officially welcome you to 2022 by giving you some insight on what’s coming to combat in the first update of the year! We’ve been keeping a close eye on all the adjustments we made over 2021 and we’re relatively happy with how the game has been evolving combat wise with character expression and freedom of build choices, and we are dedicated to continuing this work through and through where it matters most.

In Update 33, the changes are focused on making almost every player ability in the game scale dynamically with your highest offensive stats when applicable. Similar to what we’ve worked on with passives and item sets, we want to ensure you feel empowered to pick an ability or weapon based on the gameplay mechanics and expression they offer you first and foremost, with fewer restrictions. This means any ability that used to scale exclusively with Spell Damage and Max Magicka will now dynamically scale with Weapon Damage and Max Stamina, and vice versa. With this, we want to retain the identity of many playstyles by reinforcing ability cost as a limiting factor in how frequently you can engage with abilities, but with less concern as to how powerful that ability is based on what stat path you’ve chosen.

We’ll also be dual sourcing buffs on abilities and item sets like Major Prophecy with Major Savagery, with the same thing applying to Brutality and Sorcery. In the long term, we plan on simply merging these bonuses so there are fewer names and effects you need to worry about, but there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that will result from that; as such, it may take quite some time before we’re able to do that.

In addition to the continuation of hybridization, we’ve also gone through many abilities and cleaned up some of their functionalities, making sure the ones that aren’t used as often received some sprucing up to make them feel more up to par with abilities of their like. This is in addition to the usual bug fixing and back-end improvements and targeting of outlier abilities or sets for balance adjustments. Some of these are larger in adjustment, such as Power Bash’s new functionality of being treated as a Bash attack, or Piercing Javelin’s new functionality of living up to its name and piercing through block. Most of the adjustments are not as flashy or different but instead gain added quality of life improvements like increased durations for easier management or scaling adjustments. For example, the morphs of Lotus Flower giving you the choice of gaining more healing overall or a significantly longer uptime for less micromanagement.

That wraps up this update’s combat adjustments! While the number of changes is by no means small, with the hybrid work we’ve been doing in the past, we hope this pass is far less turbulent than things have been recently. The goal here is to open the door to more build freedom and diversity. For some players, we know such changes will instill a sense of needing to spend time and effort changing your loadouts, but we believe the long-term benefits will be worth it. Thanks for reading and we hope to see you all in Tamriel!

Thank you!

Now, finally I can play any Race x Class...
Also, I can finally use 2 handed weapon on my MagDK build

Xebov

VarisVaris wrote: »

This is simply wrong, right now there are 12 different specs with different viability and also some variety in which skills they use due to general limitations in their class toolkit which results in more skills being considered to be slot worthy.

With next patch the option for skills to put on your bar might increase but this also means in return that competition for bar slots becomes so stiff that only the 10 most viable skills will find their way onto bars and that will inevitably reduce diversity across the board.

You just described the meta. No matter how many sets and skills we have, there will always be the meta stating that a certain set and certain skills are the best. Making sets hybrid already perfectly showed this. What you now fear is that the meta will just boil everything down more. But the meta already did that a long time ago for certain types of content.

The real question is why should the bahavior of meta chasing players prevent changes that everyone else would benefit from?

Vanos444

IronWooshu wrote: »

I like this change for abilities scaling off highest weapon or spell damage. I also hope this means that Templars and Dragonknights are the only classes with access to minor sorcery and minor brutality. Which I'm completely fine with sharing.

With the hybridization of skills tho you need to go back and look at races. Pure Magicka and pure Stamina races are killing the "play how you want to play" mantra. @ZOS_Gilliam

I think, they should just give them the perks like
Dunmer, reduce flame damage by 50% amount.
Bosmer, reduce posion damage by 50% amount.
Argonian, increase healing effect by 8% amount.
Imperial, reduce incoming attack by 8% amount.
Nord, increase resistance by 8% amount.
Redguard, 8% reduction of ability spells.
Breton, increase AP points by 10%
Khajiit, increase gold intake by 5%.
High elf, increase damage by 5% when using a channel ability.
Orc, increase run speed by 8%

Deter1UK

Seraphayel wrote: »

tomfant wrote: »

My crystal ball tells me that in update 34 or 35 we will have one resource for casting abilities (former magicka) and the other for movement and defense ie sprint, block, bash etc (former stamina). Buffs and debuffs will be united, eg weapon and spell power will unit into offensive power.

Honestly, that’s not too bad. As long as things like Bash, Sprint and Roll require Stamina and not another resource that’s neither Magicka nor Stamina, this system was sooner or later about to fail because it unfairly favorites always one of them.

Has always been my view. If you want to swing a greatsword it costs stamina. If you want the sword to do magic damage then get a +3 Sword of smashing or lightning or whatever and use the charge up but swinging the thing is still going to deplete your physical strength (unless it's magically assisted to counter that). Likewise spells or magical-like effects or assistance should just use magika.

Isn't that how it worked in Oblivion? Can't recall its been several years since I played it.

Vevvev

Deter1UK wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

tomfant wrote: »

My crystal ball tells me that in update 34 or 35 we will have one resource for casting abilities (former magicka) and the other for movement and defense ie sprint, block, bash etc (former stamina). Buffs and debuffs will be united, eg weapon and spell power will unit into offensive power.

Honestly, that’s not too bad. As long as things like Bash, Sprint and Roll require Stamina and not another resource that’s neither Magicka nor Stamina, this system was sooner or later about to fail because it unfairly favorites always one of them.

Has always been my view. If you want to swing a greatsword it costs stamina. If you want the sword to do magic damage then get a +3 Sword of smashing or lightning or whatever and use the charge up but swinging the thing is still going to deplete your physical strength (unless it's magically assisted to counter that). Likewise spells or magical-like effects or assistance should just use magika.

Isn't that how it worked in Oblivion? Can't recall its been several years since I played it.

In Oblivion it took stamina to perform heavy attacks, and depending on how you moved while doing the heavy attack, and your skill with the weapon, it determined what kind of special attack you did. Certain weapons were made out of daedric materials o silver and could do damage to ghosts and stuff more effectively, but a weapon always did the damage type of the metal it was made of with no exceptions. Enchantments did bonus damage of the magical damage type and were recharged with soul gems like how it is in ESO.

Musax

Maybe i am misunderstanding something, bit isn't this the opposite of hybridisation?

This encourages stacking only one thing to an extrem and be great at everything.
Everything always scaling with your highest stats punishes anyone who "wastes" anything on being hybrid

WrathOfInnos

VarisVaris wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Araxyte wrote: »

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

In Update 33, the changes are focused on making almost every player ability in the game scale dynamically with your highest offensive stats when applicable.

Probably unpopular opinion but here goes. Seeing a big stamina orc using magic skills and wielding a staff... c'mon. I feel like the whole combat system, which has hugely contributed to the success of the game, is just being completely torn down and re-built to the point where class, race and sets don't matter anymore. I can also imagine this making PvP even more unstable. I miss the days of needing to make a new character and class to be able to fit into a specific play style. Did we really ask for something this extreme?

This isn’t extreme. It’s the core of Elder Scrolls. The issue is, that ESO is a multiplayer game and therefore classes need to be balanced and competitive.

It’s still the quintessence of ESO to be able to mix and match playstyles and make them work - this helps and is by no means a bad change. It just doubles the options for each spec when you can all of a sudden use Magicka abilities as Stamina and Stamina abilities as Magicka.

It might double the options on paper in practice it will result in completely removing specs from the game, we're going down from 12 specs to 6 classes which will have 1 single Bis build and that's it for the diversity this creates.

I disagree. There has always been one meta build per class, some patches it is a stamina build and other patches it is magicka. In optimized scenarios nobody has ever been indifferent about stam vs mag, and it was not a free choice of 12 class/resource combinations.

This change effectively lets the lesser build for each class borrow a few tools from the better build. It should close the gap a little, while sustain and resource management will still indicate a primary resource. It also allows more flexibility, for example if a melee class like StamDK needs to play ranged for a specific fight they can now slot a bow + inferno staff and cast skills like eruption without hurting their DPS much.

Seraphayel

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

VarisVaris wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Araxyte wrote: »

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

In Update 33, the changes are focused on making almost every player ability in the game scale dynamically with your highest offensive stats when applicable.

Probably unpopular opinion but here goes. Seeing a big stamina orc using magic skills and wielding a staff... c'mon. I feel like the whole combat system, which has hugely contributed to the success of the game, is just being completely torn down and re-built to the point where class, race and sets don't matter anymore. I can also imagine this making PvP even more unstable. I miss the days of needing to make a new character and class to be able to fit into a specific play style. Did we really ask for something this extreme?

This isn’t extreme. It’s the core of Elder Scrolls. The issue is, that ESO is a multiplayer game and therefore classes need to be balanced and competitive.

It’s still the quintessence of ESO to be able to mix and match playstyles and make them work - this helps and is by no means a bad change. It just doubles the options for each spec when you can all of a sudden use Magicka abilities as Stamina and Stamina abilities as Magicka.

It might double the options on paper in practice it will result in completely removing specs from the game, we're going down from 12 specs to 6 classes which will have 1 single Bis build and that's it for the diversity this creates.

I disagree. There has always been one meta build per class, some patches it is a stamina build and other patches it is magicka. In optimized scenarios nobody has ever been indifferent about stam vs mag, and it was not a free choice of 12 class/resource combinations.

This change effectively lets the lesser build for each class borrow a few tools from the better build. It should close the gap a little, while sustain and resource management will still indicate a primary resource. It also allows more flexibility, for example if a melee class like StamDK needs to play ranged for a specific fight they can now slot a bow + inferno staff and cast skills like eruption without hurting their DPS much.

This is my hope.

spartaxoxo

I'm not really looking forward to skills costing even more they are already a pain to manage for lower and high skill players. Seems like this widen the skill gap to me, which is already unhealthy wide

moleculardrugs

@ZOS_Gilliam

Would you guys ever consider the non-dominant resource (such as Stamina for a Magicka user) to contribute somewhat to spell damage? And Vice versus.

For example,

Say I have 2000 extra Stam points due to using gear that is now scaled for both spell and weapon damage.

Will these points help me somewhat in battle besides just affecting my Stam and core combat skills?

Xebov

Musax wrote: »

Maybe i am misunderstanding something, bit isn't this the opposite of hybridisation?

This encourages stacking only one thing to an extrem and be great at everything.
Everything always scaling with your highest stats punishes anyone who "wastes" anything on being hybrid

The game currently already does this. If you play mag you stack mag if you play stam you stack stam. This update doesnt change that. The point about hybridization is that you can now use a skill of the opposite source pool and have it be as effective as if you would stack that pool.

VaranisArano

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I'm not really looking forward to skills costing even more they are already a pain to manage for lower and high skill players. Seems like this widen the skill gap to me, which is already unhealthy wide

Are they increasing skill cost?

I understood this to mean that the cost of skills relative to your off-stat is the limiting factor for how frequently you can use the newly empowered off-stat skills.

Like, max mag builds spamming stamina skills is going to chew through their small stamina pool quickly. Likewise a max stam build spamming magicka skills will use up their small magicka pool.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't see anything about skill cost increases for everyone.

Resource management of the off-stat is about to become more of a skill, admittedly. That's probably a good thing in terms of training players to be ready for end game group content and PVP, though. That sort of sustain management has always been necessary, but this makes it a little more obvious because if you don't manage both resources, you just won't be able to cast/attack when you want to. I know I didn't learn to manage my stamina until I went to PVP and suddenly there were real consequences for running out of stamina.

Tommy_The_Gun

This looks super nice on paper. It is probably something I am all of the sudden most excited about when it comes to next update (more than an actual story content lol)

I mean, It will open so many possibilities. For example, you will be able to use Vigor on Magicka - based characters or Sap Essence on a Stamina NB as a class heal. It will be probably huge meta-shift and something tells me it will be actually a good change. Very good change in fact.

SnazzleFraggle

hodgodeb17_ESO wrote: »

Why?! Maybe you just finally remove weaving bug(yes, cancelling animations is a BUG) from game and add attack speed to some sets then, so players can decide what they want more - speed of combat or more damage? It's will be more logical step to improve combats.

This. So much. Removing it will likely remove a host of other issues because keeping it likely means it has to be patched in with each...patch.

spartaxoxo

VaranisArano wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I'm not really looking forward to skills costing even more they are already a pain to manage for lower and high skill players. Seems like this widen the skill gap to me, which is already unhealthy wide

Are they increasing skill cost?

I understood this to mean that the cost of skills relative to your off-stat is the limiting factor for how frequently you can use the newly empowered off-stat skills.

Like, max mag builds spamming stamina skills is going to chew through their small stamina pool quickly. Likewise a max stam build spamming magicka skills will use up their small magicka pool.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't see anything about skill cost increases for everyone.

Resource management of the off-stat is about to become more of a skill, admittedly. That's probably a good thing in terms of training players to be ready for end game group content and PVP, though. That sort of sustain management has always been necessary, but this makes it a little more obvious because if you don't manage both resources, you just won't be able to cast/attack when you want to. I know I didn't learn to manage my stamina until I went to PVP and suddenly there were real consequences for running out of stamina.

I read it as they would be increasing skill costs so that if someone decides to use an off-resource skill they would be at even larger disadvantage cost wise than they are now, as a way to offset this change. Ofc I see that as ignoring that increasing skill cost increases the cost across the board and not just for people using an off-resource skill.

I know beyond just lacking skill in weaving, one of the largest dps losses that cause the gap is managing skills can be hard and many people refresh skills too soon resulting in losing to much of their primary resource and having to heavy attack too much to get it back. Thus skill cost increases generally result in the skill gap widening.

That's my concern after reading that anyway.

With this, we want to retain the identity of many playstyles by reinforcing ability cost as a limiting factor in how frequently you can engage with abilities

I could be reading too much into the phrase "reinforce" though.

TL:DR

I read "reinforcing ability cost as a limiting factor" to mean that they are acknowledging this is already a limiting factor but want to increase it's effectiveness as a limiting factor by increasing ability cost.

AinSoph

Maybe High Elf's jank Spell Recharge passive will actually come in clutch this patch.

MudcrabAttack

Races need another look over. Dunmer was already top of the pve list, now dual resource pools of 1900 each would see a lot more use.

The races with just a single resource and single regen source are falling further behind since every build could now use both resource pools with maximum effect while offsetting the need to build up regen of the primary stat.

And cats are still the only race with a buff that can be completely negated in some scenarios …. And Bosmer too I guess

Hotdog_23

Excited for this change and looking forward to seeing which skills are affected by this change and which are not.

Really wish console could get a PTS we could download to experiment with and use to see the changes and be able to provide feedback. Please consider adding one please.

Stay safe

Hymzir

It's a good thing I no longer care or I might get a headache just thinking about this stuff. These are, once again, back to the drawing board type changes. This will fundamentally change how things work in the game. The eternal beta of ESO continues.

I was about to start going into details about why I think this is a bad idea, and what I see as potential positives, but... Nope. Not gonna do that. Doesn't matter. In the end it's just more flinging stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. And since I play so infrequently these days, and only do story quest and not much else, none of this matters to me at all at this point.

So all I really have to offer as feedback, is that this can work, just as any of the dozen or so combat paradigms that have been tested so far. Will it be any better though?

Prolly not. Some playstyles end up as winners, and others losers, and nothing fundamental is gained and the merry-go-round keeps spinning in place.

ceiron

Does this mean buff potions etc are all going to be effectively the same?

I get weapon pots will give stamina only but both wpn/spell dmg and crit etc

Or will potions get a complete rework?

Just thinking another massive farming/trading knock on with this announcement.

All i can see is tri pots being the only useful one now. Get crit and dmg from abilities/passives.

A lot of knock ons really from the entire announcement pending how it plays out.

Not sure its a great decision or not.

Although yet again more in game changes with very little base game fixes as such.

Xebov

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I'm not really looking forward to skills costing even more they are already a pain to manage for lower and high skill players. Seems like this widen the skill gap to me, which is already unhealthy wide

Are they increasing skill cost?

I understood this to mean that the cost of skills relative to your off-stat is the limiting factor for how frequently you can use the newly empowered off-stat skills.

Like, max mag builds spamming stamina skills is going to chew through their small stamina pool quickly. Likewise a max stam build spamming magicka skills will use up their small magicka pool.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't see anything about skill cost increases for everyone.

Resource management of the off-stat is about to become more of a skill, admittedly. That's probably a good thing in terms of training players to be ready for end game group content and PVP, though. That sort of sustain management has always been necessary, but this makes it a little more obvious because if you don't manage both resources, you just won't be able to cast/attack when you want to. I know I didn't learn to manage my stamina until I went to PVP and suddenly there were real consequences for running out of stamina.

I read it as they would be increasing skill costs so that if someone decides to use an off-resource skill they would be at even larger disadvantage cost wise than they are now, as a way to offset this change. Ofc I see that as ignoring that increasing skill cost increases the cost across the board and not just for people using an off-resource skill.

I know beyond just lacking skill in weaving, one of the largest dps losses that cause the gap is managing skills can be hard and many people refresh skills too soon resulting in losing to much of their primary resource and having to heavy attack too much to get it back. Thus skill cost increases generally result in the skill gap widening.

That's my concern after reading that anyway.

With this, we want to retain the identity of many playstyles by reinforcing ability cost as a limiting factor in how frequently you can engage with abilities

I could be reading too much into the phrase "reinforce" though.

TL:DR

I read "reinforcing ability cost as a limiting factor" to mean that they are acknowledging this is already a limiting factor but want to increase it's effectiveness as a limiting factor by increasing ability cost.

Reinforcing is not increasing. By using off pool abilities more frequent you need to manage that resource too. As such ability cost is a limiting factor and you have to think about it.

Brrrofski

I do think it'll make the game a bit more boring.

Everyone will be running the same skills.

Also, it currently feels like we kinda have 12 classes, I'd you count mag and stam as separate.

And for PvP, I see stam getting a huge advantage. Stam can utilise magica with less punishment. But mag builds need the stam for dodge, block and cc break.

Get your perfect row while it's cheap. Bear Haunch will be the go to food imo. And then just stack weapon and spell damage.

I'm already using it on my magplar and mag sorc. Frees up bar space and/or potion choice.

siddique

Lol, another patch another needless and useless update to force people to change everything. While adding a "card game," where there used to be new classes/skill lines/QoL improvements. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

sonwon.1_ESO

I for one cannot wait to play at 450 fps playing a card game!