Update 33 Combat Preview

Parasaurolophus

So good. You will tell your thoughts.
Concerns:
1) Homogenization. This has already been discussed a lot in this thread, I do not want to repeat myself.
2) I'm an endgame player and I'm fine with the meta. At least as long as different sets/skills are best suited for different tasks - that's fine. But the prospect of losing strong character identity scares me. I don't want to play a mage in medium armor with a two-handed mace and staff. People are used to clear stereotypes like warrior/mage/thief/berserker/archer/necromancer and I don't see much point in experimenting with that.
3) Rip PVP. Wardens will once again get shalks with penetration. StamDK will receive coagulation. And so on...

I am glad that:
1) Staminas will get access to a wide range of DOTS and AoE. Perhaps archers will become more in demand.
2) This will also increase the class identification for each class.
3) Freer theorycrafting is always good.

VaranisArano

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

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

For what it's worth, I think you'd need to convince the console manufacturers to change their certification process for code. Also, PC PTS users basically download a second copy of the game - I dunno how well that would play with limited memory on consoles.

Luke_Flamesword

Geez, you forgot about some things:
1. Meta is always about homogenization - when magicka is stronger than stamina in PvE than in trials people run with magicka builds and stamina is not welcome. Meta players ALWAYS use same gear, same skills, same classes (whatever is strongest).
2. In PvP there was always talking about magicka being weaker than stamina, etc. - problem solved
3. In PvE you still have to max stamina or magicka pool for biggest damage. As stamina player maybe you can use both magicka and stamina skills but you must use most skills with stamina cost, because your magicka will dry out really quickly. You also have to choose your weapons and using for example staffs in stamina character will have some drawbacks, so this is not so easy. There will be some differences with magicka vs stamina build.
4. There will be further adjusting by ZOS to many aspects of game (as always) so many things will change.

Xebov

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

1) Homogenization. This has already been discussed a lot in this thread, I do not want to repeat myself.
2) I'm an endgame player and I'm fine with the meta. At least as long as different sets/skills are best suited for different tasks - that's fine. But the prospect of losing strong character identity scares me. I don't want to play a mage in medium armor with a two-handed mace and staff. People are used to clear stereotypes like warrior/mage/thief/berserker/archer/necromancer and I don't see much point in experimenting with that.

The very idea of meta is to find the best possible combination in the pool of available options. The bigger the common usable pool is the more likely it becomes that everyone uses the same stuff. Character identity has no place in a meta concept and only exists in a pseudo state created by limiting the pools of options to specific classes or roles and by having meta worthy content in these pools. In other words if your class of choice has no meta worthy skills you would use only common pool skills without any class specific ones.

Before the latest changes to sets every mag dd essentially used the same sets and they shared ~50% of the skills. The same was true for stam dds. After sets became hybrid the pool of available sets doubled for both with the result that all dds now use the same sets because they are the best possible option out of that pool. With skills this will happen to some degree too. Like i said its the nature of meta.

The changes that they want to make open up possibilities for all players. Not doing it just because the meta concept that some are chasing is causing more homogenization (which is the very essence of meta) is just wrong.

VaranisArano

QUESTION: With these massive changes to how skills scale with your max resources, will the Skills Advisor's recommended choices be reevaluated now? Should we expect that in the future when the major buffs are combined?

Elsonso

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Geez, you forgot about some things:
1. Meta is always about homogenization - when magicka is stronger than stamina in PvE than in trials people run with magicka builds and stamina is not welcome. Meta players ALWAYS use same gear, same skills, same classes (whatever is strongest).

This is why "fixing" the game to remove meta builds requires that all classes, races, weapons, skills, and gear be absolutely identical in combat ability, differing only in terms of cosmetics. Until that happens, there will always be meta builds. New ones will form every time ZOS makes even the smallest change that results in a new class, race, weapon, skill, or gear taking the top spot. Along with that, cries of "nerf" and cries for "nerf", gnashing of teeth because ZOS rocks the boat, rage quits, unsubs, and other things less speakable.

rageofodin

LETS GOOOOOO BABY!

Lets the haters hate and let the gamers game!

KEEP. THEM. UPDATES. COMING!!

Skoomah

@ZOS_Gilliam How do plan on balancing classes with these new updates?

jaws343

Brrrofski wrote: »

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.

How will everyone run the same skills?

Let's take templar.

What skills will a stamplar and magplar run that would constitute identical builds?

A stamplar will still have to run primarily Stam skills to maintain and semblance of sustain.

A magplar will still have to run primarily mag skills to maintain any semblance of sustain.

Some auxiliary skills may swap in for off stat, but it won't be anywhere near identical between mag and Stam of the same class.

ealdwin

VaranisArano wrote: »

QUESTION: With these massive changes to how skills scale with your max resources, will the Skills Advisor's recommended choices be reevaluated now? Should we expect that in the future when the major buffs are combined?

IIRC, The Skill Advisor is still recommending Empowering Sweep on my Magplar. Crescent Sweep became the preferred morph for Magplars back in…(checks notes)…Murkmire.

Yeah, it needs updated.

BlossomDead

1. Going forward are you considering separate balancing sheets for PvE & PvP? I think this would help optimal balancing for both modes.
   
2. Seeing that you are attempting to increase some timers to alleviate skill casting micromanagement could we expect the combat system to have weaving removed? This makes for one of the clunkiest combat systems there are. Besides, are you investigating the bar swapping performance issues? Most of the times the bar does not swap in time or is completely jammed, especially in Cyrodiil. Players closer to your servers can perform their full rotation while the rest of us are still trying to swap bars. If it cannot be improved, have you contemplated completely discarding the system and replacing it with something more performance oriented, at least for PvP?
   
3. In line with the previous question: weapon sheathing performance is quite ridiculous currently. It is extremely slow and it often times prevents one from defending oneself from surprise attacks by being punished with its slowness even though one could react in time otherwise.
   
4. Are you going to address healing stacking and overpowered heals in PvP?
   
5. Have you considered removing self-healing altogether (except potions, active skills that offer some sustain like Entropy for instance or recovery stats) thus increasing reliance on healers in PvP and avoiding overtuned classes like Templar that virtually outheal everything you throw at them?
   
6. Have you considered going the opposite route for PvP: instead of hybridization implementing specialization to make up for healthier encounters? Like clear DPS, Tank, Bruiser & Healer with their according tuning for damage output, healing, shielding and sustain?
   
7. Have you considered removing the invisibility mechanic of the Night Blades which can go invisible in plainsight during battles with nothing much effective to counter it? (either the active abilities that offer some visibility are too costly, last too little or cost sustain as you cannot use a health potion while having a detect potion active); Maybe by giving them some perma cloaking up to X meters away from their targets but nothing during combat and a cooldown of not taking any damage within Y seconds before being able to return to invisibility (+ distance).
   
8. Have you considered potions availability in PvP? Other than Magicka, Stamina & Health IMHO other potions shouldn't be available and bonuses should be derived from passives, skills, CP & item only.
   
9. Have you considered line of sight improvements as to avoid endless chasing around objects/towers and limiting the movement speed of some classes in accordance to a role? Currently I feel like very often times people can run as fast as I Streak for instance.
   
10. Have you considered disabling all add-ons in PvP zones? Given this should be a skill based approach I think we should all use the same information from the base UI. It would also help sanitize performance a little as I'm sure there are unpublished add-ons that do sneaky stuff.
    
11. Are you planning to address PvP health in a more timely fashion from now on? Can we expect regular content updates or are we better off to a game that caters more to their PvP audience?

My questions above are actually all derived from a fundamental unknown: are you planning to streamline the PvP experience to make fighting seem more fair & the community appreciated and if so, how?

Faulgor

Keeping resource recovery in mind will probably largely depend on how many off-stat skills you want to use, but I don't think it will be much of an issue if you build for it. Using light armor on stamina builds and medium armor on magicka builds has already been changed to grant notable benefits, so by adjusting your setup there you already lower your costs somewhat.

Additionally you can adjust a bit with different food and drinks. Just bought the recipe for Max Stam / Magicka Recovery food, which would be just a new version of Lava Foot for specific builds.

In group setups, Ele Drain means this will mostly benefit stamina builds with magicka recovery. Although the orb synergy only recovers your highest stat, so it's not quite the same sustain as a dedicated stam/mag build.

Obviously there are also classes and races that are more inclined for these setups - Templars, Sorcerers and Imperials all have cost reduction across the board. DKs have good sustain tools for magicka and stamina outside of regens and cost reduction (Combustion/Battle Roar). Nightblades have passive recovery for all stats, mag/stam recovery on kill, and Reave on Incap. Siphoning strikes still forces a choice for mag or stam, but I could see those being consolidated. Wardens and Necromancers have boosts to mag and stam recovery tied to pet use.
Khajiit have recovery bonuses across the board, and Argonians could shine here as well.

Point is, there are options, and off-stat sustain might not be as impossible.

Drdeath20

jaws343 wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

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.

How will everyone run the same skills?

Let's take templar.

What skills will a stamplar and magplar run that would constitute identical builds?

A stamplar will still have to run primarily Stam skills to maintain and semblance of sustain.

A magplar will still have to run primarily mag skills to maintain any semblance of sustain.

Some auxiliary skills may swap in for off stat, but it won't be anywhere near identical between mag and Stam of the same class.

A magplar could use power of the light and even consider using camo hunter for slotted passives instead of purifying light and inner light. I mean both inner light and camo hunter will give the same crit buff it’s just the difference of 5% more magicka + 2% mag regen vs 3% more WPD/SPD + minor berserk when flanking.

Stamplars could use blazing shards to try and get more burning light ticks and use Jesus beam on their bow back bar.

It would be some cool differences.

spartaxoxo

Xebov wrote: »

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.

Reinforcing means to strengthen though, so it's a perfectly legitimate reading of the phrase. We will see how it shakes out.

Hotdog_23

VaranisArano wrote: »

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

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

For what it's worth, I think you'd need to convince the console manufacturers to change their certification process for code. Also, PC PTS users basically download a second copy of the game - I dunno how well that would play with limited memory on consoles.

My guess is you are right about the certification process for code. Zos does want to spend the extra coin to speed up the process.

As far as downloading a second copy that would be fine with me. For now, we console players must wait and hope someone post information we are interested in seeing and testing.

Be nice also to see some furnishing, mounts, pets and emotes that we cannot see in person unless we purchase said item first. Also, would be easier to theory craft and test out new builds without wasting materials and transmute stones.

Stay safe

GetAgrippa

francesinhalover wrote: »

Stams are also close range and get slapped by aoe and dmg left and right while mags attack from range.

Have you heard of magdks and magplars?

Faulgor

Drdeath20 wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

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.

How will everyone run the same skills?

Let's take templar.

What skills will a stamplar and magplar run that would constitute identical builds?

A stamplar will still have to run primarily Stam skills to maintain and semblance of sustain.

A magplar will still have to run primarily mag skills to maintain any semblance of sustain.

Some auxiliary skills may swap in for off stat, but it won't be anywhere near identical between mag and Stam of the same class.

A magplar could use power of the light and even consider using camo hunter for slotted passives instead of purifying light and inner light. I mean both inner light and camo hunter will give the same crit buff it’s just the difference of 5% more magicka + 2% mag regen vs 3% more WPD/SPD + minor berserk when flanking.

Stamplars could use blazing shards to try and get more burning light ticks and use Jesus beam on their bow back bar.

It would be some cool differences.

Could this make Bow Templars finally viable? A ranged execute seems a big bonus to their toolkit.

Seraphayel

Faulgor wrote: »

Drdeath20 wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

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.

How will everyone run the same skills?

Let's take templar.

What skills will a stamplar and magplar run that would constitute identical builds?

A stamplar will still have to run primarily Stam skills to maintain and semblance of sustain.

A magplar will still have to run primarily mag skills to maintain any semblance of sustain.

Some auxiliary skills may swap in for off stat, but it won't be anywhere near identical between mag and Stam of the same class.

A magplar could use power of the light and even consider using camo hunter for slotted passives instead of purifying light and inner light. I mean both inner light and camo hunter will give the same crit buff it’s just the difference of 5% more magicka + 2% mag regen vs 3% more WPD/SPD + minor berserk when flanking.

Stamplars could use blazing shards to try and get more burning light ticks and use Jesus beam on their bow back bar.

It would be some cool differences.

Could this make Bow Templars finally viable? A ranged execute seems a big bonus to their toolkit.

Stamsorc could use Mage's Wrath as well to put more pressure on one hit, the same with Curse. Am thinking about a build where you line up one massive blow with Crystal Weapon, Curse, Wrath and a LA/HA.

Faulgor

Seraphayel wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

Drdeath20 wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

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.

How will everyone run the same skills?

Let's take templar.

What skills will a stamplar and magplar run that would constitute identical builds?

A stamplar will still have to run primarily Stam skills to maintain and semblance of sustain.

A magplar will still have to run primarily mag skills to maintain any semblance of sustain.

Some auxiliary skills may swap in for off stat, but it won't be anywhere near identical between mag and Stam of the same class.

A magplar could use power of the light and even consider using camo hunter for slotted passives instead of purifying light and inner light. I mean both inner light and camo hunter will give the same crit buff it’s just the difference of 5% more magicka + 2% mag regen vs 3% more WPD/SPD + minor berserk when flanking.

Stamplars could use blazing shards to try and get more burning light ticks and use Jesus beam on their bow back bar.

It would be some cool differences.

Could this make Bow Templars finally viable? A ranged execute seems a big bonus to their toolkit.

Stamsorc could use Mage's Wrath as well to put more pressure on one hit, the same with Curse. Am thinking about a build where you line up one massive blow with Crystal Weapon, Curse, Wrath and a LA/HA.

Compared to Templars, I feel Stamsorc is already at a point where it's getting difficult to line up all the available burst. Crystal Weapon, Crushing Weapon, Overload, Bound Armaments, not to mention proc sets ... But including Wrath or Curse as an option is certainly welcome.

UrbWzrd

No matter how I look this hybrid thing looks like ESO is becoming Pong. One dude even said, when we will see "power" as single. I think he is coming from fps shooters. Like I said no matter how I look, they are like nerfing RPG aspect of the characters. There is no diversity in what they are doing, quite the opposite. No matter you choose stam or mag, no matter which set, no matter what skill. Then what will matter?!

Elsonso

UrbWzrd wrote: »

No matter how I look this hybrid thing looks like ESO is becoming Pong. One dude even said, when we will see "power" as single. I think he is coming from fps shooters. Like I said no matter how I look, they are like nerfing RPG aspect of the characters. There is no diversity in what they are doing, quite the opposite. No matter you choose stam or mag, no matter which set, no matter what skill. Then what will matter?!

Homogenization. It is the wave of the future. Embrace it. It doesn't matter what you embrace, as it will all be the same! Find something and embrace it. Try not to get arrested.

WrathOfInnos

Elsonso wrote: »

UrbWzrd wrote: »

No matter how I look this hybrid thing looks like ESO is becoming Pong. One dude even said, when we will see "power" as single. I think he is coming from fps shooters. Like I said no matter how I look, they are like nerfing RPG aspect of the characters. There is no diversity in what they are doing, quite the opposite. No matter you choose stam or mag, no matter which set, no matter what skill. Then what will matter?!

Homogenization. It is the wave of the future. Embrace it. It doesn't matter what you embrace, as it will all be the same! Find something and embrace it. Try not to get arrested.

I wonder if this change is driven by performance. Eventually we'll have half the number of stats, and therefore fewer variables that must be calculated after each combat event. Better game performance would be welcomed. Population seems lower than last year, which helps stability, but the servers still kick me to the login screen a couple times a night.

ancientgamedev

One shortfall of the ESO combat system is the lack of counter balance. It is very rare to see a proc set also deliver a cost associated with that proc. In this new DLC there is the Baron Thirsk set that drains ultimate after the proc. This is a nice addition which would be nicer to add to many of the proc'ing sets. The proc'ing effect should cost something other than time and gold.

Off topic a little bit, there is this Rallying Cry set's proc:

While Battle Spirit is active, critically healing yourself or an ally causes you and up to 11 other group members within 12 meters to gain 300 Weapon and Spell Damage, and 1650 Critical Resistance for 20 seconds. Each group member affected reduces the Weapon and Spell Damage by 15 and the Critical Resistance by 83. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds

If this lasts for 20 seconds and proc's every 15 seconds, then does it compound during the overlap?

UrbWzrd

ancientgamedev wrote: »

One shortfall of the ESO combat system is the lack of counter balance. It is very rare to see a proc set also deliver a cost associated with that proc. In this new DLC there is the Baron Thirsk set that drains ultimate after the proc. This is a nice addition which would be nicer to add to many of the proc'ing sets. The proc'ing effect should cost something other than time and gold.

Off topic a little bit, there is this Rallying Cry set's proc:

While Battle Spirit is active, critically healing yourself or an ally causes you and up to 11 other group members within 12 meters to gain 300 Weapon and Spell Damage, and 1650 Critical Resistance for 20 seconds. Each group member affected reduces the Weapon and Spell Damage by 15 and the Critical Resistance by 83. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds

If this lasts for 20 seconds and proc's every 15 seconds, then does it compound during the overlap?

How do you see the sets already? It is pts?

UrbWzrd

Elsonso wrote: »

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Geez, you forgot about some things:
1. Meta is always about homogenization - when magicka is stronger than stamina in PvE than in trials people run with magicka builds and stamina is not welcome. Meta players ALWAYS use same gear, same skills, same classes (whatever is strongest).

This is why "fixing" the game to remove meta builds requires that all classes, races, weapons, skills, and gear be absolutely identical in combat ability, differing only in terms of cosmetics. Until that happens, there will always be meta builds. New ones will form every time ZOS makes even the smallest change that results in a new class, race, weapon, skill, or gear taking the top spot. Along with that, cries of "nerf" and cries for "nerf", gnashing of teeth because ZOS rocks the boat, rage quits, unsubs, and other things less speakable.

Why just they don't let meta alone? What is the reason to make everything meta just to get rid of meta? Their "balance" obsession ruins everything. They talk about hybrids ( I think they don't know the meaning of the word ) and flat everything. If they don't do that, there will be unortodox builds, like you are old enough, the ones in Diablo 2. But they kerp breaking everything, so people always run after new meta. If they could just stop, people will experiment, go beyond meta. And pvp, keep it seperate, simple, whatever, but don't balance pvp over pve.

[snip]
[edited for mild bashing]

VaranisArano

UrbWzrd wrote: »

ancientgamedev wrote: »

One shortfall of the ESO combat system is the lack of counter balance. It is very rare to see a proc set also deliver a cost associated with that proc. In this new DLC there is the Baron Thirsk set that drains ultimate after the proc. This is a nice addition which would be nicer to add to many of the proc'ing sets. The proc'ing effect should cost something other than time and gold.

Off topic a little bit, there is this Rallying Cry set's proc:

While Battle Spirit is active, critically healing yourself or an ally causes you and up to 11 other group members within 12 meters to gain 300 Weapon and Spell Damage, and 1650 Critical Resistance for 20 seconds. Each group member affected reduces the Weapon and Spell Damage by 15 and the Critical Resistance by 83. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds

If this lasts for 20 seconds and proc's every 15 seconds, then does it compound during the overlap?

How do you see the sets already? It is pts?

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/596951/pts-patch-notes-v7-3-0

Iriidius

Hybridizing all Skills is a bit too much Hybridization. They should just hybridize stamina and magicka glyphs and warrior mundus. Currently juwelry glyphs(not cp or attributes) are the biggst problem to create a hybrid. Also dont think all sets needed hybridization, but some heavy armour sets like rattlecage, dreugr king slayer should be hybrid

Castagere

Since I'm not a PVPer or hardcore group content player. I love this change. I love the direction ZOS is taking the game. It will be unique and that's a good thing to me. All the fun crazy builds I can make have me smiling.
Great update ZOS.

UrbWzrd

Castagere wrote: »

Since I'm not a PVPer or hardcore group content player. I love this change. I love the direction ZOS is taking the game. It will be unique and that's a good thing to me. All the fun crazy builds I can make have me smiling.
Great update ZOS.

Mate, what you will do, please tell. Because I really cannot understand how this change will create a diversity.

ZOS_Gilliam

Greetings everyone,

We’ve been closely monitoring the feedback and discussion surrounding the Update 33 combat preview and have taken note of a few reoccurring bits that we’d like to take some time to address, particularly regarding the hybridization work we’ve been working on for the past year and a half and the next big step of making most abilities scale dynamically (when applicable) with offensive stats.

To reiterate our goal, these passes have been done to help reduce the number of restrictions when engaging with an ability in your class kit or other skill line, helping you create a build that resonates with you based on what a skill offers, rather than the stats you’ve picked. However, we do still believe stats should always play an important role in determining effectiveness of skills and how your build comes to life in the game. With the sheer number of them in game, we’ve found that the previous system of Weapon versus Spell Damage, Critical Chance, and Penetration were severely impeding on one of the core mantras of the game: play the way you want. With other stats, such as Health, Magicka, and Stamina and the recovery of those stats, we feel we have a large area to enforce limits of how often you can utilize skills as a defining factor of identity and build definition, rather than the potency of those skills as well.

One of the main concerns we’ve seen is how classes will retain their identity moving forward with the new system of dynamic scaling. In our efforts to reduce penalties and restrictions, there always comes an air of homogenization with these changes, where more things feel similar in nature. Our goal is never to intentionally hurt strong identities and we try to avoid it as much as possible while still improving your freedom in creation and expression. We believe that ability costs and how they play into your build will still be a large factor in terms of how frequently you can use abilities. For example, it will be harder for a fully specialized Stamina build to run a “spammable” ability like Puncturing Sweeps or Impale as frequently as a Magicka build, unless they start to make decisions that detract from their specialization of Stamina based actions, thus beginning to change their identity. However, reducing the number of builds in the world that focus on specialization is not as problematic, and in fact, something we would like to see more of. Moving the concept away of identifying only as Magicka or Stamina and instead focusing on playstyle - such as Melee or Range - and using skills of varying costs to realize those goals is something we are actively looking forward to. That said, we are aware of the reality that when trying to squeeze out every possible amount of efficiency in a build, there will always be choices that come out ahead, and we accept this reality as long as those choices aren’t coming out ahead in almost every situation.

Another area we’ve seen quite a bit of feedback on is morph diversity and how the changes to hybridization impact which morph you want to pick. In previous updates, there were pretty clear options; if your ability morphed into a change in cost it likely also changed in its scaling, leading to relatively binary morph options of just picking whichever ability met your primary resource. Now, the ability’s potency is far less impacted by your stats and instead focuses on what it costs and adds in functionality. This will be a vast improvement compared to many of the binary picks of before where you didn’t really have two options if you were a specialized build, but we do still know there are many morph options that don’t hold a candle to one another. On that note, depending on specialization and the type of play you’re focusing on, many morphs will remain rather contextual in nature. Comparing more damage for a specific attack versus gaining an Area of Effect form of a Major Debuff may seem like a simple option for a high-end damage dealer, but outside of that context, a compelling choice is still seen.

While this update will conclude much of our hybridization work (aside from the work-in-progress consumable adjustments we mentioned in the original post) we know it will have knock on effects to the game, and we’re dedicated to following through as they pop up and evolve along with the game. Thanks for your time and we hope this helped give some insight into where our focus has been!