PTS Update 33 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

Jodynn

I think the changes for hybridization is an interesting choice, and agree with the general direction, it will at least give something small but "new" to engage with. Opening class lines to everyone and not having to pick a class also seems like a reasonable direction that would coincide with these goals as well as fit the theme of Elder Scrolls.

I heard in the stream that you wanted to keep the combat changes simple; however, in the future will there be any new mechanics or are we sticking with the core combat that exists now?

Constructive criticism is that the current model is a bit boring for me, probably due to having played so long and having a high APM rating, and I would hope to see either off global cooldown skills/triggers, toggles, and combos of some sort instead of doing my rotation in my sleep.

My main two problems are the look and feel.
For the feel, the combat is generally the same regardless of class, you use some form of buff/dot skills, then some form of spamming whether that is the same skill or some variation (blast bones/shalks come to mind, as well as sub. spam/dot for ult when you get it.), and then keep reset on cool-down, all while weaving light attacks. Oh and of course pop a potion every 45 seconds in most situations.
For the look, my skills are not very interactive or powerful feeling. Spamming whip 8 times in a row with the SAME exact animation doesn't feel or look amazing. Having a scamp at max level, doesn't look or feel amazing.

So good job on hybridization, but it's feeling a bit too little too late at the moment for me personally.

P.S. Still waiting on spell crafting, one of the most interesting aspects of Morrowind/Oblivion and one of the biggest disappointments of Skyrim.

DrSlaughtr

Jodynn wrote: »

I think the changes for hybridization is an interesting choice, and agree with the general direction, it will at least give something small but "new" to engage with. Opening class lines to everyone and not having to pick a class also seems like a reasonable direction that would coincide with these goals as well as fit the theme of Elder Scrolls.

I heard in the stream that you wanted to keep the combat changes simple; however, in the future will there be any new mechanics or are we sticking with the core combat that exists now?

Constructive criticism is that the current model is a bit boring for me, probably due to having played so long and having a high APM rating, and I would hope to see either off global cooldown skills/triggers, toggles, and combos of some sort instead of doing my rotation in my sleep.

My main two problems are the look and feel.
For the feel, the combat is generally the same regardless of class, you use some form of buff/dot skills, then some form of spamming whether that is the same skill or some variation (blast bones/shalks come to mind, as well as sub. spam/dot for ult when you get it.), and then keep reset on cool-down, all while weaving light attacks. Oh and of course pop a potion every 45 seconds in most situations.
For the look, my skills are not very interactive or powerful feeling. Spamming whip 8 times in a row with the SAME exact animation doesn't feel or look amazing. Having a scamp at max level, doesn't look or feel amazing.

So good job on hybridization, but it's feeling a bit too little too late at the moment for me personally.

P.S. Still waiting on spell crafting, one of the most interesting aspects of Morrowind/Oblivion and one of the biggest disappointments of Skyrim.

There is absolutely no way to balance the game if you allow people to cherry pick the best 3 skill lines in the game. If this were a single player game, then it wouldn't matter.

Every PvPer would pick the 2 best offensive skill lines and then either Draconic or Restoring Light. Imagine a necro, already with the best mitigation in the game, with coagulating blood or honor the dead.

Or imagine a NB with crystal drags proc'd off shadowy disguise with auto crit.

I wouldn't hold your breath for spell crafting either. One, balance, two the difficulty of making it work for this engine (which is already in the process of an overhaul to help performance).

Necrotech_Master

magnusthorek wrote: »

Nice to see stamplars getting another Major buff for free. <_<

Why don't you just take away magplars' already ultra-nerfed jabs healing and give us the REALLY nice stuff.

this is actually something that will be a problem with my current build, as a stamplar i was using rally on my back bar (using vateshran 2h on back bar) for the major dmg buff as well as the vateshran buff

i like getting this buff, but at the same time its gonna make me change some of my build lol

SidraWillowsky

I feel like we're being forced into a hybrid playstyle. Not everyone *wants* to play as a hybrid-- I literally never do in any other game... mag OR stam, never both. It feels like you're taking away that option.

As a mag DD main, I'm worried about how difficult it is to gain spell power relative to weapon power, at least not without sacrificing other stats that are important. It's frustrating to imagine juggling that mess.

You also just wiped away flat stat-boosting sets: Necropotence, Crafty Alfiq, Bright Throat's... I know they're not meta sets, but they do a nice job of boosting damage because of the scaling. Now they're worse than trash, as are their stamina equivalents.

In your attempts to hybridize gameplay, you're funneling everyone to one playstyle, and the meta sets are going to get more and more rigid. Almost no one asked for hybridization, yet you seem to be plowing ahead and making the game a lot less fun to play. Not sure what made you decide to go this route, but I'm frustrated.

StarOfElyon

I was expecting a lot of skills/morphs to get "spruced up". There are so many bad ones in the game that people don't play with. Hmm. What happened to that? When you have so many skills that are clearly better than, or morphs that are clearly better, the game is going to get really narrow really quickly.

Ratzkifal

Storm-Cursed’s Revenge set
What's the reason this set has a proc chance when you've previously made it a point to remove all proc chances from non-Monster sets? Feels like a step backwards. Either balance it like Ice Furnace (no proc chance, easy proc condition, short cooldown, low damage -> reliable performance) or balance it like all the other proc sets that don't have a proc chance anymore. I don't get what makes this set special.

The randomness was the only thing that made the proc sets of old balanced, but that's also what made them so unfun to play against as their entire playstyle was to wait for the proc to happen at the right time and let luck decide the fight instead of skill. Proc chances were removed for a reason...

@ZOS_GinaBruno It also doesn't mention a cooldown anywhere in the patchnotes, so unless it actually has no cooldown it should probably be mentioned.

CP5

Storm Cursed doesn't have a cooldown, and between its low relative damage per proc and low chance from what testing I did it averages out nicely. If it had a 'per target cooldown' to just average things out you would end up with a set that could reliably proc on many targets at once, resulting in unexpected aoe burst, or if it had a fixed single cooldown it would be made so much weaker. As it is, the set feels rather decent actually.

Extinct_Solo_Player

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I was expecting a lot of skills/morphs to get "spruced up". There are so many bad ones in the game that people don't play with. Hmm. What happened to that? When you have so many skills that are clearly better than, or morphs that are clearly better, the game is going to get really narrow really quickly.

LeonAkando

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Storm-Cursed’s Revenge set
What's the reason this set has a proc chance when you've previously made it a point to remove all proc chances from non-Monster sets? Feels like a step backwards. Either balance it like Ice Furnace (no proc chance, easy proc condition, short cooldown, low damage -> reliable performance) or balance it like all the other proc sets that don't have a proc chance anymore. I don't get what makes this set special.

The randomness was the only thing that made the proc sets of old balanced, but that's also what made them so unfun to play against as their entire playstyle was to wait for the proc to happen at the right time and let luck decide the fight instead of skill. Proc chances were removed for a reason...

@ZOS_GinaBruno It also doesn't mention a cooldown anywhere in the patchnotes, so unless it actually has no cooldown it should probably be mentioned.

Stop. Stop trying to get the only love lightning has ever gotten removed for some "it's too random in PVP" complaint.
It's a % chance because you are heavily incentivized to stack Lightning abilities when using it.
Things like wall, flood, boundless storm, pets, crushing shock etc.

The last thing we need is for this set (which is still far from being good due to its terrible stat lines) to be nerfed before it even releases.

Extinct_Solo_Player

Power Bash: The damage from this ability and its morphs’ are now considered Bash damage and interrupts casting targets. This means the damage will increase with bonuses to Bash, as well as triggering events that require you to deal Bash damage. It will not, however, inherit cost reduction bonuses to Bash.

In my opinion, from reading the developer comments you have missed the mark as Powerbash is inherently a CC ability not a spammable. You should have done to change for Low slash which has the potential to be decent ability but currently that skill is useless and moving the change to that skill would actually "significantly amp up the viability of Bash builds by giving them a true spammable"

CP5

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Power Bash: The damage from this ability and its morphs’ are now considered Bash damage and interrupts casting targets. This means the damage will increase with bonuses to Bash, as well as triggering events that require you to deal Bash damage. It will not, however, inherit cost reduction bonuses to Bash.

In my opinion, from reading the developer comments you have missed the mark as Powerbash is inherently a CC ability not a spammable. You should have done to change for Low slash which has the potential to be decent ability but currently that skill is useless and moving the change to that skill would actually "significantly amp up the viability of Bash builds by giving them a true spammable"

Low slash is the aoe spammable of the snb skill line with power bash being the single target one, in terms of damage output and cost.

Extinct_Solo_Player

CP5 wrote: »

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Power Bash: The damage from this ability and its morphs’ are now considered Bash damage and interrupts casting targets. This means the damage will increase with bonuses to Bash, as well as triggering events that require you to deal Bash damage. It will not, however, inherit cost reduction bonuses to Bash.

In my opinion, from reading the developer comments you have missed the mark as Powerbash is inherently a CC ability not a spammable. You should have done to change for Low slash which has the potential to be decent ability but currently that skill is useless and moving the change to that skill would actually "significantly amp up the viability of Bash builds by giving them a true spammable"

Low slash is the aoe spammable of the snb skill line with power bash being the single target one, in terms of damage output and cost.

Powerbash is the base skill, powerslam is a morph like reverberating bash is. Same with low slash which base skill is single target and has 2 different morphs, one single target (heroic slash) and one aoe (deep slash)

CP5

Also, while the feedback is being taken, I've done some feedback in game but wanted to share i here. Shimmering Shield didn't use to put a shield bar over your health, but ever since that change, tanking on a warden has been a nightmare since I can't tell if any of that 70k shield is actually able to sponge a blow or not. Could it be changed to how it was before and not muddle the health bar, so I can actually see how much effective health and shields I have to work with?

Extinct_Solo_Player

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Power Bash: The damage from this ability and its morphs’ are now considered Bash damage and interrupts casting targets. This means the damage will increase with bonuses to Bash, as well as triggering events that require you to deal Bash damage. It will not, however, inherit cost reduction bonuses to Bash.

In my opinion, from reading the developer comments you have missed the mark as Powerbash is inherently a CC ability not a spammable. You should have done to change for Low slash which has the potential to be decent ability but currently that skill is useless and moving the change to that skill would actually "significantly amp up the viability of Bash builds by giving them a true spammable"

Low slash is the aoe spammable of the snb skill line with power bash being the single target one, in terms of damage output and cost.

Powerbash is the base skill, powerslam is a morph like reverberating bash is. Same with low slash which base skill is single target and has 2 different morphs, one single target (heroic slash) and one aoe (deep slash)

Edit: of course no one uses the base skill but it makes sense to actually buff the ability (low slash) that is more suited for bash playstyle, powerslam is too clunky compared to low slash to weave bashes in between.

CP5

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Extinct_Solo_Player wrote: »

Power Bash: The damage from this ability and its morphs’ are now considered Bash damage and interrupts casting targets. This means the damage will increase with bonuses to Bash, as well as triggering events that require you to deal Bash damage. It will not, however, inherit cost reduction bonuses to Bash.

In my opinion, from reading the developer comments you have missed the mark as Powerbash is inherently a CC ability not a spammable. You should have done to change for Low slash which has the potential to be decent ability but currently that skill is useless and moving the change to that skill would actually "significantly amp up the viability of Bash builds by giving them a true spammable"

Low slash is the aoe spammable of the snb skill line with power bash being the single target one, in terms of damage output and cost.

Powerbash is the base skill, powerslam is a morph like reverberating bash is. Same with low slash which base skill is single target and has 2 different morphs, one single target (heroic slash) and one aoe (deep slash)

Edit: of course no one uses the base skill but it makes sense to actually buff the ability (low slash) that is more suited for bash playstyle, powerslam is too clunky compared to low slash to weave bashes in between.

Base ability and heroic slash fill a stronger utility role, and I've personally haven't found issue when trying to use a sword and shield on the occasional dps/tank setup.

CP5

Another thing, I understand balancing to meet spreadsheet standards, but the wardens single target burst heal both has to be aimed and pulls you adjacent to the target, both of which can make it more difficult to use and more dangerous to the user. Were those unique quirks taken into account when the burst heal morph was nerfed?

divnyi

Noble Duelist's Silks: This set now adds 2681 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Light and Heavy Attacks, rather than adding 1811 damage to these attacks.
Undaunted Infiltrator and Unweaver: These sets now add 2014 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Light and Heavy Attacks, rather adding 1685 damage to these attacks.

Why? PvP consensus that heavy attacks are OP as is, with this buff I would be able to melt everything and everyone on 35k armorcapped build.

Any changes to how lightning staff heavys work so those changes would be reasonable?

olsborg

Magplar bubble and corrosive, extremely op atm on live, and the only thing is magdk and magplar kinda got buffed, wtf is going on lol

Decimus

divnyi wrote: »

Noble Duelist's Silks: This set now adds 2681 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Light and Heavy Attacks, rather than adding 1811 damage to these attacks.
Undaunted Infiltrator and Unweaver: These sets now add 2014 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Light and Heavy Attacks, rather adding 1685 damage to these attacks.

Why? PvP consensus that heavy attacks are OP as is, with this buff I would be able to melt everything and everyone on 35k armorcapped build.

Any changes to how lightning staff heavys work so those changes would be reasonable?

It is not a buff to (lightning/resto) heavy attacks... those gain 4x1685 (6740) base tooltip damage on Live, this is equivalent to around 5,8k spell damage towards them.

MashmalloMan

Decimus wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

Noble Duelist's Silks: This set now adds 2681 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Light and Heavy Attacks, rather than adding 1811 damage to these attacks.
Undaunted Infiltrator and Unweaver: These sets now add 2014 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Light and Heavy Attacks, rather adding 1685 damage to these attacks.

Why? PvP consensus that heavy attacks are OP as is, with this buff I would be able to melt everything and everyone on 35k armorcapped build.

Any changes to how lightning staff heavys work so those changes would be reasonable?

It is not a buff to (lightning/resto) heavy attacks... those gain 4x1685 (6740) base tooltip damage on Live, this is equivalent to around 5,8k spell damage towards them.

Hard facts, sheesh, 5.8k.. sounds about right honestly.

katorga

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Decimus wrote: »

divnyi wrote: »

Noble Duelist's Silks: This set now adds 2681 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Light and Heavy Attacks, rather than adding 1811 damage to these attacks.
Undaunted Infiltrator and Unweaver: These sets now add 2014 Weapon and Spell Damage to your Light and Heavy Attacks, rather adding 1685 damage to these attacks.

Why? PvP consensus that heavy attacks are OP as is, with this buff I would be able to melt everything and everyone on 35k armorcapped build.

Any changes to how lightning staff heavys work so those changes would be reasonable?

It is not a buff to (lightning/resto) heavy attacks... those gain 4x1685 (6740) base tooltip damage on Live, this is equivalent to around 5,8k spell damage towards them.

Hard facts, sheesh, 5.8k.. sounds about right honestly.

So unweaver/infiltrator net me 5.48K spell damage on my build assuming major/minor sorcery and my usual load out of medium armor and sorc/fighters guild abilities. Pretty close.

TechMaybeHic

Firstmep wrote: »

Please consider something else for biting jabs.

10 seconds for one of the most important buffs in the game.

Also this is not a buff skill, its a spammable ability.

It also makes no sense as you still probably are going to need Rally because templar has no stam heals. Go figure. But you can keep major Savagery by using that sun fire Stamplar love to use so much. Lol

MashmalloMan

Love the changes, but was hoping for more morph updates, the ones I've read all look very solid.

For example, give skills that the only choice is Mag vs Stam more unique differences like Siphoning Strike morphs or Dark Deal morphs, like you've done with Templars Rune Focus having more healing vs more duration.

Maybe change Jabs morphs to include Major Brutality/Sorcery at base, then give something more unique for Stamplar. Stamplars as it stands just seem like weaker, less interesting versions of Magplars. There is nothing a Magplar gains from the stamina side with these changes, but Stamplars are basically going to be Magplar lite going forward.

Classes like Sorc have a lot of interesting choices now. The skills feel very different, sometimes completely different animations and function. Curse, Bound Armaments, Crystal Weapon, Crystal Shards, Fury, etc.

I just want to repeat something someone else said here, please make Crstal Frag instant proc from any ability instead of just Magicka. It would help mag and stam sorcs equally. Health cost abilities would work too idealy like Blood for Blood. Maybe lower the % chance to 30-25% for the adjustment.

Lortie

As someone that's played Stam-Sorc religiously for a long time, I'm very much against the PTS duration extension on hurricane.

To start, extending the duration disrupts the fluidity of Stam-sorc's buffs. To give you an example: hurricane is 15 seconds, while quick-cloak is 14 seconds and crit-surge is 33 seconds, so two hurricane and cloak durations will fit perfectly in one surge duration. A 20 second hurricane throws this out the window, causing over-buffing on hurricane and a net damage loss because of how hurricane scales it's damage in practice.

But extending the duration to put it "more in line with other armor buffs" is not only bad for gameplay functionality, damage scaling, but also detracts from class-Identity.

If you want to buff hurricane some other way, make it increase in damage stages faster (at its base duration), or increase its base damage, rather then just broad-strokes increasing the duration so it fits nicer in a spreadsheet.

Foxtrot39

Regarding nightblade there are some skill that REALLY need to be reworked as they have NO USE in either PVP or PVE because simply put : they put nothing on the table that justify the skill slot

Aspect of terror : fear 3 enemies and does nothing else, its also the only CC skill I am aware off with a target hard cap when no other CC skill have to suffer from this

Mass hysteria : the morph only double the number of targets you can fear (up to 6 max) still less than other CC that don't even have a target limit

Manifestation of terror : just turn it into a trap you place at your feet and where you aim, even in PVP where it can have some use its not worth it

The problem with this skill :all it does is CC, no buff or debuff, no synergy just nothing. The skill isn't worth sloting even for the passives

Repel evil as example has no limit on feared target and grants you 2 minor buff (vigor+protection) for 20s in the created zone that is only 1 m short of Aspect of terror's range

Consuming darkness, a skill supposedly aimed at healing others (via synergy) and protecting anyone inside the area

That skill is dead in the water ever since major protection's damage reduction got gutted to 10% wich is what made or break that skill entirely

Getting major portection for 20s is all the caster can get from it wich is laughable for the ultimate cost

Bolstering darkness allow you to keep the buff after leaving the area for the remaining time it has, if it was not only major protection but also some other buff it would be worth something

Veil of blade adds magic damage, considering this is skill meant for tanks the damage is nothing spectacular and DD can't really use it because they'll need to taunt/pull enemies to keep them inside which isn't their jobs

Beside they already got way better option for AOE damage focused ultimate

universal_wrath

Despite all feedback from players, zos still able to remarkably disappoint players by avoid all pain points.

All classes needed help with identity and rework of less use skills, instead, zos buffs/nerfs already most used skills even if some of these adjusents are umwaranted.

Class skills are still being over shadowed by weapon skills with by support or damage or even healing, lol.

After this rant, I believe the duratiin buff of storm f9rm us nice especially for hurricane, but I swipe for hurricane damage buff/radius any time of the day over duration. Since zos is heading toward hyberdization of classes, crystal fragmwenr should proc on any ability use instead of on magicka. Lightning splash and its morphs are lackluster incomparison to other classes dots, synrgy should be an extra and not a main point to the skill since it can not be activated by user unlike boneyard.
Overlaod, storm atronach, clanfear and tormenting twlighting as well as armament should be reworked.

I'm happy the the game no longer interest me much after 6 years of painful and desperate hopes shattared, I still play the mains quests though, so plz atleast make it feel least not boring..

MashmalloMan

Lortie wrote: »

As someone that's played Stam-Sorc religiously for a long time, I'm very much against the PTS duration extension on hurricane.

To start, extending the duration disrupts the fluidity of Stam-sorc's buffs. To give you an example: hurricane is 15 seconds, while quick-cloak is 14 seconds and crit-surge is 33 seconds, so two hurricane and cloak durations will fit perfectly in one surge duration. A 20 second hurricane throws this out the window, causing over-buffing on hurricane and a net damage loss because of how hurricane scales it's damage in practice.

But extending the duration to put it "more in line with other armor buffs" is not only bad for gameplay functionality, damage scaling, but also detracts from class-Identity.

If you want to buff hurricane some other way, make it increase in damage stages faster (at its base duration), or increase its base damage, rather then just broad-strokes increasing the duration so it fits nicer in a spreadsheet.

Gonna have to dissagree, it's a net buff on almost all accounts, except for the very specific scenario you describe.. which, trust me.. I know because I literally use the exact same combo for pve/pvp and have been for years. I would take Quick Cloak over Deadly Cloak in pve just for a 15s rotation on back bar, along with Anti Calvary Caltrops for an easier rotation and more time on front bar.

However, I'd rather not squander what is a buff only because I don't want to relearn the muscle memory I've gained over the past few years.

Plus, our specific scenario is just as valid as people who have been using Deadly Clock (10s), Arrow Barrage (10s), Stampede (10s), Rally (20s)... any single target dot in the game (10s). Or how about Bound Armaments (40s). 20s makes way more sense than it did for 15s, especially since thats the standard for Armor buffs.

This actually highlights why Crit Surge is the outlier here. I hope they update it to 40s one day to match Bound Aramaments and NB's Merciless Resolve. Then they can change Power Surge to proc every 2 seconds instead of every 3 seconds since that morph sucks donkey.

etchedpixels

Disappointing that it's still "play as you wish providing you put 64 in magicka or stamina".

The scaling ought to consider the sum of magicka/stamina driven damage (so health effectively is the counterbalance to damage).

MashmalloMan

etchedpixels wrote: »

Disappointing that it's still "play as you wish providing you put 64 in magicka or stamina".

The scaling ought to consider the sum of magicka/stamina driven damage (so health effectively is the counterbalance to damage).

It feels like they're going in the direction of resources only being useful for sustain/healing/shields.. but that would probably come with combining damage into 1 value.

I think people need to take a step back and look how far things have come. Hybrids were not nearly as powerful only a year ago, let alone 4-5 years ago. It's a work in progress.

Really look at how much of a difference 32 stamina is anyway in terms of damage. Thats like 4k after modifiers, equivilant to 390 damage. At the scale we're at with 6-8k damage and all the changes being made to hybridize things, I highly doubt that small difference is enough to destroy a build. It's the same premise behind using an "optimal race", the value difference between a best in slot race vs a non 1 is like 5% and that only takes into account DPS, not sustain which for some area's of the game, means more DPS.

Susurrus

I am really a one character guy. Magsorc since the beginning. But I have to say, I am loving playing around with hurricane and bound armaments. Having two proc spells in my rotation (c-frags) is really fun.

So thanks! Early testing is promising for an enjoyable update.