Regarding changes to "Blood Frenzy" -an Op-ed

Neglekt · February 2022

Vampire
Blood Frenzy:

This ability and its morphs now grant a stack of up to 30 Weapon and Spell Damage rather than 600 upfront, up to a maximum of 10 stacks.

Decreased the tick frequency to 2 seconds, down from 1 (haha inverse math!) so the ability drains Health slower.

The health cost now increases by 250 Health per stack, rather than 20% of the cost of the skill with no cap.

Reduced the initial cost to 700, down from 1980.
Simmering Frenzy (morph): This morph now increases the Weapon and Spell Damage granted to a maximum of 40 per stack, rather than adding 66 Weapon and Spell Damage each second the ability is toggled on with no cap.

Sated Frenzy (morph): This morph now also reduces the ramping cost of the ability to 200 per stack, down from 250.

Developer Comment:
This ability and its morphs are currently enabling incredibly polarizing gameplay; it feeds into an intense risk/reward mechanic that can often be mitigated heavily by specialized classes and builds that stack life steal, paired with deep knowledge of content and combat interactions. In its current form, it feels too penalizing for the base Vampire experience to engage with in a satisfying way while also enabling an overwhelming amount of power for those who know how to use it properly. This iteration now significantly reduces both the penalty and the bonus of the effect to make it more accessible and balanced overall, helping it feel more like a Damage over Time alternative where an ability can be active for prolonged periods of time with slightly more risk/reward than usual.

Patch Notes v7-3-2

The change to Blood Frenzy is concerning. Not just because it's a skill many enjoy using, but because the justification for changing it completely overlooks the applicability of the skill as a solution to dynamic difficulty scaling in multiplayer content. I can accept the need to fine-tune an over-performing skill, but reducing one of the most intriguing mechanics in the entire game to a "Damage of Time alternative" because it "feeds into an intense high risk/reward" play style is genuinely sad.

For the uninitiated, Simmering Frenzy (aka "toggle") is a skill that is predominantly leveraged by veteran players to add risk and reward to content they have previously mastered. It is a staple of PvE speed run attempts [ 2, 3, 4 ], PvP bombing [ 6 ], and DPS parsing [ 5 ]. On a fundamental level, the skill grants players the agency to dynamically increase the difficulty and pacing of the game independently of the players around them. In the context of multiplayer PvE this is a great idea, it enhances replayability. When a player needs to complete content that is trivial to them (eg; helping a friend, farming a lead, etc...), they can try to complete that content faster in exchange for a debuff that makes their > 1000 CP character killable. There is nothing wrong with high risk high reward play styles in multiplayer games. It's low risk high reward play styles (eg; sniping) that can become problematic.

While the accessibility of Vampire identity is worth improving (the conversion metrics for paying to become one almost certainly skew towards lower leveled players, after all), it is short sighted to effectively remove a mechanic from the game that enables unique play styles across every game mode for this purpose. Here's a thought; what if the skill's two morphs supported different play styles rather than being the same skill with slightly different tool tip values? Keeping the Simmering Frenzy morph as it is (or at least 66 power/s) and updating Stated Frenzy with the accessibility changes makes far more sense from every conceivable design perspective.

Consider the math:

PTS version of SF takes 30 seconds to ramp up to where SF starts at on live. 600 power = (20 power/s) * 30s
PTS version of SF at 30s = 4450 hp/2s = 2225 hp/s
The HP of dungeon bosses appears to range from = 300k to 5m
The DPS requirement for vet trial rosters in the guilds I'm in is ~70k
300k / (2 * 70k) DPS = 4.29s to kill boss if tank and healer do 0 DPS
5m / (2 * 70k) DPS = 35.71s

It seems apparent (at least to me) that the base damage given up to offset the health cost of (this new) toggle in any build will always be higher then the DPS gained from having it active.

TL;DR: There is nothing wrong with high risk high reward play styles. This change completely guts a game mechanic that is crucial to several play styles (PvP bombing, speed running, 'high risk yolo solo'). Further, its removal has a net negative impact on the replay value of PvE content. Why not keep Simmering frenzy as is and apply the proposed changes to Stated Fury?

References
1. PTS Patch Notes v7.3.2 - ZOS_GinaBruno, 2022
2. "ESO - [Unchained Animals] vHRC World Record 163.517 Score - Full Run - Magcro - Flames of Ambition" - AEOGU, 2021
3. "Bursting Lokkestiz In 10 Seconds! (PC/EU Insanity)" - Just A Red Sofa, 2022
4. "ESO Vateshran Hollows WORLD RECORD (Former) || Waking Flame - PC on Magicka Templar!" - Just A Red Sofa, 2021
5. Iron Atronach DPS Leaderboard (update 32) - esologs.com, 2022
6. "The Ranged Zergbuster - ESO MagBlade PvP Bombing" - MalcolM, 2021
7. "Counter Play - Making Multiplayer Fun for the Opponent" - Extra Credits, 2012

ZiggyTStardust · February 2022

Their justification was very strange indeed.
I do think that bloodfrenzy was a bit too strong on certain classes like magplar, who don't really lose out on anyhting by running it since their main spammable heals them already. In fights with not random non one shot damage from adds or the boss mechanics (and a tank taunting everything) there wasn't alot of risk in actually using toggle