Update 35 Combat Preview

Tornaad

I love the idea of making it easier for new players to get started, and I even love the idea of making it easier for new players to reduce the gap between them and veteran players. My question is, why does that have to involve reducing the DPS of the veteran players?
With my play style, I will likely only be helped by this change, I still have to wonder, is power creep all that bad?
Could we reduce the gap simply by expanding the timers instead of nerfing things?

JoSePHRiNG

I can't say many things about "LA weaving" or high-end gameplay since I usually play solo.
But I really liked the change they are increasing the duration of the skills. Mainly the duration of buff/debuff skills.

Since most of the buff/debuff skills are used for the buff and debuffs themselves not for their secondary effect for example; "Volatile Armor" and "Boundless Storm". The damage from these skills is often neglected anyway.
Or skills that buff like Molten Armament. The more the duration the better.

So if we could have much higher uptime on these skills, I think we as players would have a much easier time using them, due to casting them also cost Magicka or Stamina too.

Now about the AOE skills that only deal damage(Endless Hail, Stampede, etc.), I don't mind having higher uptime due to the aforementioned reasons; they cost Magicka and Stamina too.

The less I use these skills, the less I will be out of Magicka or Stamina.

Belegnole

I don't see how this is going to improve anything. It's only going to change things. In fact from the number crunching I've been seeing the gap between new players and the top players will only increase.

Jaraal

lopacaESO wrote: »

I've helped tons of new players over the years...here are some common new player mistakes i've seen:
-Not using any food
-Not using potions
-Not putting glyphs on their gear (like weapon/spell damage)
-Wearing heavy armor as a dps, because it's the only one with passives (why do we still need to equip 3 pieces of the same armor to see the passives? is that noob friendly?)
-They don't know they can have 2 weapon bars.
-Having a messy bar, with skills they don't need...end up spamming the same skill over and over anyway
-Not wearing complete sets (a bunch of different set pieces that don't complete each other)
-Not knowing that if you upgrade your weapons, you increase your damage (cp500 still using purple weapons...)

Don't forget playing in first person.

How can you teach a person to not stand in red if they can't even see it? Yet nowhere in the tutorial does ZOS say, "You can zoom out to get a better view of the dangers around you and see where your teammates are, etc."

I've been in plenty of dungeons where players are habitually standing in red. I usually whisper them, "Are you playing in first person?" And the answer is usually yes. I tell them, "Scroll your mouse wheel back." You'd be surprised how many times I've heard, "OMG.... I had no idea!"

Tornaad

Belegnole wrote: »

I don't see how this is going to improve anything. It's only going to change things. In fact from the number crunching I've been seeing the gap between new players and the top players will only increase.

If I am understanding things correctly, then one thing it can do is to simplify things for players.
Currently with both light attacks and abilities having a 1 second cool down, that would mean that you can stagger each by a half second and if you put a dot on each skill slot (giving you ten separate dots) then with a 10 second timer on most dots, that would mean, you would be hitting a button every half second (alternating between light attacks and skills) which is a lot to ask. However, by simply lengthening the timers, that can up the total damage output of players, without having to put as much effort into mastering weaving.

Magio_

Zuboko wrote: »

Belegnole wrote: »

I don't see how this is going to improve anything. It's only going to change things. In fact from the number crunching I've been seeing the gap between new players and the top players will only increase.

If I am understanding things correctly, then one thing it can do is to simplify things for players.
Currently with both light attacks and abilities having a 1 second cool down, that would mean that you can stagger each by a half second and if you put a dot on each skill slot (giving you ten separate dots) then with a 10 second timer on most dots, that would mean, you would be hitting a button every half second (alternating between light attacks and skills) which is a lot to ask. However, by simply lengthening the timers, that can up the total damage output of players, without having to put as much effort into mastering weaving.

Nope. It's still the same number of inputs. You will just click your spammable twice as much instead of refreshing DoTs. Completely a PvE change that won't see much difference other than making rotations more boring for players that were good at them. The PvP ramifications could be way bigger depending on the HoT change.

P.S. It's not a lot to ask. 120 APM is on the low end for games. It's so low in fact, many of these low APM casuals in PvP want to get jumping nerfed because they see High APM players doing it. High APM players spam jump because it's something to do to artificially increase your APM and feel like you're doing something.

Sparxlost

buff torugs pact please and change the 4 piece bonuses
enchantments have shorter or no cooldown and all damage enchantments except oblivion have their potency increased by a lot???

VaranisArano

Remathilis wrote: »

Everyone's so worried about "mah DPS" they aren't seeing the hidden benefit: less server lag.

A perfectly timed static rotation sends a large amount of variable packets at the server. Each LA/HA is individually calculated and sent, often along with the skill that is masking the animation. Additionally, each hot/dot press is another packet sent. This should reduce server strain as well

LA/HA static numbers should reduce calculation routines. Hots/dots lasting longer should reduce reapply spam. Less reliance on perfect weaving and constant bar swapping should also reduce packet flood lag. I would not be surprised if the servers handle better with these changes.

Nobody who already weaves perfectly with their rotation is going to stop doing so. Nobody is going to stand around for a couple seconds not casting a skill - what skills they cast may change but not that they are casting a skill each second.

If this makes a noticeable difference for performance nonetheless, I'm going to chalk it up to the same "Well, that was an interesting design choice" feeling I get whenever ZOS explains how the server handled their old CP checks...

SimonThesis

Nerfing everyone just makes end game PVE content even more restrictive, only the top of the top will be chosen to do content.

Zos would lower the distance between the ceiling and floor a lot more by just adding a weaving tutorial and an optional global cooldown bar in settings.

Guilds rn are the only way new players learn combat in this game, especially weaving and meta builds etc. Zos needs better tutorials for every aspect of the game and they need to continue pushing newer players to join guilds.

Zos needs to start catering to their endgame community or they'll find there arent any new players left to churn through.

Chufu

As a player who was never really good with the light attack "weaving", I appreciate that ZOS is finally making changes to this combat system.

It's currently just frustrating so see such a huge gap in the raid between good players and players like me. And I wouldn't consider myself as bad player, it's just that my weaving is worse than the good ones and it results in such a huge dps loss. In addition to that I always felt that it doesn't matter if you're a casual player or a 24/7 ESO player, because improving at the raid puppet is possible yes, but only to a specific point.

I'm just happy when light attack weaving is not anymore the non-plus-ultra because without perfectly doing it, the damage is just frustrating.

washbern

@Chufu you do realize that weaving is not going away, just the numbers are getting lower. So the disparity between you and the top players will remain as it was, just the total damage numbers will be lower. Lowering the damage of the ability does not make it easier to use said ability.

ManDraKE

Remathilis wrote: »

Everyone's so worried about "mah DPS" they aren't seeing the hidden benefit: less server lag.
s.

LOL, how LA doing less damage equals less server lag? It's the same amount of computations

devildeath1988b16_ESO

Chufu wrote: »

As a player who was never really good with the light attack "weaving", I appreciate that ZOS is finally making changes to this combat system.

It's currently just frustrating so see such a huge gap in the raid between good players and players like me. And I wouldn't consider myself as bad player, it's just that my weaving is worse than the good ones and it results in such a huge dps loss. In addition to that I always felt that it doesn't matter if you're a casual player or a 24/7 ESO player, because improving at the raid puppet is possible yes, but only to a specific point.

I'm just happy when light attack weaving is not anymore the non-plus-ultra because without perfectly doing it, the damage is just frustrating.

I think you are missing a huge part here. The difference between a high DPS player and lower DPS players isn't just that they weave near perfect. There are sooooo much more things that are equally if not more important here:

- not dying to mechs
- casting skills on cooldown
- using potions on cooldown
- doing proper resource management
- blocking/dodging
- ...

...just to name a few.

With the proposed changes, the difference you see today will not decrease by much. The players that min/max their DPS are mostly also the ones who can master the other things much better. And they would adapt to those changes very quickly.
Wasn't there another post earlier in this thread with a parse of over 100k DPS without a single light attack? With that kind of damage, you can actually be part of trifecta runs! Imagine...

If you read through EVERY POST HERE, you can ONLY COME TO THE CONCLUSION that proper TUTORIALS are the way to go. Prepare players for what's to come, so they have a fair chance.

Until then, you need to work on all those things to actually play that content on vet. Youtube and the like can help, it's all out there. Weaving is just a small portion of the entire equation.

devildeath1988b16_ESO

Just to give this another point of view:

If the onboarding process in a company is not streamlined and taken good care off, you'll end up with an unorganized bunch of people that don't know what to work on. They need a direction and a lead to guide them Zenimax

Lekjih

When a team I was on wanted to do vAS+2, they went into vSO to do the hard mode and learn about the bacon from Felms, as Worldshaper is similar and unforgiving. They struggled with being stacked and then moving, to the point that the raid lead, wanting to just be done, suggested changing strats and having everyone ranged around the pad, because that way only one or two people would die, and not six. I said no, make them learn it, otherwise how while they do vAS+2. We made them finish it properly that night, and they cleared vAS and understood getting out of bacon.

The point of me saying this is that the answer to new players being bad at dps is to make them learn how to be good at it, not making good players worse. There are a number of dps checks in this game where LA weaving makes the difference. First boss in Rockgrove HM, for example. Healing checks are going to be interesting too. Also, those Argonian bow spammers in heavy armour will be kicked from dungeons much more, as we will know those light attacks do absolutely nothing. Getting constantly kicked from content is not going to endear new players to the game (people already complain about it in the Facebook groups). Instead of punishing good players, put in a better combat tutorial (add a bit to the dancing partner on Balfiera) explaining light attack weaving, so that they actually cannot get into the game proper without understanding it.

I know some people with wrist issues can't weave well, but realistically this just lowers their dps further. Given how many areas are actually very difficult to navigate for someone with visual problems (mine is a central blindspot in the right eye), I'm not sure that this holds water as an accessibility update (I'll add that a lot of places are very beautiful, I just can't see the door or something similar, not having a go at the environment designers). In terms of being overwhelmed or similar, Cloudrest has a lot going on, all the time. Practice makes it easier (also, "getting invested in the fighting" would involve a lot of checking out a slug-toad's butt, I think I prefer my buff bar 😅😂).

danno8

Tannus15 wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

Who is this for?
Really, I don't understand who this is meant to benefit.

As far as I can see this is a straight up nerf to dps which will affect everyone, it's not going to "bring up the floor" or any of that, it's just a nerf.

The early/mid game player who wants a slower rotation, with less APM, and who wants to not be punished so much for missing LAs, (and not have as stark a dps difference with the higher players) is my guess as to who ZOS gears this towards, but it's a wrong way to go about increasing the floor. Plus, it will hurt those players who only do overland and do it by LA/HA attacking, and also the top end-gamers who go for scores, titles, and speedruns. The correct way to raise the floor is to teach core combat concepts and mechanics to players early on in their playthrough (this is all assuming that casual players *want* to improve, which is a big assumption, because ZOS has spoiled the players with their 'play-as-you-want' philosophy and made them entitled to want rewards while in low effort/RP builds). There was a good comment above saying how they dedicated a 10-minute tutorial to teaching the card game, while LA weaving is only mentioned in a 5 sec loading screen. Also, separating PvP from PvE, so changes that benefit one mode don't inadvertently harm the other would go a long way as well, healing is a good example, and something that will be negatively impacted for PvE, while it's needed for PvP.

this
THIS
TEACH PEOPLE HOW TO PLAY THE GAME

You want to increase the "new player experience"
Put damage enchants on damage set BY DEFAULT.
The default gear setup in this game is terrible for DPS.

Robust / Arcane with stam / mag regen is literally the worst.

How can it be that the correct answer to being having terrible setups and builds is to make the stats not matter anymore

You What?!?!?

The problem is that you made the game punish you for NOT stacking everything into one attribute. That's a problem. Anyone that ISN'T a tank putting stats in health is doing it wrong.
Anyone who puts stats into mag AND stam is doing it wrong.
This is a GAME PROBLEM.
This will not be fixed by tweaking light attack numbers. It won't! You guys have designed a system that works a particular way and then FORGOT TO TELL PEOPLE HOW IT WORKS and wonder why they don't do right.

What, the one loading screen that mentions LA weaving isn't enough training for you?

FrankonPC

Remathilis wrote: »

Everyone's so worried about "mah DPS" they aren't seeing the hidden benefit: less server lag.

A perfectly timed static rotation sends a large amount of variable packets at the server. Each LA/HA is individually calculated and sent, often along with the skill that is masking the animation. Additionally, each hot/dot press is another packet sent. This should reduce server strain as well

LA/HA static numbers should reduce calculation routines. Hots/dots lasting longer should reduce reapply spam. Less reliance on perfect weaving and constant bar swapping should also reduce packet flood lag. I would not be surprised if the servers handle better with these changes.

We already had the cooldown tests to prove this is not true

tomfant

Top DPS might not change by much. LA will do less damage. But due to longer DoT timers, there is more space in the rotation for spammables that usually hit quite hard. This can make up for the loss from LA.

Casual LMB spammers that only use abilities every now and then, if at all, will loose dmg. So, the DPS gap between them and the perfect weavers will even become bigger.

OnGodiDoDis

Sometimes I wonder if you actually play the game, or if you just listen to whiny people complaining about how they can't 1-shot a tank with their heavy attack build. How does this weaving change reward the veteran community that has spent years mastering the game's mechanics? What is the incentive of playing longterm and having more experience than a new player? As a veteran player that has spent years learning how the game works, I should have an advantage over someone that has been playing for one month and doesn't take the time to hone their skills. They know about light attacks, bashing, blocking, rolling, etc. Put it in the tutorial. Teach them that animation canceling is a core function of the game, and that if they want to be a high-end player, they're going to have to master these things. It's become apparent that money is more important to you than what the community that made you such a successful studio thinks. You constantly cater to the new players, and you want them to be en par with someone that has been playing for seven years. Instead of holding their hand, why don't you teach them how to become good? Make a pvp tutorial for them. Teach them that Battle Spirit affects their skills, and that pvp and pve are two different worlds. You could have spent all this time and money on figuring out how to help struggling classes. Warden is an absolute garbage offensive class, and we haven't gotten any attention while you constantly make other classes better. We don't have a good burst heal, and we don't have an offensive stun like all the other classes in the game. You took the stun from our permafrost ultimate because it was "too op", while you have skills like Nova, Soul Tether, and Leap than deal insane amounts of instant damage with an aoe stun. Stop trying to fix what no one is even complaining about and start addressing what the community has been asking for years: to make all classes good. I'm out.

Araxyte

Surely this will harm the lower end players instead of help them? Most lower end players spam light and heavy attacks. At least do a poll on this kind of stuff before forcing your awful ideas upon us. Bring on Ashes of Creation tbh

Avishag

Draxys wrote: »

Please stop being “nanny” devs. No matter how much you try to give a leg up to most of the players near the “damage floor”, you will almost certainly do hardly anything to help them along, while hurting the experience of competent players. Notice I said “competent”, not “high skill”. It does not take much to be competent at this game, and to gather the knowledge necessary to complete most content. The players near the bottom of the barrel have done nothing to become one of those competent players, so why in the world would you shake up and dumb the game down for the rest of the player base? The low skill players won’t even notice the changes and will remain low skill, but competent players sure as hell will notice, and it sounds like it won’t be fun or engaging.

Edit- I would include many disabled players in the competent category. You can have a disability but learn to do what you can in the game to be effective. The bottom of the barrel players I referenced are people who are perfectly capable of being better, but don’t know how, don’t want to be better, or don’t know any better. And those are problems that require solutions OTHER than trying to raise the skill floor via mechanics.

Wow, this thread brings about, alot of society's disrespect for different capabilities. I respect high end players, they are my role models - but it's just shocking how it's normal to talk about ppl with a different playstyle, as not "capable" (= not worthy) human beings.
Sometimes it's more than just gameplay discussion here, it's more of a mirror of people unwillingness to accept or like, respect anyone who isn't "the best" ..

lunaslide

Ironically, these proposed changes don't provide relief to someone with arthritis or CTS like me at all, or relieve the burden of people who suffer high ping just due to unfortunate geography or internet access options. There is no change to weaving at all mentioned here, just a change in the scaling of the damage from light and heavy attacks. Players trying to optimize PvE boss damage are still going to light attack weave because there isn't much else to do in that one second GCD and they will still want that ~10% extra damage. And since they will also make heavy attack damage flat as well, even heavy attack builds like the ones I try to use will suffer. Furthermore, dots lasting longer means you don't have to recast them as often, which means practiced players will simply hit their spammable more often between light attacks, requiring pretty much the exact same APM as before. And of course, burst damage in PvP will suffer badly because there is less damage available in a given GCD and the dots don't provide as much moment to moment pressure. The Real Godzilla does and excellent job explaining in detail in his video response.

What you should do if you want to raise accessibility for me and others without oversimplifying the game or making it boring for people who like high APM play is make some skills and sets that require more thought and timing into skill combinations that lowers the required APM but still does the same overall amount of damage in content. Give those of us who want or need lower APM gameplay an incentive to NOT hit light attack or heavy attack within GCD by providing a great amount of damage for doing so that is on par with someone doing light attack weaving such as we have now. Make it a choice that has the same overall damage output but provides two different ways to achieve it.

Examples already exist in the game for "combo" moves like this, like only casting frags when the proc condition is triggered, or doing two light attacks to activate Molag Kena, or Crystal weapon. But instead of a quick 1-2 action requiring high APM, have some of them be more effective by waiting or skipping the LA/HA in between. These combos must reward patience and timing rather than quicker reflexes, and still produce the same result to be desirable choices. There must still be challenge in using them for the satisfaction of mastery to exist. Those who still prefer the exhilaration of high APM gameplay will not feel like they are missing out because they can continue to do the same damage and can still gain the sense of achievement they have from mastery over their weaving ability.

Many tools are already in game to do stuff like this, but unless using these options will parse for equivalent overall damage in PvE or burst for a comparable amount in PvP, people avoid them as they are less effective.

So...make them more effective! If I can press buttons half as often (and save my wrists the pain), but I have to be careful about the order and timing in which I use those skills to combo big damage output, I would be delighted because it would make me more effective to my team and simultaneously help me play in greater comfort while still being a challenge that is satisfying to overcome.

In this way, they provide multiple avenues to achieving the same outcome that gives players choices that fit their play style and personal needs, without ruining the fun of those who enjoy the game as it is.

The people who are saying the game does not teach you how to achieve better gameplay are spot on, it was some number of months before anyone explained weaving to me and pointed me to tutorials outside of game. Once I started to practice this, I got better, but my carpal tunnel would cause my wrists to ache by the end of a parse. I simply can't physically play that way without pain. But I'm excellent at staying alive in mechanics, crowd controlling with my tanks, getting people rezzed up during fights, providing synergistic abilities to help others do more damage, keeping teammates up as a healer, etc.. Still, on a damage dealer, instead of feeling valuable to the team, I know I'm not doing the same damage as they are. Give me a way to do that through creativity in deploying skills in a timely, strategic fashion that allows me to play without pain, and you won't have to ruin gameplay for the vast majority of players who prefer the fast, active gameplay unique to ESO.

Borelock762

Magio_ wrote: »

Borelock762 wrote: »

Good. Should level the playing field. All these *** running perfectly scripted macros with ani cancel might actually have to learn to play. Ive seen several streamers run a block cancels, and other ani cancels on everyone of their macros. I get hit with some questionable trash i usually whisper them and the response is one of two always.... i use a controller or they link their twitch lol. With the servers being better its even easier to see now. Aside from the desync that constantly happens cyro is almost playable.

These are the people ZOS is catering to lol. Imagine believing the game needs a macro to weave light attacks with the massive leeway the game offers with the skill queue system.

"I lost, must be macros/cheats/hacks" is such a bad mindset to have and why people don't improve.

No need to whisper anyone. Just look at Combat Metrics. The tools are available for you to use and learn. Or if you whisper, ask for guidance nicely. Many people are willing to help. The problem is, and I say this from personal experience, the typical whispers from players with this mindset are always in bad faith and accusatory. e.g. "Nice hacks you got there.", "Reported", etc. It's difficult to want to help someone like that? And even when you try to respond they blocked you before sending the Whisper in the first place lol.

if you dont think people are running crazy macros you probably thought ce was a myth too that nobody used. The game has more holes and exploits than i have ever seen in a game. If it wasn't for the stupid naming and shaming i could link several video's of suspect from players. Ive played since launch and witnessed every tragedy to come along. I can manual cancel with the best of them. I don't complain because i loose...i easily go 100 kills to 5 deaths or less in an hour or two. I complain because i love the game and it is abused and exploited beyond belief. Every patch brings new chees and garbage. Now that the servers are better the b/s is even easier to see.

ShadowProc

Magio_ wrote: »

Remathilis wrote: »

Everyone's so worried about "mah DPS" they aren't seeing the hidden benefit: less server lag.

They're not removing it though. People can and will still weave and still do better than other people. Envious people are just happy better players that mastered weaving are getting nerfed even while they themselves will get nerfed, just not by as much.

Guess what? High-end players will still clear all content and the people making fun of them in these thread still won't. The only people that get hurt are the silent players in the middle that were getting close to clearing content and will see their damage nerfed.

And that my friend is called a excessive ego. You are proving his point. They are not removing it. They are lowering it. And hence all ego’s going “omg mah dps”.

I doubt many if any at all are envious of a game pushing buttons. Lol

VaranisArano

ShadowProc wrote: »

Magio_ wrote: »

Remathilis wrote: »

Everyone's so worried about "mah DPS" they aren't seeing the hidden benefit: less server lag.

They're not removing it though. People can and will still weave and still do better than other people. Envious people are just happy better players that mastered weaving are getting nerfed even while they themselves will get nerfed, just not by as much.

Guess what? High-end players will still clear all content and the people making fun of them in these thread still won't. The only people that get hurt are the silent players in the middle that were getting close to clearing content and will see their damage nerfed.

And that my friend is called a excessive ego. You are proving I’m his point. They are not removing it. They are lowering it. And hence all ego’s going “omg mah dps”.

I doubt many if any at all are envious of a game pushing buttons. Lol

There is a certain annoyance to being told "You are a skilled player for doing this mechanic. Please keep doing this exact same mechanic with the exact same skill level, only we're lowering your DPS to a flat amount."

In a sense "omg mah dps" is also a reaction to seeing their skill devalued.

Keep in mind that ZOS has been steadily building up the damage value of light attack weaving since Summerset with the scaling changes and introduction of Relequen for Stam DDs. Players who were skilled at weaving were directly rewards for that skill with higher damage. Now, there's a flat cap on light attack damage, but skilled players have to work just as hard to reach that smaller cap.

I don't think all the backlash is excessive ego and blindly chasing big numbers. It's really quite a normal reaction to be disgruntled over putting in the same effort only to get less reward...and that's not even getting into the criticisms that this isn't going to raise the floor like ZOS hopes.

Iselin

I am not a top tier player. I am a 72 year old middling player who has played this game long enough to have a solid rotation with LA weaving most of the time although I'm a klutz when it comes to canceling skill animations with blocks, bashes and bar swaps.

I can dominate and carry others in normal dungeons, can handle vet dungeons and never do trials although I could with a tolerant group.

This overall DPS nerf to LAs, HAs and DOT DPS does absolutely nothing for me because no matter what inclusive rationale and language they use to sell this change, it is, in fact, nothing but an overall DPS nerf.

We could discuss whether or not an overall DPS nerf is needed or warranted and I would even tend to agree that it is needed for most simple overland content.

But make no mistake, I will be nerfed just like everyone else because this really is not about bringing up the floor - that's just the sales job - this is a plain and simple across the board DPS nerf.

Anyone who can't play the game at the highest levels because of newness, age and/or disabilities should actually be angry at the disrespect being shown by using us as the excuse for a wholesale DPS nerf that will affect us too.

DrSlaughtr

Just release an option for players to disable light and heavy attacks. In return you get a flat damage buff and extra recovery. At this point it would be better than making vet players feel like they wasted a whole lot of time and money getting to where they are in the game.

Wild_child434

Had to get my Forum account made for the first time after 8 years just for this update.

So let me get this straight, you want to give players who don’t practice the ability to do endgame level dps, but then also take people who do practice and nerf them to the same level?
Let me tell you why this isn't going to help new players, I have seen countless people over the past 8 years who just do not want to put in the work. They don't want help they want it handed to them.

You can nerf LAs and extend DoTs but that is not going to help the average casual player that only heavy attacks and throws a few skills out, this is only in place to make them feel better by forcibly lowering the gap that endgame works so hard to achieve by putting literal hours into perfecting the craft that you laid out for us.

Also I went through many of my own CMX reports from Mag Necromancer and Mag Sorc (ele weapon) and hitting over 100K LAs are from 8%=12% of my overall damage at max so the 15-20% stated by you just is not true for any PVE setting.

If you are changing the combat system, are you changing the content itself to match?

DarkzReapz

Let me start by saying I made a forum account just to post this. I don’t typically have much to say about this game because at the end of the day you are going to do what you want to do. I have been playing this game since 2015 and I play on Xbox and PC. This is not a good change and will alter how we play ESO currently.

These kinds of sweeping changes are not welcome. The DOT or direct damage meta you cause with this change will take months or even up to a year to bring back out. Currently I think PvE damage is very high, so missing 15%-20% of damage due to not light attacking is perfectly fine and I believe most new players can still do great damage even if they didn’t light attack at all. PvP I think light attacking is more important, but that is why PvP players have practiced for years to do this well. Why not add a tutorial on global cool downs and light attack weaving instead?

On the point that we spend too much of the game looking at our skill bars keeping our buffs up. I believe this is part of the game. In PvE circles you will hear the term “raid awareness” talking about not just parsing on the boss, but still paying attention to what is going on around you. This takes a ton of practice, and you not only have to pay attention to your buffs, but you also pay attention to what is going on around you. It takes practice to memorize your rotation so that it is second nature and without addons you also need to learn the trial and what to expect at different stages. This fast pace is what keeps it challenging and fun to play. I may be biased here due to playing Templar, but if there is really a problem with buff length look at those specific classes not a sweeping change.

Seriously hope you will reconsider these changes, but I’m not going to hold my breath. I will just say personally I just hope this doesn't break the game like it did the last time a DOT meta was introduced.

DrSlaughtr

Oh by the way I CAN'T WAIT to get hit with a 24 second Haunting Curse in cyrodiil that will take literally every bit of magicka I have to survive.

At that point you should really add purge to cloak because every dot is going to basically send us to time out for entire fights.