Combat introduction overhaul - the combat academy

UtopianWarrior88

With the current controversy around the incoming suggested light attack nerfs, I think we need to look at the underlying issue, which is understanding combat and rotation.
A friend of mine pitched this idea and allowed me to take it to the forum. (thanks shapeshifter!)

Basically, it would be something like "combat academy" split up into a selection of lessons to assist newer players in understanding how combat works in ESO.
The current combat demo barely covers anything but some light attacks, heavy attacks, skills, interrupt and block - these steps would be recommended:

1) Experiencing the GCD - One lesson which is about optimising your light attack + singular spammable skill in a GCD slot
2) Buffing yourself - Showing your (class) buffs and how to keep them up, additionally explaining bar buffers and their use (this can be done with the inbuilt game timers, no need for addons). Can include status effects like sundered and overcharged which are not really covered outside the very hidden help section.
3) Getting into a rotation - Add 5 skills on a bar and perform the weaving to pass
4) Sustain - With multiple skills you now notice your resources dropping; this section discusses food, potions and enchantments
5) Ultimates - Explain how light attacks generate ult, how to time your ult into a rotation (by dropping a spammable for example)
6) Barswaps - Learn how bar swapping can be done (correctly) to add more to your rotation; a demo with applying 2 backbar debuffs and then swapping back front to simulate a set like kinras
7) Penetration - New players are not typically aware that there are resistance caps and penetration and so on. Explain what affects penetration.

Following are things that would be nice but I don't expect at this point yet as it would possibly be more complicated to make and is maybe not fully applicable to anything but PC unless a CMX feature would be developed..

8) Gear traits and enchants and how it can help you - For DDs its very straight forward, but it is still nice to be aware WHY we run what we run, rather than just copying a build
9) Parsing - Although CMX isn't officially part of base game, in reality it should be and this is where we'd use it. Let the player do a quick dummy parse (non raid), and show them on CMX their dmg and where they can read uptimes of buffs/debuffs
10) Lets put it all to work - Make some mini bossfight in which you apply what you've learned. Have some dps checks, some synergies etc etc


I feel that this is really a thing that has been lacking, and while the combat academy wouldn't be "new content" per se, instead of adjusting all the skills and how they work to decrease the gap, this would be instrumental in making the gap closer to endgame without hurting endgame players.

meneerpeer

^ This, this is what the game needs. There will always be the damage gap. I like the easy to play, hard to master. If everything gets made easier I rather start playing world of warcraft tbh...

chattygeekHD

I really like the idea of this.
Think back to when I played FFXIV for a bit I liked the school where they taught you the skills and taught you the basics of DPS / Healing and tanking.
I played WoW of ages years ago without ever really understanding what DD, healing and tanking was. I didn't really do dungeons so I didn't have the pleasure of other players shouting at me either so I had to learn fast lol.

I love ESO immensely but other than the skills assistant that lets you pick some sample builds - I don't think there's anything that actually explains for example:

As a healer your priority is healing over damage dealing
As a tank, you have to control how many mobs you pull in and manage getting agro.

These things gets explained in FF - it'd be great if they did something similar in ESO for people who are new to MMORPGs.


If I was to be really greedy on the ask of ZOS - I think it would be even greater if each skill had it's own school you went to to learn this sort of thing.

For example "The Order of Templars" or the "Circle of Knightblandes" etc.. Way to much of an ask but it would be really cool and would allow a bit of immersion into the game and possibly an opportunity to give a bit of background lore behind each class.

CP5

Just, all of those things really, plus the things the tutorial does teach but poorly like interrupting and breaking free. So many things players should know and would do so much better in knowing. The game never really reinforces the things the tutorial teaches, never puts players in positions to use those skills, and what little is taught is just forgotten. Something like this is needed.

CameraBeardThePirate

They need to absolutely do this. They already have a place they could add this to. The current Undaunted intro quest is abysmal and doesn't teach the player anything about how to get through a dungeon; the only requirement is to enter, not even complete the dungeon. Why not have an Undaunted member in the dungeon ready to teach the player about combat mechanics not covered in the tutorial quest?

Treeshka

These things are very good way to teach the game to a new player. Maybe these scenarios should be available through Fighters and Mages Guild as a training quests.
It is a fact that one does not need to weave to complete the zone quests, but for advanced contents you need to know these advance mechanics.

TBois

Would have been great for zos to implement something like this before they make drastic combat changes. This is a way more effective solution than adjusting the system.

Their combat system is super complicated and these changes zos is implementing doesn't change that. So the super casual player will still be way behind others unless zos actually teaches them in game.

Turtilla

I definitely agree. It could easily and in a lore-friendly way be added to the Undaunted progression, or some other base-game guilds. The skill gap mostly exists because people don't care enough to look up out-of-game resources on how to get better at their role. If this is an issue for the devs, then helping out those players improve is always better than bringing the top players who put a ton of effort in getting good down so something like this could really help!

dmnqwk

chattygeekHD wrote: »

As a healer your priority is healing over damage dealing
As a tank, you have to control how many mobs you pull in and manage getting agro.

I think a lot of players make this mistake, but actually it's not true. Everyone's priority is to complete the objective.

The reason a healer prioritizes healing at times is because if they don't, the DD have to save themselves and the opportunity cost of doing so is higher than if the healer hits them all with a Combat Prayer.
Same goes for tanks - they have the same goal as a DD, only they have to sacrifice personal gains on that front by rounding up the mobs to enable the DD to kill the mobs quicker.

Everybody in a dungeon, trial, world boss group has to complete the objective and killing it quickly is often the fastest way. It's also why fake tanks don't really do well in dungeons if they don't understand this behaviour - them bringing 11k penetration with major/minor breach and backbar crusher is worth more than whatever personal gains they might experience being a full on DD who lets the boss go after someone unprepared for it who then wastes time running away to survive.

ESO does expect a lot of support from tanks and healers, far more than most MMOs, but it still has the same requirement as any other one - bosses only die to damage not boredom as the healer spams heals on people who are at full health

Minno

Hard disagree. Because you already encounter many of these mechanics as you play, some mobs you bash some you cc, etc. And at some point you can also realize animation canceling is in the game on accident.

We are looking at the problem from the top down, from the expectation that we already know how many of these mechanics work, and sometimes that clashes with the fact ESO was worked on over the years to be a single player experience with friends. So you'll never get players to transition to the harder content, because they are here for the main story like skyrim where they can bash 3 skills and complete the story.

The players that end up wanting to try hardmode stuff, will have already been practicing mechanics based on guild chat/zone chat or asking questions about mechanics in guilds. So the solution has been solved from a social interaction perspective, which is great for a mmo. You can't quality of life the gameplay too much, you have to give up part of some of the core tenets of MMOs.

CameraBeardThePirate

Minno wrote: »

Hard disagree. Because you already encounter many of these mechanics as you play, some mobs you bash some you cc, etc. And at some point you can also realize animation canceling is in the game on accident.

We are looking at the problem from the top down, from the expectation that we already know how many of these mechanics work, and sometimes that clashes with the fact ESO was worked on over the years to be a single player experience with friends. So you'll never get players to transition to the harder content, because they are here for the main story like skyrim where they can bash 3 skills and complete the story.

The players that end up wanting to try hardmode stuff, will have already been practicing mechanics based on guild chat/zone chat or asking questions about mechanics in guilds. So the solution has been solved from a social interaction perspective, which is great for a mmo. You can't quality of life the gameplay too much, you have to give up part of some of the core tenets of MMOs.

This is a strange take imo. There is no reason to not have a tutorial for mechanics like this. There isn't even a tutorial for how to setup a proper rotation, which is why you see people in PUG dungeons doing nothing but light attacking (which by the way, these same individuals will be nerfed the most with the proposed light attack changes). Yes it's true that some don't care to get better at the game, because they just enjoy doing quests and experiencing the story. However it's an overgeneralization to say that the solution has been solved with stuff like guild chat and online tutorials, because I know just from speaking to people in game that many players don't want to have to seek out outside information to improve. Presenting information to players via an in-game tutorial would only be beneficial in the long run.

chattygeekHD

dmnqwk wrote: »

chattygeekHD wrote: »

As a healer your priority is healing over damage dealing
As a tank, you have to control how many mobs you pull in and manage getting agro.

I think a lot of players make this mistake, but actually it's not true. Everyone's priority is to complete the objective.

The reason a healer prioritizes healing at times is because if they don't, the DD have to save themselves and the opportunity cost of doing so is higher than if the healer hits them all with a Combat Prayer.
Same goes for tanks - they have the same goal as a DD, only they have to sacrifice personal gains on that front by rounding up the mobs to enable the DD to kill the mobs quicker.

Everybody in a dungeon, trial, world boss group has to complete the objective and killing it quickly is often the fastest way. It's also why fake tanks don't really do well in dungeons if they don't understand this behaviour - them bringing 11k penetration with major/minor breach and backbar crusher is worth more than whatever personal gains they might experience being a full on DD who lets the boss go after someone unprepared for it who then wastes time running away to survive.

ESO does expect a lot of support from tanks and healers, far more than most MMOs, but it still has the same requirement as any other one - bosses only die to damage not boredom as the healer spams heals on people who are at full health

Fair comment and makes a lot of sense - thankyou!. I was looking for an example of something that somebody might be taught early in the game as a tutorial rather than trial and error. What you explain is something I think would be cool to be taught in a tutorial type mission before pushing us off into real world groups so we have a bit of an idea of what is expected of us.

I don't do a lot (if any) work with groups I still find them a bit daunting. I did a bit in FF but it was on console and I didn't have headphones at the time, so I didn't have anybody explaining anything to me (or shouting at me - as they probably would have been!) so I was purely pugging and trying to get through as best I could - so I definitely benefited from the tutorial bit at the beginning.

But I also like what @Minno is saying about how we are already taught by the community (as long we have a friendly group that is teaching us in a constructive way, and not just newbie bashing).

Minno

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Hard disagree. Because you already encounter many of these mechanics as you play, some mobs you bash some you cc, etc. And at some point you can also realize animation canceling is in the game on accident.

We are looking at the problem from the top down, from the expectation that we already know how many of these mechanics work, and sometimes that clashes with the fact ESO was worked on over the years to be a single player experience with friends. So you'll never get players to transition to the harder content, because they are here for the main story like skyrim where they can bash 3 skills and complete the story.

The players that end up wanting to try hardmode stuff, will have already been practicing mechanics based on guild chat/zone chat or asking questions about mechanics in guilds. So the solution has been solved from a social interaction perspective, which is great for a mmo. You can't quality of life the gameplay too much, you have to give up part of some of the core tenets of MMOs.

This is a strange take imo. There is no reason to not have a tutorial for mechanics like this. There isn't even a tutorial for how to setup a proper rotation, which is why you see people in PUG dungeons doing nothing but light attacking (which by the way, these same individuals will be nerfed the most with the proposed light attack changes). Yes it's true that some don't care to get better at the game, because they just enjoy doing quests and experiencing the story. However it's an overgeneralization to say that the solution has been solved with stuff like guild chat and online tutorials, because I know just from speaking to people in game that many players don't want to have to seek out outside information to improve. Presenting information to players via an in-game tutorial would only be beneficial in the long run.

Think of it this way. Is the journey from 0-CP160 not a grand tutorial on how to play your class? There is no greater teacher in a video game than getting your hands dirty and asking friends for help.

Faulgor

CP5 wrote: »

Just, all of those things really, plus the things the tutorial does teach but poorly like interrupting and breaking free. So many things players should know and would do so much better in knowing. The game never really reinforces the things the tutorial teaches, never puts players in positions to use those skills, and what little is taught is just forgotten. Something like this is needed.

I think the tutorial teaches interrupting and breaking free just fine. The problem is, between the tutorial at the start of the game, and end game dungeons, there's a whole 50 levels worth of gameplay where you absolutely don't need any of that.

So, as long as you can light attack your way through the majority of the content, people will have no incentive to improve, tutorial or not. And then they suddenly hit a brick wall when entering group content, of course they'll be in an awful mood.

If they add something like this, they at least have to sprinkle more challenging content throughout the leveling experience.
If the combat academy were a quest line with its own skill line perhaps ...frankly that's what the Fighters Guild should have been.

CameraBeardThePirate

Minno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Hard disagree. Because you already encounter many of these mechanics as you play, some mobs you bash some you cc, etc. And at some point you can also realize animation canceling is in the game on accident.

We are looking at the problem from the top down, from the expectation that we already know how many of these mechanics work, and sometimes that clashes with the fact ESO was worked on over the years to be a single player experience with friends. So you'll never get players to transition to the harder content, because they are here for the main story like skyrim where they can bash 3 skills and complete the story.

The players that end up wanting to try hardmode stuff, will have already been practicing mechanics based on guild chat/zone chat or asking questions about mechanics in guilds. So the solution has been solved from a social interaction perspective, which is great for a mmo. You can't quality of life the gameplay too much, you have to give up part of some of the core tenets of MMOs.

This is a strange take imo. There is no reason to not have a tutorial for mechanics like this. There isn't even a tutorial for how to setup a proper rotation, which is why you see people in PUG dungeons doing nothing but light attacking (which by the way, these same individuals will be nerfed the most with the proposed light attack changes). Yes it's true that some don't care to get better at the game, because they just enjoy doing quests and experiencing the story. However it's an overgeneralization to say that the solution has been solved with stuff like guild chat and online tutorials, because I know just from speaking to people in game that many players don't want to have to seek out outside information to improve. Presenting information to players via an in-game tutorial would only be beneficial in the long run.

Think of it this way. Is the journey from 0-CP160 not a grand tutorial on how to play your class? There is no greater teacher in a video game than getting your hands dirty and asking friends for help.

You're forgetting that a large portion of the playerbase will not go out of their way to ask other players about mechanics. Whether that's because of social anxiety, lack of caring that intensely, or just the fact that casuals want to just log in and pew pew through the game as a solo player is irrelevant. Again, it is only beneficial to have a more comprehensive tutorial in the game. You can't expect players to seek out this information, because clearly the large majority doesn't or there wouldn't be as large of a skill gap in this game as there is.

UtopianWarrior88

For me the motivation for this existing is maybe have players understand basics so you can just go from there; I currently welcome players by saying "ask anything, the game explains things poorly".
Reason enough for me to justify this.

Troodon80

Minno wrote: »

Think of it this way. Is the journey from 0-CP160 not a grand tutorial on how to play your class? There is no greater teacher in a video game than getting your hands dirty and asking friends for help.

If it is, people are clearly not paying attention all the way up to 1500+ CP. You wouldn't believe how many high CP players don't know how to bash, and, as a result, usually a tank ends up dying to something that should have been interrupted (e.g. see Imperial City Prison, Cradle of Shadows, etc.).

I've said it before, but ESO could very well do with something like FFXIV's Hall of the Novice. Which, in ESO, could go through a series of optional quests for a specific role to show the fundamentals of how to play; taunting, chaining, healing, interrupting, the benefits of buffs and debuffs, and, more broadly, doing damage, including light attack weaving.

These steps wouldn't be to say "here's how you must play," but would provide a much better tutorial than the current "Here's how to light attack spam and bash" tutorial. Aside from the cost of making it, there is no real downside to the inclusion and could be a source of transmutes or other rewards (such as potential upgrade materials which would benefit a new player) for completing the quests, which gives an incentive to actually play through them and thus learn from them. It could also be made daily repeatable.

MindOfTheSwarm

People are missing the point for the changes. It’s not for people that can’t learn to weave.
It’s for people that CAN’T weave at all. Due to physical limitations such as disabilities. No amount of learning can fix that. But with the damage reduction to DoT’s nothing will change, and weaving will become more important than ever due to Direct Damage being the primary source of damage.

UtopianWarrior88

By that logic we should allow athletes from the paralympics into the olympics and tell the athletes who worked hard to get to the top that there's a max speed they're allowed to run. We wouldn't do that - that is penalising their hard work, not making it fair.

People with a physical disability are obviously still able to play the game using other builds, but I don't think it should be desirable to move to a situation where we remove all skill required to accommodate that rather small group of players. Most of these players, with enough dedication, could still clear vet content, but vet HM might just be out of their reach. And that should be okay.

I know this makes me sound incredibly callous, but that's the reality of it; there is a physical limitation for these people and as such they cannot push as hard as others, meaning they might not fit into all groups. You can still clear content but it will be harder to do so.

Minno

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Hard disagree. Because you already encounter many of these mechanics as you play, some mobs you bash some you cc, etc. And at some point you can also realize animation canceling is in the game on accident.

We are looking at the problem from the top down, from the expectation that we already know how many of these mechanics work, and sometimes that clashes with the fact ESO was worked on over the years to be a single player experience with friends. So you'll never get players to transition to the harder content, because they are here for the main story like skyrim where they can bash 3 skills and complete the story.

The players that end up wanting to try hardmode stuff, will have already been practicing mechanics based on guild chat/zone chat or asking questions about mechanics in guilds. So the solution has been solved from a social interaction perspective, which is great for a mmo. You can't quality of life the gameplay too much, you have to give up part of some of the core tenets of MMOs.

This is a strange take imo. There is no reason to not have a tutorial for mechanics like this. There isn't even a tutorial for how to setup a proper rotation, which is why you see people in PUG dungeons doing nothing but light attacking (which by the way, these same individuals will be nerfed the most with the proposed light attack changes). Yes it's true that some don't care to get better at the game, because they just enjoy doing quests and experiencing the story. However it's an overgeneralization to say that the solution has been solved with stuff like guild chat and online tutorials, because I know just from speaking to people in game that many players don't want to have to seek out outside information to improve. Presenting information to players via an in-game tutorial would only be beneficial in the long run.

Think of it this way. Is the journey from 0-CP160 not a grand tutorial on how to play your class? There is no greater teacher in a video game than getting your hands dirty and asking friends for help.

You're forgetting that a large portion of the playerbase will not go out of their way to ask other players about mechanics. Whether that's because of social anxiety, lack of caring that intensely, or just the fact that casuals want to just log in and pew pew through the game as a solo player is irrelevant. Again, it is only beneficial to have a more comprehensive tutorial in the game. You can't expect players to seek out this information, because clearly the large majority doesn't or there wouldn't be as large of a skill gap in this game as there is.

That would be on the player to figure out while playing and you can't give socially avoidant players more tutorials; they will never communicate enough in the group setting to adjust their play anyway so while they might hit certain DPS numbers but you want them to engage in the guild inside/outside the raid as well as adjustments to mechanics during fights which might not happen. You want to encourage exploration and experimentation here as well. Not give the players all the info, because giving them all the info you open up pandora's box and you will have to give them all the info moving forward. And at what point do you draw the line in providing all the answers versus letting players figure it all out while playing? Why play a game if all the answers are given to you?

The best content to ever come out for socially avoidant players was the thieves guild DLC. That is a good example of providing a lore based content that is solo friendly, good storyline, and has a multitude of mechanics attached that are explained in a more unique way that isn't a blanket tutorial or massive blanket change to combat mechanics. And a good example of showing raid mechanics early are in the chapter zones when they introduce the mob mechanics early as you work on completing the zone content.

CameraBeardThePirate

Minno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Hard disagree. Because you already encounter many of these mechanics as you play, some mobs you bash some you cc, etc. And at some point you can also realize animation canceling is in the game on accident.

We are looking at the problem from the top down, from the expectation that we already know how many of these mechanics work, and sometimes that clashes with the fact ESO was worked on over the years to be a single player experience with friends. So you'll never get players to transition to the harder content, because they are here for the main story like skyrim where they can bash 3 skills and complete the story.

The players that end up wanting to try hardmode stuff, will have already been practicing mechanics based on guild chat/zone chat or asking questions about mechanics in guilds. So the solution has been solved from a social interaction perspective, which is great for a mmo. You can't quality of life the gameplay too much, you have to give up part of some of the core tenets of MMOs.

This is a strange take imo. There is no reason to not have a tutorial for mechanics like this. There isn't even a tutorial for how to setup a proper rotation, which is why you see people in PUG dungeons doing nothing but light attacking (which by the way, these same individuals will be nerfed the most with the proposed light attack changes). Yes it's true that some don't care to get better at the game, because they just enjoy doing quests and experiencing the story. However it's an overgeneralization to say that the solution has been solved with stuff like guild chat and online tutorials, because I know just from speaking to people in game that many players don't want to have to seek out outside information to improve. Presenting information to players via an in-game tutorial would only be beneficial in the long run.

Think of it this way. Is the journey from 0-CP160 not a grand tutorial on how to play your class? There is no greater teacher in a video game than getting your hands dirty and asking friends for help.

You're forgetting that a large portion of the playerbase will not go out of their way to ask other players about mechanics. Whether that's because of social anxiety, lack of caring that intensely, or just the fact that casuals want to just log in and pew pew through the game as a solo player is irrelevant. Again, it is only beneficial to have a more comprehensive tutorial in the game. You can't expect players to seek out this information, because clearly the large majority doesn't or there wouldn't be as large of a skill gap in this game as there is.

That would be on the player to figure out while playing and you can't give socially avoidant players more tutorials; they will never communicate enough in the group setting to adjust their play anyway so while they might hit certain DPS numbers but you want them to engage in the guild inside/outside the raid as well as adjustments to mechanics during fights which might not happen. You want to encourage exploration and experimentation here as well. Not give the players all the info, because giving them all the info you open up pandora's box and you will have to give them all the info moving forward. And at what point do you draw the line in providing all the answers versus letting players figure it all out while playing? Why play a game if all the answers are given to you?

The best content to ever come out for socially avoidant players was the thieves guild DLC. That is a good example of providing a lore based content that is solo friendly, good storyline, and has a multitude of mechanics attached that are explained in a more unique way that isn't a blanket tutorial or massive blanket change to combat mechanics. And a good example of showing raid mechanics early are in the chapter zones when they introduce the mob mechanics early as you work on completing the zone content.

I'm sorry but your argument still doesn't make any sense to me.

A tutorial wouldn't be "giving the player all the info". There's still a plethora of mechanics, combos, gear information, and optimization that can be learned from other players.

The point is that almost nothing is given to the player at all. Having a tutorial on the basics of how to go through a parse rotation wouldn't be collapsing some "adventure" of learning information from other players, it would just help out the vast majority of the player base that will never pick up these skills otherwise.

danno8

FF14 hall of the novice was very useful to me. Something similar in ESO would be a good thing.

It's entirely optional for those who don't want it, but it's a great starting point for those who want a quick rundown on roles and combat.

ESO_Nightingale

exactly, the problem is that there is no good advanced combat tutorial for new/bad players. the problem is not that endgame players have high dps or that they have to manage their dps.

CP5

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Hard disagree. Because you already encounter many of these mechanics as you play, some mobs you bash some you cc, etc. And at some point you can also realize animation canceling is in the game on accident.

We are looking at the problem from the top down, from the expectation that we already know how many of these mechanics work, and sometimes that clashes with the fact ESO was worked on over the years to be a single player experience with friends. So you'll never get players to transition to the harder content, because they are here for the main story like skyrim where they can bash 3 skills and complete the story.

The players that end up wanting to try hardmode stuff, will have already been practicing mechanics based on guild chat/zone chat or asking questions about mechanics in guilds. So the solution has been solved from a social interaction perspective, which is great for a mmo. You can't quality of life the gameplay too much, you have to give up part of some of the core tenets of MMOs.

This is a strange take imo. There is no reason to not have a tutorial for mechanics like this. There isn't even a tutorial for how to setup a proper rotation, which is why you see people in PUG dungeons doing nothing but light attacking (which by the way, these same individuals will be nerfed the most with the proposed light attack changes). Yes it's true that some don't care to get better at the game, because they just enjoy doing quests and experiencing the story. However it's an overgeneralization to say that the solution has been solved with stuff like guild chat and online tutorials, because I know just from speaking to people in game that many players don't want to have to seek out outside information to improve. Presenting information to players via an in-game tutorial would only be beneficial in the long run.

Think of it this way. Is the journey from 0-CP160 not a grand tutorial on how to play your class? There is no greater teacher in a video game than getting your hands dirty and asking friends for help.

You're forgetting that a large portion of the playerbase will not go out of their way to ask other players about mechanics. Whether that's because of social anxiety, lack of caring that intensely, or just the fact that casuals want to just log in and pew pew through the game as a solo player is irrelevant. Again, it is only beneficial to have a more comprehensive tutorial in the game. You can't expect players to seek out this information, because clearly the large majority doesn't or there wouldn't be as large of a skill gap in this game as there is.

Exactly this. Most players start out in overland, milling their way through quest content for however long they want given how much of it there is, and fact of the matter is this 'grand tutorial' through content teaches nothing. All that's needed is a run through Direfrost to see that the ability to 'break free' is outside of many players knowledge. Or a run of some world bosses where 'interrupting' is only known as a way to cut into a conversation. That says nothing about the players who never learn what buff abilities do, or how impactful food is, or the idea that wearing 5 pieces of the same gear set gives massive bonuses.

Many players are offput by joining content unprepared with the potential of them being judged or 'told how to play,' so they either develop the mentality that those telling them things are elitist lording over them, but it is only in that group content that many of the things players really ought to know is there for them to even see.

You can't "get your hands dirty" when there's no dirt, and a well-made game shouldn't require asking others for help or looking outside the game for guidance.

Tannus15

this should replace the undaunted "intro" quest and should be skippable.
Ideally i'd also give people an "intro" dummy to go in their house, even if it's basically just the pre-cursor. anything to give people some sort of direction if they want it

I don't understand why nothing like this exists. The first time you go to cyrodil there is a quest explaining how to use siege equipment and what not.

UtopianWarrior88

Tannus15 wrote: »

this should replace the undaunted "intro" quest and should be skippable.
Ideally i'd also give people an "intro" dummy to go in their house, even if it's basically just the pre-cursor. anything to give people some sort of direction if they want it

I don't understand why nothing like this exists. The first time you go to cyrodil there is a quest explaining how to use siege equipment and what not.

The cyro quest is an example of how something was done right indeed; and you gain assault/support rank for completing it. I feel like such a quest could (and should) help you level undaunted or mage/fighter's guild.

prof_doom

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

People are missing the point for the changes. It’s not for people that can’t learn to weave.
It’s for people that CAN’T weave at all. Due to physical limitations such as disabilities. No amount of learning can fix that. But with the damage reduction to DoT’s nothing will change, and weaving will become more important than ever due to Direct Damage being the primary source of damage.

It's not their stated goal in the combat preview post.
And even if it was, they've failed. You said it yourself, weaving will remain as important as it does now, possibly even more so.

Klingenlied

I guess you assume new players "want" this experience?
I assume you are horribly wrong. Just a few weeks ago some friends of mine started playing, really casual for now. For all, the game is rather overwhelming. One of the players is enjoying combat somewhat more, but doesn't really want to dive any way "deeper" into some explanations. Front bar? Back bar? Uptime? Weaving?

I am all in for a better new player experience. But I don't think players that are years into the game can understand a new player that just gets overwhelmed by the amount of quests, bugs - there is a ton of quests where directions still are wrong or its unclear what to, where players can only interact with a specific entrance from a specific distance and so on .. So yea, new players needa circumvent bugs and the chaos that is initial questing first. And do you remember how important rotation or dps for questing was? Right .. not at all.

ESO is so incredibly easy that there is a gap that will never be bridged unless the player in question really wants to improve to tackle harder content.

Now for the combat changes .. well, I guess the buff / debuff, hot / dot-timer stuff is all right as long as we do not loose out on dps. I dislike loosing dps though through my lights, should be compensated by my spamables at least. Overall though I don't care about this change because for me nothing does change in regards to how I play the game.

And whoever says weaving will even be more important. No. It will not. It will impact dps less. But the impact will still be there. So everyone that wants some optimization will continue weaving.

CameraBeardThePirate

Klingenlied wrote: »

I guess you assume new players "want" this experience?
I assume you are horribly wrong. Just a few weeks ago some friends of mine started playing, really casual for now. For all, the game is rather overwhelming. One of the players is enjoying combat somewhat more, but doesn't really want to dive any way "deeper" into some explanations. Front bar? Back bar? Uptime? Weaving?

I am all in for a better new player experience. But I don't think players that are years into the game can understand a new player that just gets overwhelmed by the amount of quests, bugs - there is a ton of quests where directions still are wrong or its unclear what to, where players can only interact with a specific entrance from a specific distance and so on .. So yea, new players needa circumvent bugs and the chaos that is initial questing first. And do you remember how important rotation or dps for questing was? Right .. not at all.

ESO is so incredibly easy that there is a gap that will never be bridged unless the player in question really wants to improve to tackle harder content.

Now for the combat changes .. well, I guess the buff / debuff, hot / dot-timer stuff is all right as long as we do not loose out on dps. I dislike loosing dps though through my lights, should be compensated by my spamables at least. Overall though I don't care about this change because for me nothing does change in regards to how I play the game.

And whoever says weaving will even be more important. No. It will not. It will impact dps less. But the impact will still be there. So everyone that wants some optimization will continue weaving.

You assuming all new players don't want some sort of tutorial is just as much of a fallacy as assuming all new players do want a tutorial. The point is that some new players will, some won't, but for those that do want to dive deeper, nothing is offered to them in game, and that's the main issue.

Sync01

I agree that there should be more information in game about how combat works but I'm not sure an in-depth tutorial is the answer. Partly because it would be a lot of information in one go that you might not remember much of later, and partly because I assume it would get outdated pretty fast.

There is a lot of community created content (both relevant and outdated) so the information is available somewhere, but the difficult part is getting that info to players who are only looking at info in game, and don't know what they're missing.

UtopianWarrior88

Sync01 wrote: »

I agree that there should be more information in game about how combat works but I'm not sure an in-depth tutorial is the answer. Partly because it would be a lot of information in one go that you might not remember much of later, and partly because I assume it would get outdated pretty fast.

There is a lot of community created content (both relevant and outdated) so the information is available somewhere, but the difficult part is getting that info to players who are only looking at info in game, and don't know what they're missing.

I'm not sure if the basic combat information as proposed would become outdated, unless they change how dots or barswaps work. We will always have things like set bonuses, traits, potions etc.