Combat Team will be live on Twitch now!!! PTS Preview!

spartaxoxo

They are gonna answer questions about Update 35 after dungeon walkthrough. The dungeon walkthrough is first.

spartaxoxo

Brian Wheeler and Alec Varish are the combat team discussing this. Brian is the lead designer.

They want combat variety to be less variable so that players have more natural progression instead of steep curves that players don't understand. A lot of people try to branch to standard dungeons to vet, and it's a breaking point. They want more people to be able to have access to more content, which is what this update focuses on.

spartaxoxo

Gina: Have you considered looking into an advanced combat tutorial
Team: Yes, it comes up internally a lot. How can we help people progress. But hard to fit into game, needs to be done well, changes down the line doesn't usurp the tutorial which needs to be set in stone. We end up talking more about it than we can set down. The active combats we have covers a lot of basics, but getting into animation canceling would be hugely ideal but also have to be able to continually support the game. And it's tough to get the time to develop it and release content on proper schedule.

spartaxoxo

Q: Will class damage be adjusted to accomodate these changes?
A: Yes. We didn't want to just release the changes and worry about class balance later. It's because we didn't want to be like have fun with this and figure it out 3 months later. Wanted to do what could immediately. One of them parsed 80 hours internally to test numbers. Also had to adjust some item sets.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

8 years.

That's my only reply.

spartaxoxo

Please note these are all paraphrases. Also it was Alec who did the 80 hours.

spartaxoxo

Q) IS PVE and PVP both being considered?

A) Yes, we tried to make sure a change didn't buff up or negatively change something too much in either mode

spartaxoxo

What type of feedback is most helpful?

A: Parses and hard numbers would be most helpful rn. Anecdotal evidence still nice. Organized, constructive and neatly presented makes it easier. Comparisons between before and after patch also useful.

spartaxoxo

Note I'm working so I might miss some stuff. But, I believe they said that PTS will hopefully a little quicker this time around? IDK. DIdn't quite hear that well.

spartaxoxo

Lots of changes are happening because of the negative feedback in Elsweyr where too much changed at once. Want people to be able to get used to one thing before changing something else. Have a larger plan. They acknowledge we have change fatigue. The changes in the future will hopefully be less severe but dont' have a crystal ball that maybe they will have to revisit changes. But as of now, this is the tail end of the larger plan to reel-in outliers.

spartaxoxo

The accessibility changes are moreso about making things less barriers to varied play, not necessarily people who have accessibility needs. But they are trying to keep those barriers in mind and are trying to encompass that better into the game.

spartaxoxo

Alec is a better parser than Brian, he's got the better mental clock and when to rotate. And this gap will not change. It's still going to be a gap. They want mastery to still be rewarding. A bit of gap is healthy and good. They just want more people to be able to be challenged.

spartaxoxo

A lot of feedback right now is not wrong, but they are looking at larger picture including changes in the future. Would like more objective and malicious feedback, but encourage negative, constructive critcism. Tell them what you're trying to do like combat parsing, VMA, what CP you have, etc. Will be looking at forum feedback hard, and other places too.

colossalvoids

Guess kinda important notice is that Alec is Gilliamtherogue from YouTube now working at Zeni, you might pretty well remember him.

geonsocal

just thinking, maybe they can set up some solo instanced combat training npcs around some of the major cities...

similar perhaps to how they set up sheogoragh at the cyrodiil starter gates...

Riptide

Make sure and give dyes, titles, even skins as rewards for completing it. Not being sarcastic. A real reason to incentivize it. XP pots, recipes, throw the kitchen sink at it.

spartaxoxo

geonsocal wrote: »

just thinking, maybe they can set up some solo instanced combat training npcs around some of the major cities...

similar perhaps to how they set up sheogoragh at the cyrodiil starter gates...

Yeah it's interesting what their barriers are to creating it and that they've thought about it. I think helping brainstorm some ideas that would set in stone and unlikely to ever be changed by balance changes would be a good idea.

DagenHawk

You know...forget it.

Holycannoli

DagenHawk wrote: »

It's just abominable how some of the Stream Team folks are taking this...I have played MMO's since EQ I raided in EQ WOW SWTOR LOTRO and FFXIV The changes aren't that bad...certainly not bad enough for the kind of hatred that is being displayed. Giving lesser skilled players any sort of break is outrageous and offensive to these people

Again why are they part of the Stream Team?

Not everyone on the Stream Team is preaching doom and gloom. Some are just in wait-and-see mode.

If the problem is moving from standard dungeons to vet, eliminating weaving as viable increased DPS while also nerfing DoTs is not the way to fix it right?

And yes, doubling the time of DoTs is a nerf. A DoT that does 75k damage but takes 90 seconds to do it isn't all that great a DoT is it? Extreme example yes but shorter durations with stronger ticks is what's needed if they want people to perform better in vet dungeons. IMO. As much damage in as short a time as possible.

Longer buff durations is great. Love that idea. Longer DoTs? Nope.

There also needs to be changes to a lot of sets with this LA + HA nerf.

xaraan

I'm in wait and see mode before I get too doom and gloom about the changes, but definitely not excited (though mostly b/c they don't have the best track record and this just seems like a rehash of the nerf LA/buff HA thing from a couple years ago). But again, we'll see.

BUT, I think the biggest problem isn't as much with combat design (certainly balance needs the most attention IMO, but combat design in general can always be better) - the biggest problem/barrier is content design. The players that have trouble going from normal to veteran isn't solely about their own performance (if they care to improve it, some players probably don't) but the fact that normal doesn't prepare (or train) you for the veteran versions at all. Mechanics often become meaningless in normal mode, you think certain things are not DPS checks that are b/c in normal you won't die. You think you can take hits you cannot, etc. I don't think overland has to be hard necessarily either to fix this, but maybe slightly tuned up, but I do think consistency across the board with world events, world bosses, dungeons and trials would go a long way.

Holycannoli

Well I'm in doom and gloom mode now. What I am seeing is not good. Damage is gutted almost across the board and the more casual you are the more it hurts.

Longer lasting DoTs are not a solution to any problem the game currently has. The damage nerfs to classes aren't a solution to a problem. The only problem the game had was weaving (because it's technically still a bug) and maybe Oakensoul. The rest of the combat patch is a bunch of unnecessary nerfs.

Maybe some people differ but I like the increased damage we're seeing in PvE and PvP. In PvE it makes so much more of the game open to casuals, and in PvP it makes people actually die instead of continuing the stale tank meta. So of course the take a sledgehammer to it all.

Destai

I really don't see what the end goal is here. Too many years of back-and-forth changes, and this is shaping up to be the most punitive change yet. I don't see how reducing damage is going to help anyone, let alone new players who already struggle with poorly explained mechanics.

Overall, I like the idea of shortening the gap, I just don't see how anything other than raising the floor would help it. Most of the changes are reductive. I'd expected longer dots with more damage, if we're trying to make rotations less busy.

Holycannoli

Destai wrote: »

I really don't see what the end goal is here. Too many years of back-and-forth changes, and this is shaping up to be the most punitive change yet. I don't see how reducing damage is going to help anyone, let alone new players who already struggle with poorly explained mechanics.

Overall, I like the idea of shortening the gap, I just don't see how anything other than raising the floor would help it. Most of the changes are reductive. I'd expected longer dots with more damage, if we're trying to make rotations less busy.

Well you see, combat is simpler now...

I mean let's not kid anyone here. All this patch does it make the gap wider. People that are not testing the PTS will play after this patch and suddenly realize they can't do the vet content anymore, for no reason other than the devs thought it was a good idea to nerf damage everywhere.

karthrag_inak

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gina: Have you considered looking into an advanced combat tutorial
Team: Yes, it comes up internally a lot. How can we help people progress. But hard to fit into game, needs to be done well, changes down the line doesn't usurp the tutorial which needs to be set in stone. We end up talking more about it than we can set down. The active combats we have covers a lot of basics, but getting into animation canceling would be hugely ideal but also have to be able to continually support the game. And it's tough to get the time to develop it and release content on proper schedule.

in other words : Can't have tutorial for combat, if you do not have an underlying and set-in-stone plan for combat, yes?

spartaxoxo

karthrag_inak wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gina: Have you considered looking into an advanced combat tutorial
Team: Yes, it comes up internally a lot. How can we help people progress. But hard to fit into game, needs to be done well, changes down the line doesn't usurp the tutorial which needs to be set in stone. We end up talking more about it than we can set down. The active combats we have covers a lot of basics, but getting into animation canceling would be hugely ideal but also have to be able to continually support the game. And it's tough to get the time to develop it and release content on proper schedule.

in other words : Can't have tutorial for combat, if you do not have an underlying and set-in-stone plan for combat, yes?

Yeah, basically....

Destai

Holycannoli wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

I really don't see what the end goal is here. Too many years of back-and-forth changes, and this is shaping up to be the most punitive change yet. I don't see how reducing damage is going to help anyone, let alone new players who already struggle with poorly explained mechanics.

Overall, I like the idea of shortening the gap, I just don't see how anything other than raising the floor would help it. Most of the changes are reductive. I'd expected longer dots with more damage, if we're trying to make rotations less busy.

Well you see, combat is simpler now...

I mean let's not kid anyone here. All this patch does it make the gap wider. People that are not testing the PTS will play after this patch and suddenly realize they can't do the vet content anymore, for no reason other than the devs thought it was a good idea to nerf damage everywhere.

I'm hoping, maybe with some futility, that PTS feedback is heard and some tweaks are had. I'm listening to Deltia now and he's saying Wardens are seeing some major dips. I'll be a little sour if my main is nerfed hard. I like the idea of less maintenance by maintaining DOT uptimes, but I think the numbers will need serious tweaking.

Flangdoodle

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Gina: Have you considered looking into an advanced combat tutorial
Team: Yes, it comes up internally a lot. How can we help people progress. But hard to fit into game, needs to be done well, changes down the line doesn't usurp the tutorial which needs to be set in stone. We end up talking more about it than we can set down. The active combats we have covers a lot of basics, but getting into animation canceling would be hugely ideal but also have to be able to continually support the game. And it's tough to get the time to develop it and release content on proper schedule.

With respect, the tutorials for this game have always been terrible. There are precious few of them to begin with, and those that exist are so cursory that they border on useless. The learning curve has always been steep. Combat tutorials? Nonexistant. The closest thing the game has to a combat tutorial is the siege tutorial in Cyrodiil, and even that is half-hearted.

Sure, there are tool tips, and those are helpful, but nothing and no one in the game even mentions that they exist, much less what they mean or even that they're important. Nothing explains the leveling process either for players or for equipment.

The irony is that there are hundreds of books for the player to read throughout Tamriel - yet not one of them explains HOW to do anything in the game. It's like a cruel joke.

I get it - creating tutorials is expensive, they need to be written, acted, coded into the game or whatever - and why should Zenimax spend the money to create them when there are tens of dozens of poor saps willing to do that work for them for free via streaming or YouTube videos?

The thing is though, I can't imagine creating some more tutorials would be more expensive than dedicating several teams over years to researching combat numbers, reporting on them, developing a plan, ripping apart the coding of the game, and "re-balancing" all of the combat in the game, would it?

In an ideal world, here's how I would imagine tutorials for this game:

After you create your character, you are greeted by a member of some group that represents the class you've chosen. E.g. if you're a sorc, someone from the Mages Guild takes you under their wing and explains the various skills and how and when to use them, using the language in the tool tips - e.g. the difference between a single target attack and an AOE, or how buffs and debuffs affect your attacks, etc. This could put some real usage to the guilds in the game too - fighters guild for DK's, Mages guild for Sorcs, Dark Brotherhood or Thieves guild for nightblades, maybe even some new ones for Wardens and Necromancers.

Later on, after you've had the chance to quest a bit and use some skills, the mentor reappears and shows you the next level - i.e. how to animation cancel, how to create combos, and how to develop a rotation. The mentor could even take the player to some place with target dummies where they could parse their damage or healing with tips to get better. The capability for this kind of teaching is already hinted at in the game with some of the companions dialog - "roll if you can!" "let your magicka recover!" etc.

All of this could be skippable of course for leveling alts, or for more savvy players.

Even without a system that elaborate, I just would have hoped that the devs would have considered flattening the learning curve by expanding the tutorials somehow before flattening the combat curve by diffusing the numbers. That affects everyone in the game, not just the newer players, and it frustrates those who have been here trying to get better for a long time.

fastolfv_ESO

who wants to bet real questions we all want answered will be ignored

shadyjane62

fastolfv_ESO wrote: »

who wants to bet real questions we all want answered will be ignored

I'd bet the farm. I see the initial reaction were overwhelmingly negative till the forums got going. Now I see these apologists for the devs come and white knight everything.

The last couple years have seen too much little thought out change. But really since AWA I don't see anything good coming from Zos.

Oops. my knees are wobbling. Maybe I'll get lucky and Ill take an arrow...

VaranisArano

Thanks for the writeup!

Holycannoli

Destai wrote: »

I'm hoping, maybe with some futility, that PTS feedback is heard and some tweaks are had. I'm listening to Deltia now and he's saying Wardens are seeing some major dips. I'll be a little sour if my main is nerfed hard. I like the idea of less maintenance by maintaining DOT uptimes, but I think the numbers will need serious tweaking.

I'm a stam sorc main. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Stam sorc once again only has Crit Surge and maybe Hurricane for class skills worth using. The rest is weapon skills, that other classes can use better with their passives as sorcerer's passives are built around using sorcerer skills and not damage types.

If we had a class change token I'd change to DK in a heartbeat. Been waiting for years for that but stam sorc was in a good spot for a while there.