PTS Update 35 - Feedback Thread for Combat Balance Changes

TPishek

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we want to follow up on the conversations around the U35 combat changes. First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback. We have been reading your feedback and reviewing the testing data since PTS launched earlier this week, and we are continuing that process. We are exploring some adjustments based on testing findings for PTS week 3 and beyond. We’ll share details about those next week.

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue our testing on the PTS - please keep the hands-on feedback coming.

We don't need number tweaks, we need this entire trash update thrown out.

Tannus15

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we want to follow up on the conversations around the U35 combat changes. First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback. We have been reading your feedback and reviewing the testing data since PTS launched earlier this week, and we are continuing that process. We are exploring some adjustments based on testing findings for PTS week 3 and beyond. We’ll share details about those next week.

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue our testing on the PTS - please keep the hands-on feedback coming.

This is the thing which is making us panic.

Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5

This is Blatently Untrue.

We're here every PTS. We have been through this time and again and it's far more often the case the the numbers presented in PTS1 are exactly the same as PTS5.

Stop gaslighting us on this, you know and we know that the devs rarely change anything between PTS1 and PTS5, they fix the bugs but they don't revert the balance changes!!!

gronoxvx

The one thong zos could do to close the gap is educate newer players on the basics. Im not sure if much has changed since i started (around 2017 on console), but when i did there was no explanation on what a dot or a rotation is. Only mention of weaving is a random load screen message that appears once in a blue moon. If it wasnt for me going on youtube and seeing a gilliam created guide i wouldnt have known anything really.

Example of this is when you join either the fighters or mages guild and they explain it to you or have a dummy side quest with a dps test and a target dps range with certain rewards that encourages people to increase their dps. Since its a side quest its purely optional and if the person decides they dont want to do it? Thats ok. They can skip it and still play the game how they like and come back to it if they wish.

Arming people with knowledge is far greater than blanket nerfs that have already decimated fhe community even before its gone live.

Tannus15

gronoxvx wrote: »

The one thong zos could do to close the gap is educate newer players on the basics. Im not sure if much has changed since i started (around 2017 on console), but when i did there was no explanation on what a dot or a rotation is. Only mention of weaving is a random load screen message that appears once in a blue moon. If it wasnt for me going on youtube and seeing a gilliam created guide i wouldnt have known anything really.

Example of this is when you join either the fighters or mages guild and they explain it to you or have a dummy side quest with a dps test and a target dps range with certain rewards that encourages people to increase their dps. Since its a side quest its purely optional and if the person decides they dont want to do it? Thats ok. They can skip it and still play the game how they like and come back to it if they wish.

Arming people with knowledge is far greater than blanket nerfs that have already decimated fhe community even before its gone live.

make it the undaunted intro quest. they are the dungeon people, that's when damage and builds start to matter.
have a tanking tutorial, a healing tutorial and a dps tutorial.

Cadbury

Pevey wrote: »

shadyjane62 wrote: »

Welcome to the next ten days of unhappy people needing answers.

We have our answers. This vision is going through, perhaps with minor changes in an attempt to make it seem they are responding to feedback.

Right now, whoever at ZOS thought this up and pushed this effort still very much thinks that they are right. They think the silent majority is with them.

In 5 weeks and 3 days, this will go live and the silent majority who have no idea there even is a PTS will feel these changes.

It's going to be fun to watch, NGL.

Indeed. Better to just ride it out now because it's coming whether you like it or not...

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we want to follow up on the conversations around the U35 combat changes. First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback. We have been reading your feedback and reviewing the testing data since PTS launched earlier this week, and we are continuing that process. We are exploring some adjustments based on testing findings for PTS week 3 and beyond. We’ll share details about those next week.

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue our testing on the PTS - please keep the hands-on feedback coming.

@ZOS_Kevin Dude, the developers need to be here posting what their thoughts are. It's unacceptable that we're looking at our playstyles being completely uprooted and no one can so much as come here and tell us anything beyond "we see your feedback". Who has been reading it? What are their thoughts? Can we get some details? That will help the community shape our feedback better. It's not acceptable to have "we see your feedback".

Faded

starkerealm wrote: »

While I'm pretty sure I've said it before... somewhere on these boards, I can confidently say, this has been the most demoralizing PTS build I've ever experienced.

Morrowind. They'd have to work hard to ever top that cluster**.

ArchMunky

As a player with some disabilities, please consider keeping it in its current form for PvE and making the nerf'd changes for PvP. I've never been able to fully weave due to disability issues and Oakensoul finally makes it so I can do enough damage to not get kicked from groups. I don't PvP for that same reason (constant wipe). Oakensoul has literally been a game-changer for me.

Thank you.

LeBrenn

After causing a mass exodus with so many others by the door about to leave I'd expect a more detailed response sooner.
It's better than the previous deafening silence, but still...

You guys really need to improve the communication and have some respect for your costumers.

I have witnessed you admitting a mistake ONCE, not so long ago, when the game was unplayable for a week or so and all you did was give a few experience scrolls. Not a single ''sorry'', ''my bad'' or even an ''oops'' could be found.

Now you're making another mistake (and a huge one).
You should show us that you're not as out of touch as we feel, that you listen to our feedback and just revert the situation by coming down off your high horse and saying ''We heard you and we're sorry. We're going to scrap that and think of a better way to improve combat later.''

FantasticFreddie

code65536 wrote: »

I want to start off by saying that I have no qualms with the "mission statement" of these PTS changes. Specifically:

The closer the gap between the low and high end, the easier it is to create content that can accommodate a wider audience.

[...]

we hope to reduce the stress of many combat rotations, allowing for you to focus more on the action in front of you rather than the action of juggling buffs and debuffs on your ability bar and making the game far more accessible.

I agree that there is a very large power gap, that this power gap is one that has grown over the years, and that such a large power gap isn’t particularly healthy. But I don’t think that the changes in Update 35 is correct way to address these problems.

My post will be in three parts, where I talk about the light attacks and weaving, about effect durations, and about the power gap problem in general.

---

PART 1: Light Attacks, Heavy Attacks, and Weaving

This is probably the least controversial change. Reducing light attack damage would reduce the power gap between those who can and can’t weave. But there are three issues with this change:

1. It also impacts some of the people who are ostensibly part of the “target audience” for this change. The proverbial floor--people who just spam light attacks--will be even less effective after this change.
2. The nerf to heavy attacks seems completely counterproductive, especially since heavy attack builds have been a popular accessibility option for years.
3. This change reduces everyone’s damage. Yes, it will reduce the damage of someone to weaves perfectly a bit more than someone who misses light attacks, but it’s still a nerf for the latter. And, as mentioned, those people who just use light and heavy attacks.

For the people who are your “target audience”, how do you justify to them that their combat effectiveness is going down? It’s one thing to say to someone parsing 130K on live that a reduction to their damage was for the health of the game, but it’s quite another to say to someone who’s using an accessible heavy attack build that their playstyle is getting hit for their own good. (Example)

This was one of the key issues that I raised two years ago during that special PTS testing LA/HA changes. Back then, I suggested that a better solution was to discriminate between consecutive (and thus non-weaved) light attack and non-consecutive (and thus weaved) ones. I know that you already have the means to do this, as there are sets that require consecutive light attacks.

So, halve the damage of non-consecutive light attacks, preserve the damage of consecutive light attacks, and there’s no need to touch heavy attacks at all. That kind of change would be a far more focused change than what you have here on this PTS, in that it would more precisely target weaving without as much collateral damage to bystanders.

---

PART 2: Durations

I remember the days when Wall of Elements lasted for just 6 seconds; in 2019, this was increased to 10 seconds. I—and most people—believe that the duration increase in 2019 was the right move. It made the skill easier to manage and on the whole things felt better as a result of this duration change.

So, here we are, three years later, looking at another duration increase. This time, I’m not on board with these changes. Why not?

For short durations, the main problem is that they require a lot of micromanagement. You need to pay attention to that Wall and recast it every 6s, and people will often forget and lose potential damage.

For long durations, the problem is that you are more severely penalized for an early recast. Recasting a 20s Wall at or before the 10s mark is a loss: you would’ve been better to use a spammable instead. You don’t get the full benefit of Wall being 2x the power of a spammable unless you let that single cast of Wall go for the full 20s.

Which brings us to a key problem: I feel like that this duration change makes no sense outside of the sterile environment of target dummy testing.

• Dungeons and trials: @ZOS_Finn said in an interview that they are actively looking at making sure that fights incorporate movement. The first boss of Graven Deep, for example, is constantly dashing around the room. And there are fights where there are specific burst windows in which to hit the boss: Olms and Archcustodian, for example. For dungeons and trials, around 12 seconds was a sweet spot; you could usually get most of a 12s ground DoT in a mobile fight, and 12s lines up well with burst-window fights like Olms and Archcustodian. 20-second DoTs that do less than a spammable until after the 10s mark are just not worth using in many fights.
• Overland: Do overland fights last long enough for 20s DoTs to make sense? The existing 10s DoTs are already too long for the vast majority of open world encounters, with World Bosses being the most notable among the few exceptions.
• PvP: Ground DoTs are already mostly useless in PvP because people will just sidestep them. The lower damage per second will make ground DoTs even less effective at applying pressure and make them even less effective at denying areas. And when fighting classes with accessible class purges (Templars and Wardens), 20s “sticky” DoTs make absolutely zero sense to use, since it’s very likely that they will be removed before they could do more damage than just a spammable skill.

So, in short, buffing durations from 6s to 10s did help with the goal of making effects easier to manage. But there is a limit to how much further increases can help, and in a large number of “real world” scenarios, 20s durations just make no sense. This change is simply incompatible with what combat is like in reality, outside of an artificial target dummy testing environment.

(Aside: I think for self-buffs--e.g., Crit Surge--long durations are fine, but most of those self-buffs already have long durations.)

So, what can we do instead? If the goal is to make timer-watching easier, then consistent timers are more important than long timers. For example, on Live, Stampede leaves behind a 15s AoE while Twisting Path leaves behind a 10s AoE. Disparate timers means that I need to watch both timers separately, whereas if they both had the same timer, I could say to myself, “every time I refresh my Path, I should refresh my Stampede too”.

A timer consistency pass to synchronize durations would’ve helped tremendously with the timer-watching problem, without the myriad of problems with the current long-duration approach.

But instead of timer consistency, we just got long timers. As Nefas demonstrated in his PTS DK parse video, the rotation is still complicated, because the timers are all over the place. Some abilities are shorter than 20s, some are longer, and so he still needs to watch a bank of timers. This isn’t really much easier, and in real combat situations, you need to also constantly ask yourself, “should I be refreshing my Eruption now, or will the boss be moving away soon?”.

Furthermore, not everything was buffed. I mostly play as a tank, and Clench applies a 15s taunt, a 5s Major Maim, and a 4s Minor Brittle. That’s three different timers for one ability, and neither the 5s maim or the 4s brittle were buffed at all by the long duration changes. An even more forgettable 30s blockade means nothing to me when I still need to refresh Clench every few seconds to keep Maim and Brittle up.

Next, a lot of buffs come from sets. One good example is Powerful Assault, which lasts for 10s. The skill most often used by a tank or healer to proc Powerful Assault is Echoing Vigor, which also happens to last for 10s. On Live, all I need to do is to keep Echoing Vigor up, and I know that I’m also refreshing Powerful Assault when it’s needed. But on PTS, with the longer duration, now the timers don’t match, and I’d often forget to refresh the Powerful Assault buff. So, instead of making things easier, this change actually made things harder and worse. Frankly, it looks like very little thought was put into all of this.

Finally, there has been much said already by others about the tick-every-2s change. From worries about how heals will line up with incoming damage in difficult content that often tick for more than once per second (Example of how many damage ticks a tank could take in 1.4s) to concerns about how this will affect set and enchantment procs.

---

PART 3: Power Creep and Content Creep in PvE

The two problems that I see right now in ESO's PvE endgame are:

• There is a large power gap.
• New vet HM content is balanced around what is possible at the top end.

First, I want to give people some idea of what I mean when I say “large power gap”. For example, my weekend group got another Dawnbringer (Kyne’s Aegis trifecta) a few months ago. Our group has Godslayer, and this was our second Dawnbringer, so you can probably say that we’re part of that “elitist 0.1%”. Anyway, for that Dawnbringer run, we killed the second boss in 1m 46s. Recently, a group on EU set a new world record for Kyne’s Aegis. And their second boss kill time was 58s: it was almost twice as fast. So there is a pretty wide power delta even between the 0.1% like us and the competitive 0.01% like them, and this is not even considering the power gap between us and groups that are just able to clear vKA HM, the power gap between those kinds of groups and people who don’t even participate in vet HM content, and finally the power gap between those those who just do vet non-HM and people who don’t even participate in vet content.

And this power gap is growing. I’ve been participating in vet trials since 2016, I’ve never seen the power gap as high as it is today.

So, there’s a large (and growing) power gap. But by itself, a large power gap isn’t a huge problem, except that in ESO, the trials team seems to be targeting those 0.01% people at the very top when they balance the new hard modes. Looking at Rockgrove’s HM, for example, the group DPS required to clear Oax HM cleanly and the DPS required to beat the DPS check on Xalvakka HM is higher than the DPS required for Godslayer.

The end result of this large (and growing) power gap is that the two most recent trial hard modes are less accessible than the four most recent trial hard modes that preceded them; I actually don't have a Rockgrove HM clear because my group got frustrated with how it was so overtuned and voted to leave the trial. This is why there are so many players who will cry bloody murder at even the faintest whispers of a power nerf for them. For the vast majority of players, the stuff at the top end is already out of reach, and you are now telling them that, for their own good, they’ll lose power. It should be no surprise to anyone that this will elicit hostility from many players.

Also, power creep isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it means that people who can’t tackle the latest hard modes might have a chance to do so in the future. This is especially true since new content balance takes this power creep into account. People have come to expect power creep each patch to help bring inaccessible content closer within reach, and telling everyone that you intend to roll back power creep is, um, controversial, to put it lightly.

Conversely, balancing for the top end is okay, when there isn’t a huge power gap. If the difference between what we can do and what a world record group could do is only 10-20%, then it’s fine for trials to be balanced around “if there's a group that could pull it off, then it’s fine”. But when that gap is as large as it is today, that just means that far too many players are excluded.

It’s the combination of a large power gap and balancing for the top that is causing problems.

And as someone else has pointed out in their PTS feedback, not everyone sees this power creep. Seemingly every patch, new things are added that are not universally accessible. New buffs to keep up (e.g., Minor Brittle), new sets to juggle around and maintain uptimes for, new "kiss-curse" mechanisms offering power to players skilled enough to deal with the "curse", etc. All of these things provide opportunities for players and groups with the wherewithal to efficiently take advantage of new sources of power, while most players will not see their benefits. This is why when I recently joined a number of vet trials PUGed out of Craglorn, I still saw 8-minute Yolnahkriin non-HM kills that don't seem any faster than what I saw in PUG runs a couple of years ago, while at the top end, Yolnahkriin kill times have gone down with each new world record that gets set.

The power creep that we see is predominately power creep at the top, because it's power that requires skill and group coordination to extract, and this is why we have an ever-increasing power gap.

But NONE of the changes being proposed in Update 35 targets any of this. Hard-to-maintain effects are unchanged (e.g., Minor Brittle is still 4s, buffs and effects from sets like Powerful Assault are unchanged, etc.), so that gap between groups that are able to efficiently maintain that effect and most other groups is untouched. It doesn't change that there is an ever growing number of supportive item sets that well-coordinated groups are able to work into their composition, while more casual groups will not have them.

Take, for example, the Bahsei's Mania item set. It grants the player power if their magicka is low. Skilled players will start a fight by dumping their magicka, and will have calibrated their sustain so that their magicka level remains low without running out. They're able to extract a lot more power out of this item set than the average player, thus contributing to the growing power gap. And then the power gap that was expanded upon by this--and many other new sets or new combat mechanics such as Brittle--are compensated with by disruptive changes in long-standing combat mechanics, resulting in nerfs for players who had never taken advantage of this new power in the first place. This is why these changes are frustrating for so many players.

But at the end of the day, I’m perfectly okay with there being a large power gap and power creep, as long as content isn’t balanced for what the top end is capable of doing. Let them have their portal-skip Cloudrest; that trial is still hard for the vast majority of groups even today, but that’s fine, because Cloudrest and the achievements in Cloudrest were never tuned for those kinds of “tippity-top” groups (to borrow phrasing from Rich). It’s when you have things like DPS checks in Rockgrove HM and insane speedrun time requirements in Dreadsail HM that are clearly aimed at those “tippity-top” groups that the power gap becomes a major problem in PvE. Let score competition be the (open-ended) outlet for those groups at the apex of the game, and buff up leaderboard rewards for them, but stop balancing achievements and even just hard mode clears around that level of play, and you'll have a much healthier raiding scene where more things are accessible to a greater range of player power. And perhaps then, people will not be as likely to react with such strident hostility to the prospect any power being ripped away from them.

Perfect, beautifully written.

FantasticFreddie

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we want to follow up on the conversations around the U35 combat changes. First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback. We have been reading your feedback and reviewing the testing data since PTS launched earlier this week, and we are continuing that process. We are exploring some adjustments based on testing findings for PTS week 3 and beyond. We’ll share details about those next week.

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue our testing on the PTS - please keep the hands-on feedback coming.

Well, this was a depressing read.
"We made a plan and are going to implement it whether you like it or not, because this is what we made and if we don't roll it out we have nothing to show for ourselves from the last few months. Maybe we will tweak some numbers so y'all don't mass quit. We need to at least pretend we plan to adjust them because we are so out of touch we had no idea you guys would be so pissed off at this. I'm just here to buy time for the devs."

zoobmer

So literally anyone with above average level skill is having their power nerfed, and the further people are from the aevrage, the bigger their change in power. This is your goal, correct? The issue here is just how much of the game's content requires high level power. If all above average players are having their power nerfed, then all above average difficulty content must be nerfed as well. Everything above normal Craglorn trials is becoming more difficult due to the nerf in player power. The highest quartile of content is becoming nearly impossible, if not completely impossible, for even high end players. If you truly want high end content to be accessible to mid level players, then the content needs to be nerfed to meet said players.

tmbrinks

Remember they said the same thing about AwA. I think it was 18 days later we got a Q&A that didn't answer any questions brought up in the nearly 100 page thread on that change. They then went forward with all the changes pretty much just as they were in PTS1.

Frankly, I don't believe you. Previous actions have given me no faith (trust as Rich would say) that our opinions matter.

Truthfully, they don't. You all are the developers, you can do whatever you want. But so can I, and our continued patronage of the game is what keeps the lights on.

RevJJ

I understand that changes cannot be done overnight. But with this amount of uproar it would be better if there was more communication than “just give it a couple of weeks”. Players have already quit because they expect that PTS feedback will be ignored (because most of the time it is). There are many more that are in waiting mode to see if it goes live like this, and if it does they will quit as well.

It’s doing irreparable damage to trust that was already thin to begin with, not just to ESO but possibly the whole company.

In a few years when the Star Wars MMO that ZOS is working on will be released, I’ll probably think “oh nice, a new Star Wars MMO! Let me try… oh wait it’s by ZOS. Never mind”. And I’m sure I won’t be the only one.

sbr32

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we want to follow up on the conversations around the U35 combat changes. First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback. We have been reading your feedback and reviewing the testing data since PTS launched earlier this week, and we are continuing that process. We are exploring some adjustments based on testing findings for PTS week 3 and beyond. We’ll share details about those next week.

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue our testing on the PTS - please keep the hands-on feedback coming.

While I appreciate you coming in to try to stem the tide, with all due respect many of us have been through 4 PTS cycles a year for many years and know that " Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5" is just untrue. Whatever harebrained scheme is posted for PST1 is going to be on the live server in 6 weeks, no matter how much feedback is given. Bugs, poor balance, broken game mechanics are all ignored in the push forward.

Even if there were to be some number shifting this time it's not enough, this entire rework needs to be pulled back and rethought.

EDIT: I guess there have been 2 times that significant changes have been made after PTS1 notes went out, shield cast times and the other time you tried to change LA&HAs. There are all far worse than those ideas.

sbr32

RevJJ wrote: »

I understand that changes cannot be done overnight. But with this amount of uproar it would be better if there was more communication than “just give it a couple of weeks”. Players have already quit because they expect that PTS feedback will be ignored (because most of the time it is). There are many more that are in waiting mode to see if it goes live like this, and if it does they will quit as well.

It’s doing irreparable damage to trust that was already thin to begin with, not just to ESO but possibly the whole company.

In a few years when the Star Wars MMO that ZOS is working on will be released, I’ll probably think “oh nice, a new Star Wars MMO! Let me try… oh wait it’s by ZOS. Never mind”. And I’m sure I won’t be the only one.

Yep. I will never invest any time, money or energy into another ZoS project again. Ever.

Kusto

Nerfs are fine as long as classes are balanced. I don't wanna play different class only because mine got destroyed. Currently necro and templar are way ahead others. Either nerf them more or buff others.

Faulgor

Ditronus wrote: »

I like increasing dot duration to mitigate stacking dot abilities. But the gameplay is largely the same right? You still buff, dot, spam, repeat...but now you just spam a whole lot more before you dot/buff again. The game needs new abilities that are cooldown-based, proc-based, or specific class-based resources and mechanics, like necromancer corpses.

Everything in ESO plays the same, just different numbers, names, and animations. The dots and buffs are easier to manage now, but that just exacerbates the issue of how horrible spammables work towards interesting combat; why would I feel spamming the same ability even more now, with its dated animation, is engaging or exciting?

Again, this patch has great direction, but these changes just make the game easier while also making it more repetitive and mundane by creating a more spammy playstyle. There's a lack of variety of ability types (cooldowns, procs, etc.) to create builds with.

ESO, every class and build: Buff, dot, spam (now even longer), repeat.

One would think that adding more play style options with easier rotations would be a good path to accessibility.
That's why heavy attack builds were always popular, and jab-jab-jab Templar was recommended for newer players.

Frankly, that's pretty much all they'd have to do to close the gap. Make more options viable. Consecutive light attack builds, heavy attack builds, combo-focused rotations, channeled-focused rotations, cast-time focused rotations, whatever.
Anything else but "cycle through your DOTs and then spam, and don't forget your weaves".

QueuesAsTanks

I took a mag warden through vMA on the PTS this week. Sets were PFG, Iceheart, Mother's Sorrow.

Good:

• I love the changes to mag bird (Screaming Cliff Racer* (edit - mixed these morphs up)). The live version sort of fights the range requirements of Shalks and begs for a different spammable (what does the class do best, close/intermediate fighting or very far away?). The current version is a lot of fun to rack up spell damage stacks then move in to time up with Shalks and the bear ult.
• Falcon's Swiftness (Bird of Prey) has a little bit more utility to justify the slot over the damage barboosting Camo Hunter, probably even in group scenarios. It's a more interesting choice than it used to be and fleshes out the Warden's jack-of-all-trades feel.
• Bear's stun doesn't go off as often, which I appreciate for CC-immunity reasons.
• Swarm was much more valuable and should be even more so for healers in smaller groups.

Mixed:

• In 5 light armor / mag shalks, I did not have any pen issues and so the Advanced Species passive from Animal Companion was a loss from live. Stamdens or medium armor users may feel differently.
• L2P issue for me, but the Scorch timing is going to take some time to re-learn. I did not succeed in waiting out the 10s second hit more than twice and constantly re-cast the skill early. I do think there's more potential for mag shalks than previously but it will take time to unlock. I also re-cast the first shalk more than once; that 1-2-3-1-2-3 pattern has been ingrained ever since I started playing Warden and the rhythm is weird.
• The Winter's Embrace survivability tools were really non-starters. They look worth some re-evaluation on a tank, but on a solo DPS, I didn't have to make any hard decisions about what deserved a barslot. Similarly, the buff to the Frozen Armor passive didn't end up mattering much at all to my DPS when I took off my ice skills, but it should be a boon to a tank.
• Orb sustain was great. I'd rather have 20% orb damage, especially since the warden's unique magic damage modifier doesn't get a lot of play elsewhere, but the class does have some resource issues and the 100 mag/stam return was nice.
• I thought the light attack descaling would matter more than it did. I felt weaker, and CMX bears that change out, but I didn't notice it while weaving LA/birds.
• I did not dip into hybridization or stamina sets / skills at all. Part of that is good - mag shalks are worthwhile, mag bird is more than worthwhile, resource management is easier, etc. On the flip side, it got old pretty quick. The run was about 45 minutes and I can't imagine bringing a mag warden to anything longer than that without getting bored.
  

Bad:

• General combat. I think I spent about 75% of my casts just lobbing birds across the room. This number was probably higher on boss rounds. After a short while, it got tedious, and I had to stretch my hands once every wave to ward off carpal tunnel. I think I'd need a LOT of Advil to take this class into a prog environment where the same boss is repeatedly getting pulled, then briefly DoT-ed, then birds birds birds for five minutes. Since DoTs were wearing off well after enemies had moved/died to bird, I felt as though I were somehow overcasting my backbar skills while simultaneously only hitting one frontbar skill.
• My survivability was worse because encounters took longer.
• Winter's Revenge on Live has a niche as one of two ice skills in the game that can actually put out damage (the other being Ice Comet). It's cool (heyo!) to feel like an ice mage and a serious threat, but in current PTS form, the skill is gutted; I basically stopped casting it as enemy waves went on. It doesn't do enough damage or tick effects in trash to be worth casting instead of bird, yet trash mobs are (were?) the perfect case for a spell like Winter's Revenge. On top of that, the Warden's passive increase to all Magic and Frost damage gets frost leverage on only the one skill, so it's disappointing to see that skill didn't feel worth casting.
• Because Birds demanded I be a little farther away, there was no decision about either bar's weapon to be made. I went fire staff/fire staff. I get that Carve and Stampede were in need of some sort of nerf, but currently there's no case to be made (outside exclusively Brittle roles) for magden to bar anything other than inferno staves.

PTS Mag Warden feels a bit like Birdman more than a well-rounded nature mage, but at least that old reliable bird is fun. I would probably get bored of flinging birds at things for two hour stretches in a trial environment. I have not parsed on this character and honestly feel bored just thinking of parking exactly seven meters from the dummy and telling it about my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie for upwards of four minutes.

Pretty please do not obliterate damage to the current extent. I understand that sorcs are a lil overtuned at the moment, and I mainly play Necro, but very few Magdens or Stamplars are lighting up the logs; it's confusing to see beginner-friendly classes like these get the chopping block.

Oshea_OK

As an average player (over an year playing now), I wanted to test my skills see if the I, as an average player, is helped by the update 35.

So I did some testing on my Magic Templar (Orders Wrath, Plague Break (Ice Heart with Normal Maelstrom staff) vs Oakensoul)

Without Oakensoul.

(This is my personal best parse. I normally get low 30's running Hack the Minotaur builds such as Nova Shield) (as you can see I am average talent or below?)

38k dps.
27k dps. (on PTS)

With Oakensoul.
44k dsp
27k dps (PTS)

As is, update 35 guts me as an average player.
Interestly, was getting around 27 k for both builds on the PTS.

Doing 40-45k with oakensoul makes it so that I can solo harder stuff and its fun doing it. It gives me 6k more damage and makes me more tanky.

At about 27k with or without Oakensoul, I cannot solo hard content on the current PTS, unless I run Nova Shield and just take forever doing it.
Obviously since Oakensoul does not add any dps to me, at MY skill rank, it is useless. Unless I can get at least close to 35k and more, it wont be a big enough help to enable me to solo harder content. I would assume at Hack's skill level or Deltia's level they can make it work, but not someone at level. This is counterinitiative , since the Patch says it is meant to help players like me, but it is doing the opposite. And oakensoul is adding 0 dps to help me.

I have notice the Major heroism really helps my dps, and helps me contribute more in a group dungeons runs. I know it might be overkill for Pvp, but for average players, it helps alot to contribute more in group runs. I mean, if you doing a random vet dungeon, would you want those average players spamming Elemental Storm or not being able to? I wish they could just disable Battle Spirit with Oakensoul and just leave it as is, because for me it is so helpful in Pve.

And only getting 27k with a maelstrom staff and monster helm and two bars is just sad.

I hope the developers find this helpful.

wenchmore420b14_ESO

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

I'm absolutely appalled by the lack of communication. It's pretty clear that people don't like this patch, and yet the only dev replies we get are related to a bugged helmet and some cp glitch. I wonder if they even see our feedback...

After the AWA fiasco, with 100's of pages and 1,000s of feedbacks, and ZERO response from ZoS, I have NO faith in them acknowledging anything we have to say or even if they care if we give feedback on these new combat changes, which are horrible. Rich asked us for "trust". Lol. Yea, that went out the window years ago with dev's ignoring the community and feedback.

JustAGoodPlayer

I play a lot of different builds - not only one - META - that people cry and nerf others to make it the best.
And other players who did not like it for all this years are now not happy.

So if you want really changes that can help i can say what from current live patch is possible to do to make game better - just ask me.

If it is some trolling - of players ... well OK it looks already like it so no need for me to say anything else I will just look silently what will be next.

After such changes - like now on PTS i already will not know what to do )

If current changes is to make complete chaos - and fully new balance ... ok not bad to.

but if it will be based on some LOR and human logik and casting HA (may be even fire castig HA like a flamer) - will be some thing even not best but playable - i will just silently wait )))

ErMurazor

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback.

Just a heads up to anyone posting here. If you don't provide detailed, constructive, hands on, practical, informative feedback. Don't bother posting your thoughts and feelings around theese changes. Well im being a bad boy here and don't listen to Mr Kevin. Theese combat changes sucks for everyone and you are killing your own game. Hows that for some feedback?

wolfsilver00

[snip] I recommend that everyone just unsubs the moment this update comes out. Unsub, go do something productive or play something else, vote with your wallet. Its a shame that I will have to do that, I really enjoy the game, but at this point this is just insulting towards the community, I *** paid for this ***, and I kept paying for the sub, im your *** customer so the least you could *** do is answer my *** concerns and those of the people that have expressed the same issues.
ANd not an answer with that PR [snip] about changes and tweaks.. A real *** answer, [snip]

VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET PEOPLE, UN *** SUB

[edited for bashing & profanity bypass]

ESO_Nightingale

wolfsilver00 wrote: »

[snip] I recommend that everyone just unsubs the moment this update comes out. Unsub, go do something productive or play something else, vote with your wallet. Its a shame that I will have to do that, I really enjoy the game, but at this point this is just insulting towards the community, I *** paid for this ***, and I kept paying for the sub, im your *** customer so the least you could *** do is answer my *** concerns and those of the people that have expressed the same issues.
ANd not an answer with that PR [snip] about changes and tweaks.. A real *** answer, [snip]

VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET PEOPLE, UN *** SUB

That is in the plans for me. Already started catching back up on WoW. Just finished the main quest of zereth mortis on my frost mage alt.

[edited to remove quote]

ErMurazor

Unsubbed

FeedbackOnly

🥺 please notice this

Restoration Staff now restores 2970 Magicka, down from 3219.

This isn't balance because destro staff has built in sustain passive based in kills along with cp passive to resto magicja based on kills

DPS have a lot more methods to sustain then healers.

FeedbackOnly

Screaming Cliff Racer (morph): This morph now increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 100 for 10 seconds after hitting an enemy and increases by an additional 200 when hitting an Off Balance enemy, rather than increasing its damage by up to 15% based on your distance from the enemy. The bonus Weapon and Spell Damage is tracked separately so you do not need to worry about losing the bonus when hitting an enemy that is no longer Off Balance.


Please make sure this is balanced with sorc passive that increases spell and weapon damage. It seems to me sorc passive needs a buff

ESO_Nightingale

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Screaming Cliff Racer (morph): This morph now increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 100 for 10 seconds after hitting an enemy and increases by an additional 200 when hitting an Off Balance enemy, rather than increasing its damage by up to 15% based on your distance from the enemy. The bonus Weapon and Spell Damage is tracked separately so you do not need to worry about losing the bonus when hitting an enemy that is no longer Off Balance.


Please make sure this is balanced with sorc passive that increases spell and weapon damage. It seems to me sorc passive needs a buff

I don't understand what your problem with warden is, but i don't think you understand that offbalance has a pretty long cooldown. This spammable is still roughly designed and while it's a bit better, it's still not as good as something like molten whip. You don't seem to have paid attention to advanced species being entirely crippled for pve because it's now penetration instead of damage. Which is a much better comparison for the sorc weapon and spell damage passive.

FeedbackOnly

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

Screaming Cliff Racer (morph): This morph now increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 100 for 10 seconds after hitting an enemy and increases by an additional 200 when hitting an Off Balance enemy, rather than increasing its damage by up to 15% based on your distance from the enemy. The bonus Weapon and Spell Damage is tracked separately so you do not need to worry about losing the bonus when hitting an enemy that is no longer Off Balance.


Please make sure this is balanced with sorc passive that increases spell and weapon damage. It seems to me sorc passive needs a buff

I don't understand what your problem with warden is, but i don't think you understand that offbalance has a pretty long cooldown. This spammable is still roughly designed and while it's a bit better, it's still not as good as something like molten whip. You don't seem to have paid attention to advanced species being entirely crippled for pve because it's now penetration instead of damage. Which is a much better comparison for the sorc weapon and spell damage passive.

They tend to historically get buffs without looking at other classes.