PTS Update 35 - Feedback Thread for Combat Balance Changes

Pet

QueuesAsTanks wrote: »

The only case to be made for living with 1/2 frequency HoTs would be if enemy encounters behaved according to the same GCD rules. If the reason behind spacing out HoTs has to do with server load, would changing the rate of enemy DoT effects to 1/2 seconds while doubling enemy effect duration (similar to the player nerfs) be a reasonable workaround? I think that endgame healers would become very bored, but it would produce less server strain, and new healers wouldn't get kicked for constantly failing these .33s checks.

Looking beyond just the scope of what my original post said, this would fix pve if they made this adjustment yeah, but then we have pvp. HoTs only ticking every 2s is insanely bad there especially with how high dmg is and will continue to be in pvp.

Krym

keto3000 wrote: »

I completely support the current business model of our game. I'm interested in increased accessibility to game items that affect power, damage output and performance.

but this is also the case for any DLC dungeon. if you only got the base game (and now morrowind), what you're asking for is also making the better dungeon gear that "affect power, damage output and performance" accessible to everyone with only the base game.

if you mean they have access to it via eso+ - this is the same for mythic items, every chapter becomes part of eso+ besides the current. so all people buying the chapter get is earlier access.
and even if you don't have eso+, there are at least two eso+ trials per year (one was just last week) where you can grab what you need if you wanted to (which includes stuff like ring of the pale order. and once found you can refabricate it, an update btw which was completely free for everyone). if ZOS hasn't nerfed it this also includes learning jewelcrafting. all without ever paying for more than the base game (which you can get for 6 bucks).

it's also a moot point since mythics are not required for most content or "winning" in general. they are an option. just as dlc dungeon gear.

adamsmith42 wrote: »

It's not just top end teams either... *both* of the raid leads for my two prog groups left the game... the kind of people you claim this is to help (been doing vet trials for maybe 2 months; the groups were around vMoL HM)

just for clarity, you mean both those groups where doing vMOL HM? content from 2016 which was done with way less damage than groups do now to the point they can just nuke the twins in the middle of the room in less than 90 seconds without bothering with mechanics at all? even if ZOS keeps the current nerfed numbers (they won't), that's still far above what is needed or the raid was ever designed with.

as for all the dooming about raid guilds, not only is it summer, there's also a bit more going on right now than usual. how do the 3 groups I personally know putting their raids on hold or changed schedules long before U35 details were ever announced fit into the current narrative?

Pevey wrote: »

The best thing ZOS could do as a crisis response is to (ASAP) make a statement to the playerbase along the lines of:

While we still believe in the vision of our stated goals, we have been listening to feedback, and we now can see clearly that the changes we proposed do not accomplish those goals. We are going to take the unprecedented step of reverting these combat changes to give us time to go back to the drawing board. We still believe in the goal of making content more accessible to a greater portion of the playerbase, but we understand now that these changes do the opposite and are a flawed approach. There are much better and much less disruptive ways that we can accomplish these goals.

If they did something like that, and they did it quickly, it could actually generate a lot of support from the community and maybe even turn this whole experience from a debacle to a somewhat positive thing. They could say, look, we do listen. And we did have a plan, these changes were not random. But they also WAY missed the mark, and we see that, and we see that minor adjustments are not the answer. We need to change the approach, and that will take some time.

except that's always the case, nerf the damage and you'll ALWAYS get "overwhelming feedback from pretty much every corner of the playerbase". the same playerbase btw which complains about weaving, content being too hard, the game not teaching everything properly (besides 8 year of guides on the internet about it) and myriad other issues.

it's easy to say "don't do it, say you're sorry, and then do it in a way I (and everybody else) likes". winning the lottery the probably has a higher chance than that ever happening, because you can never reduce a players damage. so good luck ever trying to "fix" what people complain about.

so, let's brainstorm: how would YOU (as a general "you" before mods perceive that as some kind of attack....) accomplish it without making the game less fun, have the players like them AND accomplish the stated goals. it's a feedback thread after all.

tim77

i hate u35 because i dont see why heavy attacks are affected at all. HA builds were always on the lower end, i dont know any "ceiling dps" which use HA builds. Pretty sure none of the trifectra people using it at all. Yet it was constantly nerfed the last few patches and with u35 literally vaporised.

I have a HA Sorc with Crit Surge as selfheal, he was always on the lower end of everything (but still the most fun to play for me of all my toons).
This playstyle will just be deleted by ZOS and i dont get why.

To raise the floor but not the ceiling, they should buff lightning HA, not delete it.

keto3000

Krym wrote: »

keto3000 wrote: »

I completely support the current business model of our game. I'm interested in increased accessibility to game items that affect power, damage output and performance.

but this is also the case for any DLC dungeon. if you only got the base game (and now morrowind), what you're asking for is also making the better dungeon gear that "affect power, damage output and performance" accessible to everyone with only the base game.

if you mean they have access to it via eso+ - this is the same for mythic items, every chapter becomes part of eso+ besides the current. so all people buying the chapter get is earlier access.
and even if you don't have eso+, there are at least two eso+ trials per year (one was just last week) where you can grab what you need if you wanted to (which includes stuff like ring of the pale order. and once found you can refabricate it, an update btw which was completely free for everyone). if ZOS hasn't nerfed it this also includes learning jewelcrafting. all without ever paying for more than the base game (which you can get for 6 bucks).

it's also a moot point since mythics are not required for most content or "winning" in general. they are an option. just as dlc dungeon gear.

adamsmith42 wrote: »

It's not just top end teams either... *both* of the raid leads for my two prog groups left the game... the kind of people you claim this is to help (been doing vet trials for maybe 2 months; the groups were around vMoL HM)

just for clarity, you mean both those groups where doing vMOL HM? content from 2016 which was done with way less damage than groups do now to the point they can just nuke the twins in the middle of the room in less than 90 seconds without bothering with mechanics at all? even if ZOS keeps the current nerfed numbers (they won't), that's still far above what is needed or the raid was ever designed with.

as for all the dooming about raid guilds, not only is it summer, there's also a bit more going on right now than usual. how do the 3 groups I personally know putting their raids on hold or changed schedules long before U35 details were ever announced fit into the current narrative?

Pevey wrote: »

The best thing ZOS could do as a crisis response is to (ASAP) make a statement to the playerbase along the lines of:

While we still believe in the vision of our stated goals, we have been listening to feedback, and we now can see clearly that the changes we proposed do not accomplish those goals. We are going to take the unprecedented step of reverting these combat changes to give us time to go back to the drawing board. We still believe in the goal of making content more accessible to a greater portion of the playerbase, but we understand now that these changes do the opposite and are a flawed approach. There are much better and much less disruptive ways that we can accomplish these goals.

If they did something like that, and they did it quickly, it could actually generate a lot of support from the community and maybe even turn this whole experience from a debacle to a somewhat positive thing. They could say, look, we do listen. And we did have a plan, these changes were not random. But they also WAY missed the mark, and we see that, and we see that minor adjustments are not the answer. We need to change the approach, and that will take some time.

except that's always the case, nerf the damage and you'll ALWAYS get "overwhelming feedback from pretty much every corner of the playerbase". the same playerbase btw which complains about weaving, content being too hard, the game not teaching everything properly (besides 8 year of guides on the internet about it) and myriad other issues.

it's easy to say "don't do it, say you're sorry, and then do it in a way I (and everybody else) likes". winning the lottery the probably has a higher chance than that ever happening, because you can never reduce a players damage. so good luck ever trying to "fix" what people complain about.

so, let's brainstorm: how would YOU (as a general "you" before mods perceive that as some kind of attack....) accomplish it without making the game less fun, have the players like them AND accomplish the stated goals. it's a feedback thread after all.

TY, Krym, for your consideration, however, I specifically stated that I am ONLY suggesting that MYTHIC items be made available/accessible in-game.

The same way that:

Crafted jewelry (exclusive to Summerset) was made available/accessible to players who did't yet have Summerset.

Transmute stones & ACCESS to another player's Transmute Station was available/accessible to players who didn't yet have ClockWork City.

Mythics could be made available/accessible to players who don't yet have Greymoor (see my OP).

The point is not moot, imho, since Mythics are a big part of alot of players' builds.

Cheers, keto

Matteo11

U35 will have the opposite effect of its stated intention, making this game more difficult and grueling for everyone.

Especially hard on the new players it aims to help.

Nerfing LA damage would've been extreme enough on its own, and buffing the duration of Target DoTs might be another thing. but you are turning the game upside down for too many players in this patch. Ground DoTs feel bad on mobility fights. Direct Damage/spam attacks feel bad. Class identity skills like Jabs, Bound Arms and more will be kicked to the curb while homogenous skills become the norm.

There is no win here, and no benefit to players.

Everything from overland content, to leveling up and Trials will simply be more of a slog. ZOS wants more players to step into VET but groups are only gonna get tighter and less inclusive when the dps requirements are more intensive.

The least impacted will be top tier players who are already in a secured raid group. Everyone else is going to suffer more.

ZOS- you are looking really punishing the time, effort and money that people put into this game. This Updated could deal serious damage to the community, and this game's market position can't this kind of loss.

I think its time you took a long, hard look at your strategy here.

Dust_Wolf

This patch is pretty bad. It will not only spoil the game for experienced players, but also complicate the game for beginners. At least, thanks to this patch, it will be much more difficult for new players to find a party in tests, in static. If you release this patch, you will greatly spoil the game.

Krym

K9002 wrote: »

I'd like to bring up much less ambitious but more common DPS checks than trial encounters.

something else to bring up:

for BC2 especially, damage isn't the real problem, the only timer is killing a deadroth faster than a new one spawns. the faster you do the larger the window to bring down rilis. keeping them alive is only required for the HM (and only at the end). so kill one, damage the boss intbetween, kill the next one, rinse repeat. will it take long? sure, but what do people expect with low dps? helmets drops with or without HM. of course this also requires to hit the right target at the right time, including the healing orbs. mechanics exist for a reason. maybe not having to watch their bar the whole time helps them actually do it for a change...

same goes more or less for most other base game dungeons. you got to hit the bare minimum damage requirements; you can only burn through it if you have enough surplus DPS.
and again, those dungeons are from 2014 which were done successfully with a fraction of the damage and resources players have now.

plus for anyone who really can't or don't want to do it: all of those helmets and shoulders are on the golden.

Tanis-Stormbinder wrote: »

My thoughts, leave Oakensoul as is or at least give it Major or Minor Slayer this way it doesn't effect PVP. Leave the Dots alone, game play is way to boring with the extend dots. Isn't that why you introduced Oakensoul so people in need wouldn't have to switch bars?

one guy in your group with a vHOF set or roaring opportunist makes that bonus completely irrelevant, so you sacrificed a bar for nothing. even worse when you wear lokkestiiz (or any trial set really).

Jazraena wrote: »

Your changes are incomplete and inconsistent and are contradicting your mission statement.

just quick, since that's a discussion I had elsewhere recently:
what's your solution? because there isn't one.
what you're proposing is either make the ultimate final patch of patches, then never touch it again. anything below is "incomplete and inconsistent". I won't mention that this implies this final forever patch will have the perfect balance, every future content is perfectly balanced against this single patch, and players don't find loopholes or ways the devs can't foresee. otherwise they failed obviously and contradict their mission statement.
and never mind you got people in this very thread complaining that this patch already changes too much at once.

the other option, the one we know and love, is the devs changing stuff it increments, then (try to) balance it for that patch. is it more work? sure. but good luck telling the players "well, we don't do it all for now, just wait a few months till we finally get to it". pvpers especially would pop a vein after hearing that (more than they usually do at least).

sets were overhauled to fit the combat and numbers at the time. same for hybrids. same for U35 with the current state of the game. mind you they didn't touch status effects and duration at all (besides changing the charged trait again). when U35 is done at some points inevitably sets are gonna get changed again (like some this patch). and so forth....

siddique

Krym wrote: »

K9002 wrote: »

I'd like to bring up much less ambitious but more common DPS checks than trial encounters.

something else to bring up:

for BC2 especially, damage isn't the real problem, the only timer is killing a deadroth faster than a new one spawns. the faster you do the larger the window to bring down rilis. keeping them alive is only required for the HM (and only at the end). so kill one, damage the boss intbetween, kill the next one, rinse repeat. will it take long? sure, but what do people expect with low dps? helmets drops with or without HM. of course this also requires to hit the right target at the right time, including the healing orbs. mechanics exist for a reason. maybe not having to watch their bar the whole time helps them actually do it for a change...

same goes more or less for most other base game dungeons. you got to hit the bare minimum damage requirements; you can only burn through it if you have enough surplus DPS.
and again, those dungeons are from 2014 which were done successfully with a fraction of the damage and resources players have now.

plus for anyone who really can't or don't want to do it: all of those helmets and shoulders are on the golden.

Tanis-Stormbinder wrote: »

My thoughts, leave Oakensoul as is or at least give it Major or Minor Slayer this way it doesn't effect PVP. Leave the Dots alone, game play is way to boring with the extend dots. Isn't that why you introduced Oakensoul so people in need wouldn't have to switch bars?

one guy in your group with a vHOF set or roaring opportunist makes that bonus completely irrelevant, so you sacrificed a bar for nothing. even worse when you wear lokkestiiz (or any trial set really).

Jazraena wrote: »

Your changes are incomplete and inconsistent and are contradicting your mission statement.

just quick, since that's a discussion I had elsewhere recently:
what's your solution? because there isn't one.
what you're proposing is either make the ultimate final patch of patches, then never touch it again. anything below is "incomplete and inconsistent". I won't mention that this implies this final forever patch will have the perfect balance, every future content is perfectly balanced against this single patch, and players don't find loopholes or ways the devs can't foresee. otherwise they failed obviously and contradict their mission statement.
and never mind you got people in this very thread complaining that this patch already changes too much at once.

the other option, the one we know and love, is the devs changing stuff it increments, then (try to) balance it for that patch. is it more work? sure. but good luck telling the players "well, we don't do it all for now, just wait a few months till we finally get to it". pvpers especially would pop a vein after hearing that (more than they usually do at least).

sets were overhauled to fit the combat and numbers at the time. same for hybrids. same for U35 with the current state of the game. mind you they didn't touch status effects and duration at all (besides changing the charged trait again). when U35 is done at some points inevitably sets are gonna get changed again (like some this patch). and so forth....

What most people are talking about here revolves primarily around three things:
1. Complete rework or drastic changes to combat every 3 months.
2. Changes that do NOT align with the stated goals.
3. Lack of class diversity and boring combat with the latest changes.

Classes were pretty balanced in High Isle. Nobody asked for these changes. They don't fix the problem the devs are saying they are aimed at fixing, rather they increase that problem.

Content made in 2014 could be done yes, but content made in 2021 or 2022 was made with the given state of DPS and healing. Which has now become impossible/inaccessible by the majoroty of the playerbase in an attempt to make it "accessible". Therein lies the problem.

A couple of patches ago they nerfed toggle with a dev comment that said that toggle was helping people who had perfected their skill (i dont remember exact words, but on the same lines) so they are nerfing it, basically to punish skill acquired with practice? Why is this a reason?

And all their attempts to bridge that gap between casuals and endgame has been to punish endgame players for being good. This has resulted in the already miniscule endgame community leaving in droves.

So, in the end, these absurd changes go forward, who is hurt the most? Endgame or casuals?

Groups who already have PB and SS or groups who were close to getting GS or maybe about to get that vRGHM clear? Or even vSSHM? I can assure you, its not the former. And this is why these changes are bad. It shows the utter disconnect of the devs with the status of the game.

The only way they can fix this is come out clean. "Guys, we messed up. We are reverting this combat changes and we'll work around tweaking the combat in the future rather than overhaul it completely because some guy had a random brainwave while sitting idle at their desk."

Krym

keto3000 wrote: »

TY, Krym, for your consideration, however, I specifically stated that I am ONLY suggesting that MYTHIC items be made available/accessible in-game.

The same way that:

Crafted jewelry (exclusive to Summerset) was made available/accessible to players who did't yet have Summerset.

Transmute stones & ACCESS to another player's Transmute Station was available/accessible to players who didn't yet have ClockWork City.

Mythics could be made available/accessible to players who don't yet have Greymoor (see my OP).

The point is not moot, imho, since Mythics are a big part of alot of players' builds.

Cheers, keto

jewelry still requires access to summerset (according to UESP). the only way to get it is buy the dlc, have eso+, or play during one of it's trials. and if you have access to summerset via eso+ (no point in buying the dlc really), you have the same access to greymoor.

mythics being a "big" part doesn't mean it's a required or necessary part, and then is still only applicable for mythics from the the latest chapter. a lot of players' builds use wading kilt, which is a blackwood item. and blackwood became part of eso+ last month.

point is the "pay 2 win" argument was only borderline valid the year greymoor was the current chapter (because the only way to get it was to buy it).

Trundik

Elf bane set should be reworked with this patch, because now it adds 5 seconds to fire dots duration. I doubt someone will use it after, but just in case if someone will, there is two points about it needs improvement:
5 secons boost compared to 10 or 15 second duration was 50% or 33%. Now, compared to 20 seconds duration its only 25%. Besides if dots will tick each 2 seconds, then 5 seconds doesn't fit it properly.

Also sets like Oblivion foe, which adds 10 second dot by proc form soul trap, should be changed to 20 seconds duration too, because in another way its performance will be cut by half, because player should renew sould trap at half duration to get this proc dot effect.

Third point is cruel flurry. With dots prolongation to 20 seconds overall damage buff with this skill adjustment set will seriously fall, and for addition it will be slotted without use most of the time, unless flurry isn't your only spammable.

Eirikirs

Pevey wrote: »

The best thing ZOS could do as a crisis response is to (ASAP) make a statement to the playerbase along the lines of:

While we still believe in the vision of our stated goals, we have been listening to feedback, and we now can see clearly that the changes we proposed do not accomplish those goals. We are going to take the unprecedented step of reverting these combat changes to give us time to go back to the drawing board. We still believe in the goal of making content more accessible to a greater portion of the playerbase, but we understand now that these changes do the opposite and are a flawed approach. There are much better and much less disruptive ways that we can accomplish these goals.

If they did something like that, and they did it quickly, it could actually generate a lot of support from the community and maybe even turn this whole experience from a debacle to a somewhat positive thing. They could say, look, we do listen. And we did have a plan, these changes were not random. But they also WAY missed the mark, and we see that, and we see that minor adjustments are not the answer. We need to change the approach, and that will take some time.

I think everyone already understands how such a statement could look like, and ZoS don't need instructions of how to do so. I agree with your sentiment, and hope they do pull back on these proposed changes, but wish you wouldn't have posted such a condescending comment. Allow the devs to have their own voice.

Pet

tim77 wrote: »

i hate u35 because i dont see why heavy attacks are affected at all. HA builds were always on the lower end, i dont know any "ceiling dps" which use HA builds. Pretty sure none of the trifectra people using it at all. Yet it was constantly nerfed the last few patches and with u35 literally vaporised.

I have a HA Sorc with Crit Surge as selfheal, he was always on the lower end of everything (but still the most fun to play for me of all my toons).
This playstyle will just be deleted by ZOS and i dont get why.

To raise the floor but not the ceiling, they should buff lightning HA, not delete it.

It's broken in pvp, I suspect that's why HAs are being nerfed.

Krym

siddique wrote: »

What most people are talking about here revolves primarily around three things:
1. Complete rework or drastic changes to combat every 3 months.
2. Changes that do NOT align with the stated goals.
3. Lack of class diversity and boring combat with the latest changes.

Classes were pretty balanced in High Isle. Nobody asked for these changes. They don't fix the problem the devs are saying they are aimed at fixing, rather they increase that problem.

Content made in 2014 could be done yes, but content made in 2021 or 2022 was made with the given state of DPS and healing. Which has now become impossible/inaccessible by the majoroty of the playerbase in an attempt to make it "accessible". Therein lies the problem.

A couple of patches ago they nerfed toggle with a dev comment that said that toggle was helping people who had perfected their skill (i dont remember exact words, but on the same lines) so they are nerfing it, basically to punish skill acquired with practice? Why is this a reason?

And all their attempts to bridge that gap between casuals and endgame has been to punish endgame players for being good. This has resulted in the already miniscule endgame community leaving in droves.

So, in the end, these absurd changes go forward, who is hurt the most? Endgame or casuals?

Groups who already have PB and SS or groups who were close to getting GS or maybe about to get that vRGHM clear? Or even vSSHM? I can assure you, its not the former. And this is why these changes are bad. It shows the utter disconnect of the devs with the status of the game.

The only way they can fix this is come out clean. "Guys, we messed up. We are reverting this combat changes and we'll work around tweaking the combat in the future rather than overhaul it completely because some guy had a random brainwave while sitting idle at their desk."

the quoted post was specifically talking about content from 2014. for recent content they never stated if it's easy or hard enough for the right amount of people able to do it (we simply don't know their metric). rest of the content is apparently easy enough to sell carry runs...
besides, current content will be nerfed and get easier over time too, yet no one complains about that. doing BC2 now is hardly comparable to 2014.

as for the 3 points:
1. again, how would you even do extensive reworks without overwhelming players or make them "drastic?"
2. the stated goal was to bridge the gap and make it more accessible to lower players. LA nerf hits the high end more than the low end. longer dots make rotations less frantic, more controllable and gives players more time to react to what else is going on in combat. those are the two big changes and they accomplish exactly what the devs stated. the other two are damage numbers, which will change one way or another during the PTS, and the oakensoul ring (which is complete garbage, I agree, but that's because pvp STILL is not separated for balancing, even with battle spirit).
3. completely subjective. classes are apparently still different enough that some get shafted more than others. also not everyone is playing on a maximum efficiency meta level (most content doesn't even require it) where logically are less options since there will always be a "X is better than Y" situation. "boring" combat highly depends who does it and where. parsing at a dummy isn't "combat".

>Classes were pretty balanced in High Isle.
according to whom? certainly not this forum.

>So, in the end, these absurd changes go forward, who is hurt the most? Endgame or casuals?
so, what's your proposition to bridge the gap? again, complaining is easy. that's why the same endgame players who are getting the stick now (and have profited for years from powercreep btw) do it when zos would just buff casuals outright.
EVERY change will affect people differently, in many different ways. even NOT changing anything will affect players because a stagnant game is boring.
reminder there's also a lot of whining EVERY patch, because again some people will always be affected more and getting hit with a nerf. yet suddenly, come high isle, "classes were pretty balanced". maybe hindsight is 20/20.

Jazraena

Krym wrote: »

as for the 3 points:
1. again, how would you even do extensive reworks without overwhelming players or make them "drastic?"

That would depend on the target of the rework, wouldn't it? Not something one can give a generic answer to. Generally however wide-sweeping changes should be a) Rare (they're not) b) necessary (probably, in all honesty) and c) well-thought out, targeted and addressing at least most predictable side-effects (they're not).

Krym wrote: »

2. the stated goal was to bridge the gap and make it more accessible to lower players. LA nerf hits the high end more than the low end. longer dots make rotations less frantic, more controllable and gives players more time to react to what else is going on in combat. those are the two big changes and they accomplish exactly what the devs stated. the other two are damage numbers, which will change one way or another during the PTS, and the oakensoul ring (which is complete garbage, I agree, but that's because pvp STILL is not separated for balancing, even with battle spirit).

Many of us agree with the stated goal. The problem is that their changes do not work towards that goal. They make it worse. The LA changes are the least of anyone's concerns... except for werewolves, who loose 40% of damage and haven't ever been at the competitive top. Similar losses occur for heavy attack builds that, too, have never been at the competitive top. The DoT changes sound good, until you realize that their negligence causes durations to be far more over the place than before, thus complicating rotations, not simplifying them. TLDR: Missed the mark, mid to low end of players hurt more than the competitive top.

Krym wrote: »

3. completely subjective. classes are apparently still different enough that some get shafted more than others. also not everyone is playing on a maximum efficiency meta level (most content doesn't even require it) where logically are less options since there will always be a "X is better than Y" situation. "boring" combat highly depends who does it and where. parsing at a dummy isn't "combat".

I play off-meta exclusively. Many of my builds get shafted far beyond reason because ZOS neglected to address side effects. Example: Storm-Cursed's Revenge, Draugrkin's Grip, Deadly Strike, Elf Bane and every other set that scales with number of damage sources / ticks, DoT Duration or DoT Damage. My weakest character literally gets her damage cut in half.


It's an unfinished mess that misses it's target. It needs rework, then it may be considered again.

code65536

I took my weekend group into Kyne's Aegis and ran the trial on Hard Mode this weekend.

For context, this is a group that has been running together for years. We had some fills for this PTS run, but it's not a "PUG". This group had recently gotten our second Dawnbringer earlier this year, so we are pretty experienced with this trial, though we are not a competitive group and we don't push for score. For example, the world record for Kyne's Aegis is around twice as fast as ours, so we are by no means at the top.


First, damage is down:

We had a clean deathless kill of the second boss. When we got Dawnbringer, the kill time was around 2 minutes (1m 59s). On the PTS, it was around 3 minutes, or about 50% longer (2m 51s). Total group single-target damage on the boss dropped from 713K to 522K, a loss of 27% total group boss single-target damage.
Logs:

February: https://www.esologs.com/reports/1QB2jMcA7fy6WKX3#fight=12&type=damage-done&target=72
U35 PTS1: https://www.esologs.com/reports/Ac79WDYBFkTbf6xn#fight=15&type=damage-done&target=83

This damage loss was most acutely felt on the first boss, which is arguably the boss that is most sensitive to DPS levels
in Kyne's Aegis. That fight was exceptionally long and messy, in large part because there was more mechanics overlap due to things not dying as quickly. I expect that for groups that are more casual than ours that are just on the line for clearing the first boss will have a much harder time after the patch.


Aside: Change fatigue

Yes, I expect that we could claw some of that damage back with adjustments and people getting more used to things, but why is this even necessary?

I know a group that disbanded recently (prior to the announcement of the PTS), and one of the contributing factors was that every patch, people had to adjust, which meant some people swapped classes, reworked their builds, etc., and then it took time to become comfortable and familiar with those changes, and by the time the dust has settled, it was almost time for the next patch and round of adjustments.

At this point, many players don't even care if a change is perceived as good or bad. They just want stability. And when the changes that cause that instability are also generally perceived as being bad, that just makes things so much worse. Stop treating the combat in this game as some sort of lab experiment.


Second, the healing changes are harmful:

I picked Kyne's Hard Mode specifically because the execute phase of Falgravn is a well-known heal check.

We did two pulls of Falgravn and did not clear, but it was enough to see and feel the changes. Here are the raw healing logs for execute phase:

February: https://www.esologs.com/reports/1QB2jMcA7fy6WKX3#fight=17&type=healing&start=1996321&end=2204555&options=8
U35 PTS1: https://www.esologs.com/reports/Ac79WDYBFkTbf6xn#fight=22&type=healing&start=4987325&end=5203543&options=8

On first glance, the healing numbers appear similar. But the devil lie in the details. First, with the reduction in the power of HoTs, both healers had to resort to using more Combat Prayer spam to compensate. This is very resource-intensive, however, and both healers reported sustain issues. The figures below show the healers' magicka levels during execute:

February:
U35 PTS1:

When we wiped, both healers had basically run out of resources.

Second, there were a few random deaths among people who were standing in heals. This sort of thing basically never happened during our Dawnbringer prog: if there's a death in execute, it's because the player did something wrong. But on the PTS, we had deaths where, upon reviewing the death recap and the circumstances surrounding the death, we could not find any error. They just died. Because with HoTs ticking every 2s and the ambient, unavoidable Unstable Energy damage ticking every second for over half the health bar of anyone who is not a tank, all it takes are some unfortunately-timed heal ticks to kill someone.

In our case, we had the added misfortune that one of those random deaths was a healer, which in Falgravn HM is an express ticket to a group wipe.

I'm certain that if we had tried more pulls, we could've cleared it, but it would not have been the kind of clean execute that we're all used to.

All this makes no-deathing vKA HM much harder and even just clearing Falgravn HM much more difficult. It is clear--and alarming--that there was zero consideration for difficult PvE content when these changes were made. And, let's be frank here: this is not the first time something like this had happened. The harsh nerfs in Morrowind meant many groups that had been reliably clearing vMoL HM prior to the patch lost the ability to, and it took a number of patches to repair the damage that had been done. If anyone at ZOS is wondering why players are reluctant to extend "trust", here is the reason.


Other changes:

1. The DoT changes mean that there is a lot more reliance on spammables. And with Molten Whip now costing both stam and mag, our mag DK reported stam sustain issues with whip spam, which got him killed a number of times on the first boss (a fairly stam intensive fight due to the number of mechanics that need to be blocked).
2. The Spirit Guardian changes make it all but useless for tanks in endgame PvE who are dealing with massive amounts of incoming damage. This is a significant nerf for the necro tank's mitigation toolkit. Why not give the Spirit Guardian the same invulnerable treatment as other player pets in group PvE instances?
3. @skinnycheeks tested the Oakensoul Ring during this run, and he reported that it was still reasonably effective. This is not surprising, as many of the Major buffs that were removed are available from the group. E.g., Major Berserk from sorc atros, Major Courage from the healers, etc. So the impact of the Oakensoul nerf is less severe for organized groups than it is for a solo player seeking an accessibility option. In other words, the intended target audience--solo players seeking accessibility--are more severely impacted by the Oakensoul nerf.

Korsario

I love the patch if possible i would say keep the dot dps as it was but very good changes! Thank you ZOS

Vex.1337

I am a new ESO player but a 12 years veteran of other MMOs like WoW and GW2 who didn't play on your test realm but I like the fact that you wish to change light weaving attacks. I don't have an opinion about DoTs since I don't play with them so far but I think that if you nerf their dmg maybe it should be added somewhere else, maybe in the direct dmg instead so that the player doesn't feel weaker when doing the same content.
You could also go back and retune all the old content like dungeons and raids if you want to lower players' DPS but that requires a lot of work to be done on your end.

I started playing this game about 3 weeks ago mainly for the story. However, once I got to the max level I started looking on youtube for guides on how to improve and one of the things that was constantly mentioned in all videos was learning how to do light attack weaving as it can increase your DPS by more than 50%.

From what I understand light attacks aren't on the 1 second global cooldown and can basically be done before any action ingame that has a GCD basically doubling your actions per minute. If you have 10 skills on your two bars by adding light attacks before every ability you have to do 20 actions instead, of course it is more complicated that this since abilities have different cooldowns but so far this is how I understand that it works.

In my opinion, this appears to be a bug that should have been fixed while ESO was still in beta, even the animations look clunky when you do a light attack+ability in the same second.

Just nerfing the LA attacks isn't enough, and I think you should decide if it is a mechanic you want in the game or not, as you won't be able to please both camps, you cannot have the cake and eat it too.

If light attack weaving is supposed to be an integral part of your game please make sure your new players know about it during the tutorial of the game. Having to learn about it from youtube, especially when it can increase your DPS by 50% it is not a good new player experience and of course, you end up having a big delta between people that know about it and those that do not.

Suddwrath

code65536 wrote: »

At this point, many players don't even care if a change is perceived as good or bad. They just want stability. And when the changes that cause that instability are also generally perceived as being bad, that just makes things so much worse. Stop treating the combat in this game as some sort of lab experiment.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Tommy_The_Gun

keto3000 wrote: »

LACK of IN-GAME ACCESS to MYTHIC items for Base-Game-Only players

This makes the game PAY-TO-WIN for many Base-Game-Only players, which include fixed income players, students, those with heavy family expenses, lower incomes, etc....

Since we are discussing Accessibilty issues including OAKENSOUL, 1 Bar setups, & the push to "close the skill gap" between newer and veteran players in both PvE & PvP, let's also discuss the P2W lack of in-game access to MYTHICS, in general.

CONSIDER:

Clockwork City's exclusive access to Transmutation Station:

Access ALLOWED for Base-Game-Only players since they could use that station in other players' home & still be able to use earned their Transmute Crystals.


Summerset's exclusive access to the Jewelry Station:

Access ALLOWED for Base-Game-Only players since they could get jewelry crafted by another player who does have access.


HOWEVER:

Greymoor's exclusive access to Antiquities System & Mythics:

Access DENIED to MYTHIC ITEMS for Base-Game-Only players since LEADs cannot be acted upon, and, for players that have Greymoor and the Antiquities system, may still be DENIED since they cant access leads in un-owned DLCs, etc.[/b]


ZOS Please FIND A WAY to allow in-game access to all MYTHIC ITEMS for Base-Game-Only players:


--A weekend vendor exclusive for MYTHIC items?

--Event tickets to earn fragments for specific Antiquity Leads (as an alternate path to digging) that are found, then later combined to form that MYTHIC?

--Earned vouchers redeemable at Rolis?


Thank you. in advance, for consideration.

Cheers, keto

You have touched on a very interesting & important subject and while it may not be strictly a "combat balance" topic - without a doubt power creep & OP sets or dlc classes or skill lines are used to generate revenue. So I believe that this is also an important feedback for the devs, so they could adjust stuff better & pass some information to other teams that handle monetisation.

If the most important reason to buy new content is to stay competitive vs other players - then something is wrong. Players should have other, more important reasons to buy new content. Other than making their PvP character stronger or increase their PvE DPS. Look no further than the recent update (Oakensoul set) or even a couple of years to the past (Zaan set). The pattern repeats every time there is a new update. Because - here is the most important part - competitive players - for the most part actually hate P2W stuff. Forcing players to spend extra cash, just to stay competitive is a very predatory practice.

With that being said, ESO is still in a decent spot, when compared to competition. Take a WoW for example. Recently I was interested in playing that game, since the new upcoming update for WoW actually looks nice. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that WoW, in 2022 still requires you to pay sub, just to stay competitive as "free" player still has a level cap & other restrictions (which pretty much means that since WoW is marketed as F2P game, a subscription makes it P2W when compared). But, just because one company does a even more horrible stuff, it should not be a justification for other company to also do P2W stuff, but in a lesser scope.

TLDR:
Most important thing I would like to say that it is bad when way stronger stuff is locked behind additional payments. There should be a way to obtain everything that gives an additional advantage - just by playing the game.

It could be done in a variety of ways. For example - adding crown coffers (tradable containers with crowns currency inside) to the crown store. That way, players who play the game could still, legally & officially buy crowns for gold (from guild traders), but it would not cut any potential cash income.

Other idea is even simpler - just make ALL gear tradable. Mythics, DLC dungeon gear... everything.

^ That way players will be able to get the gear without additional payments and therefore the whole argument of most "P2W" elements is gone forever.

I know this topic is about combat feedback, but I think that unfortunately, at this point, it is kinda tied to monetisation, so keep that in mind, as over time it is getting more & more noticeable. Power creep behind paywall is never good.

siddique

I picked this from a publicly available log of vkahm they did on PTS. This death page proves how out of touch the devs are with their own game. And goes on to prove exactly what code said earlier.

Jazraena

code65536 wrote: »

Aside: Change fatigue

Yes, I expect that we could claw some of that damage back with adjustments and people getting more used to things, but why is this even necessary?

I know a group that disbanded recently (prior to the announcement of the PTS), and one of the contributing factors was that every patch, people had to adjust, which meant some people swapped classes, reworked their builds, etc., and then it took time to become comfortable and familiar with those changes, and by the time the dust has settled, it was almost time for the next patch and round of adjustments.

At this point, many players don't even care if a change is perceived as good or bad. They just want stability. And when the changes that cause that instability are also generally perceived as being bad, that just makes things so much worse. Stop treating the combat in this game as some sort of lab experiment.

The entire post is insightful, but I'd just like to quote this part again for emphasis. Change Fatigue has been an issue for a while now. These changes now are even more severe than those in the past.

And because these changes are incomplete and do not address side effects as I cannot state often enough, you will have to make changes again to fix that. AKA it'll all happen again a few months down the line.

Please, just stop this sledgehammer approach. Stop smashing everything every few months to then slowly glue the pieces back together.

HEIIMS

code65536 wrote: »

At this point, many players don't even care if a change is perceived as good or bad. They just want stability. And when the changes that cause that instability are also generally perceived as being bad, that just makes things so much worse. Stop treating the combat in this game as some sort of lab experiment.

Personally, I don't think that the changes themselves are that bad, the rate at which they are being implemented is. Having one "bigger" patch a year with more "severe" changes could keep things fresh. But I have to agree that this seemingly constant going back and forth of unending sweeping changes builds fatigue really fast no matter if you're more casual or absolute 0.01% endgame giga chad. Especially when the changes are wonky, and require further adjustment following next few patches to be about fixing what was wrong from previous one. And it's the same story year after year almost. Endgame players adapt every time, but fatigue is building, new players have to either stop "chasing the meta" or are forced to dedicate more time/energy into activities they were already doing (such as their build or trial/dungeon progression). This is why we see fewer and fewer endgame groups running content, and most of the midgame/pre-endgame groups are forced to deal with constantly coming and going players which heavily reduces team synergy up to a point the group has to disband or switch to an easier trial/dungeon and start over.

With less experienced players around, endgame becomes harder and harder to reach, which decreases the amount of people who can teach others about the game (builds and guides can only go so much, you usually need at least one experienced player in the team to help guide others). So it's no surprise that progressively less people have access to newer more difficult content despite the theoretical damage numbers being much much higher than in the past (I started playing around murkmire release).

Another false claim that has been thrown around is that it's only the endgamers who are the most affected ones. Which is simply not true. Longer DoT duration only works "on paper" or in very specific cases. Leaving the rest of community to be affected in a negative way. Just look around this very thread, we have people with 10-30k DPS posting results of their testing losing 10-50% of their current DPS on live (and a 2k DPS loss for someone who's capable of 20k is a lot more crippling than 15k DPS loss to someone who can pug godslayer for fun). What endgamers really care about is that these changes will make the game a lot less fun for us while at the same time decreasing accessibility for everyone else. Rendering these changes completely unnecessary (at least as they are presented right now).

LA weaving or even just parsing high numbers are very little pieces of what makes the 0.01% as good as they are. The skill gap in both pvp and pve exists to a multitude of reasons. You can't simply "patch in" the skill gap (key word here being skill ). I really hope developers will consider adjusting the changes or even shelving the whole idea for now. Yes, change is scary, and change is good but only when it's reasonable and grounded. As it stands now, it seems to be neither.

jecks33

Vex.1337 wrote: »

I am a new ESO player but a 12 years veteran of other MMOs like WoW and GW2 who didn't play on your test realm but I like the fact that you wish to change light weaving attacks. I don't have an opinion about DoTs since I don't play with them so far but I think that if you nerf their dmg maybe it should be added somewhere else, maybe in the direct dmg instead so that the player doesn't feel weaker when doing the same content.
You could also go back and retune all the old content like dungeons and raids if you want to lower players' DPS but that requires a lot of work to be done on your end.

I started playing this game about 3 weeks ago mainly for the story. However, once I got to the max level I started looking on youtube for guides on how to improve and one of the things that was constantly mentioned in all videos was learning how to do light attack weaving as it can increase your DPS by more than 50%.

From what I understand light attacks aren't on the 1 second global cooldown and can basically be done before any action ingame that has a GCD basically doubling your actions per minute. If you have 10 skills on your two bars by adding light attacks before every ability you have to do 20 actions instead, of course it is more complicated that this since abilities have different cooldowns but so far this is how I understand that it works.

In my opinion, this appears to be a bug that should have been fixed while ESO was still in beta, even the animations look clunky when you do a light attack+ability in the same second.

Just nerfing the LA attacks isn't enough, and I think you should decide if it is a mechanic you want in the game or not, as you won't be able to please both camps, you cannot have the cake and eat it too.

If light attack weaving is supposed to be an integral part of your game please make sure your new players know about it during the tutorial of the game. Having to learn about it from youtube, especially when it can increase your DPS by 50% it is not a good new player experience and of course, you end up having a big delta between people that know about it and those that do not.

Excuse me but you play by 3 weeks so basically you know nothing about the game except for some info caught on some random YT video, your character probably isn't at cp160 and clearly you don't have a rotarion but you are suggesting to completely remove light attacks from the game? for real?

katorga

HEIIMS wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

At this point, many players don't even care if a change is perceived as good or bad. They just want stability. And when the changes that cause that instability are also generally perceived as being bad, that just makes things so much worse. Stop treating the combat in this game as some sort of lab experiment.

Another false claim that has been thrown around is that it's only the endgamers who are the most affected ones. Which is simply not true. Longer DoT duration only works "on paper" or in very specific cases. Leaving the rest of community to be affected in a negative way. Just look around this very thread, we have people with 10-30k DPS posting results of their testing losing 10-50% of their current DPS on live (and a 2k DPS loss for someone who's capable of 20k is a lot more crippling than 15k DPS loss to someone who can pug godslayer for fun). What endgamers really care about is that these changes will make the game a lot less fun for us while at the same time decreasing accessibility for everyone else. Rendering these changes completely unnecessary (at least as they are presented right now).

Heh. 20s dots will be useless, a waste of GCD and resources, in the majority of content. They may be useful in endgame content, but the majority of players will continue to be unable to do that after the changes.

I don't think it is more complicated than this:

1. balance skills and gameplay against target dummies
2. Scan forum subjects and nerf anything that gets complained about

Based on tweets, developer videos and other public statements, a healthy bit of resentment towards their players probably factors into the changes.

Krym

Jazraena wrote: »

That would depend on the target of the rework, wouldn't it? Not something one can give a generic answer to. Generally however wide-sweeping changes should be a) Rare (they're not) b) necessary (probably, in all honesty) and c) well-thought out, targeted and addressing at least most predictable side-effects (they're not).

yet at the same time whenever something changes a) it's either too much or not enough b) needs to be done 2 patches ago c) needs to be perfect.
people want fixes for their issues obviously, but when it requires (too many) changes (since too many people want different things) that's suddenly bad. there's simply now way to do it in a way that satisfies everyone. it's also no secret that ZOS does patches in a way someone HAS to take a loss, pve getting shafted because pvp being the most obvious (see oakensoul). ofc the logical "fix" would be to separate pve/pvp balance for good, but I can guarantee you that someone will complain about that too.

Jazraena wrote: »

Many of us agree with the stated goal. The problem is that their changes do not work towards that goal. They make it worse. The LA changes are the least of anyone's concerns... except for werewolves, who loose 40% of damage and haven't ever been at the competitive top. Similar losses occur for heavy attack builds that, too, have never been at the competitive top. The DoT changes sound good, until you realize that their negligence causes durations to be far more over the place than before, thus complicating rotations, not simplifying them. TLDR: Missed the mark, mid to low end of players hurt more than the competitive top.

when you start talking about werewolves, wanna talk about vampires too? because I probably doesn't need to tell you who got the short end of the stick here.
the problem is people assume EVERYTHING will be EQUALLY balanced. LA spam is and never was a valid strategy to generate high damage, when ZOS says they want to make help the lower end player out, that doesn't mean each and every playstyle will be buffed or even improved. what about the dude who likes to DPS with a shield? heck, I could go as far and say I play as an unarmed fighter, ZOS promised to buff me and my low damage, yet they didn't. did they miss the mark? it's a game, you gotta follow certain rules.

as for the durations, 20s is (almost) completely the baseline. any morphs or passive you have to look at a case by case basis. so yes, on paper DKs for example will have 3 skills with a 24s duration - until you notice 2 of those skills you want on the same bar for buffing whip (thus easier to track and keep up next to your spammable), the third one being the standard you fire and forget. there's also a difference between extending buffs for easier management and making each and every one exactly the same - which a) some people would call boring and b) not every skill serves the same purpose. a 60 second channeled acceleration means you have to recast it one time less for the same uptime, and even better you're less likely to have it run out in the middle of a fight. then compare the new cost to the new time and it's a clear buff in every aspect.

Jazraena wrote: »

I play off-meta exclusively. Many of my builds get shafted far beyond reason because ZOS neglected to address side effects. Example: Storm-Cursed's Revenge, Draugrkin's Grip, Deadly Strike, Elf Bane and every other set that scales with number of damage sources / ticks, DoT Duration or DoT Damage. My weakest character literally gets her damage cut in half.

It's an unfinished mess that misses it's target. It needs rework, then it may be considered again.

except you can still use those. are they as effective as before? obviously not (unless they get buffed, what you gonna say then? there was a time dot was king). every change you have adapt - which I get, it can suck, but that's literally what changes do. so you don't want your effectiveness changed, I don't want mine changed, and the rest of the thread theirs. where does us take that, not changes at all forever? there will never be a rework that works for everyone.
or, I don't see anyone else complaining rele, which was king for years (even more with hybrization) is less effective due to how DSR is designed. some people might like every fight being tank & spank, and others again might find that boring. heck that just reminds me rele being meta for so long everywhere was something a guildmate complained about 2 years ago, and was part of the reason he quit. so something changing or being less effective might actually make him come back (doubt it, dude hasn't logged in for 2 years, but you catch my drift).

Vex.1337 wrote: »

If light attack weaving is supposed to be an integral part of your game please make sure your new players know about it during the tutorial of the game. Having to learn about it from youtube, especially when it can increase your DPS by 50% it is not a good new player experience and of course, you end up having a big delta between people that know about it and those that do not.

it does, there's a loading screen tip talking about it. it's also not _that_ big a part, even by ZOS' own post it's only 15-20%.
part of this update is trying to reduce that number, thus make LAs (and being able to weave properly) less important to your overall damage. so if you come in from the low end not weaving much, you don't loose as much and have a lot more room for improvement since good weaving still gets rewarded with good damage, just not as much as before.
removing it completely would basically turn this combat into another game. from my own experience it can take a while to make it "click", sadly sometimes too long for some people. but once you figure it out, it can be very rewarding (which is probably one of the reasons they kept it in).

as for information in general, ESO has a quite a big "figure it out yourself" approach. some like it, some don't, both has it's pros and cons. inevitably people look up stuff on the internet anyway (would go as far and say it's common practice these days, no matter how good a game's information and tutorials are).

Katlefiya

Pet wrote: »

tim77 wrote: »

i hate u35 because i dont see why heavy attacks are affected at all. HA builds were always on the lower end, i dont know any "ceiling dps" which use HA builds. Pretty sure none of the trifectra people using it at all. Yet it was constantly nerfed the last few patches and with u35 literally vaporised.

I have a HA Sorc with Crit Surge as selfheal, he was always on the lower end of everything (but still the most fun to play for me of all my toons).
This playstyle will just be deleted by ZOS and i dont get why.

To raise the floor but not the ceiling, they should buff lightning HA, not delete it.

It's broken in pvp, I suspect that's why HAs are being nerfed.

It's not generally broken in PvP, but some classes - not all - have insane synergies with HA due to class abilities and buffs which happen to be easily obtained with the oakensoul ring.

I fail to see why we need to ruin all popular HA builds for PvE because of that.

Mr_Stach

Katlefiya wrote: »

Pet wrote: »

tim77 wrote: »

i hate u35 because i dont see why heavy attacks are affected at all. HA builds were always on the lower end, i dont know any "ceiling dps" which use HA builds. Pretty sure none of the trifectra people using it at all. Yet it was constantly nerfed the last few patches and with u35 literally vaporised.

I have a HA Sorc with Crit Surge as selfheal, he was always on the lower end of everything (but still the most fun to play for me of all my toons).
This playstyle will just be deleted by ZOS and i dont get why.

To raise the floor but not the ceiling, they should buff lightning HA, not delete it.

It's broken in pvp, I suspect that's why HAs are being nerfed.

It's not generally broken in PvP, but some classes - not all - have insane synergies with HA due to class abilities and buffs which happen to be easily obtained with the oakensoul ring.

I fail to see why we need to ruin all popular HA builds for PvE because of that.

Zos has a "Nuke it, then Scatter the Ashes" approach to balance. They Don't just nerf the build, they find the Build's Family and Nerf them too.

Every aspect gets the bat, the skills, the sets, the people who are just out getting groceries. That's the issue, Zos doesn't look and say "what particular piece is allowing this to happen?"

They look and say:

code65536

One more thought that has been rattling around in my head:

The change this patch came out of left field; we had just spent a year doing the whole hybridization transition, and just when it looks like the dust is settled and we can finally get some modicum of stability after years of exhausting changes (starting with the standardization passes after Elsweyr, which was 3 years ago), and "surprise!" we get the biggest disruption since Morrowind.

Two years ago, you guys handled things well by doing a special PTS to vet controversial changes. Why didn't you do that again this time? This is the sort of thing that would've benefited a lot from some community engagement early on, rather than springing this as a huge surprise on everyone.

New patches should be something that excite people and get them hyped up, and instead of getting excited over the new dungeons (I love dungeon DLCs, BTW), I'm sitting here worried about how the nerfs will affect our Dreadsail HM prog or even how many people will still stick around.

Often in the past, I've come across the sentiment, "we need to complete X before the new patch because we'll lose a few weeks as everyone adjusts". Well, for Update 35, it's more like, "we might as well start over". Do you think that players regard the constant changes as enjoyable? That we consider lost power and lost progress as fun? When preparing all the nerfs in Update 35, did anyone stop to ask, "will people think that this is fun?".

Ulfhethinn

It's a mistake to think that if you change one set of "over time" (oT) effects, then all oT must also be changed. The idea to make general buffs (ie those named Major/Minor <something>) longer that require skill activation is not a bad idea. But extending the idea that DoTs and HoTs must also be changed to have roughly the same durations is a deep mistake.

While DoTs and HoTs are meant to be longer term pressure/anti-pressure (whether pve or pvp), they shouldn't be extremely long as this patch makes it. They should have an shortish-intermediate length of time that needs to be coordinated with other skill activations and not fire-and-forget.

TLDR - increasing buff times is fine, but Hot/DoT changes should be reverted.

Krym

HEIIMS wrote: »

Another false claim that has been thrown around is that it's only the endgamers who are the most affected ones. Which is simply not true. Longer DoT duration only works "on paper" or in very specific cases. Leaving the rest of community to be affected in a negative way. Just look around this very thread, we have people with 10-30k DPS posting results of their testing losing 10-50% of their current DPS on live (and a 2k DPS loss for someone who's capable of 20k is a lot more crippling than 15k DPS loss to someone who can pug godslayer for fun). What endgamers really care about is that these changes will make the game a lot less fun for us while at the same time decreasing accessibility for everyone else. Rendering these changes completely unnecessary (at least as they are presented right now).

LA weaving or even just parsing high numbers are very little pieces of what makes the 0.01% as good as they are. The skill gap in both pvp and pve exists to a multitude of reasons. You can't simple "patch in" the skill gap (key word here being skill ). I really hope developers will consider adjusting the changes or even shelving the whole idea for now. Yes, change is scary, and change is good but only when it's reasonable and grounded. As it stands now, it seems to be neither.

half of those were done with the pts oakensoul, which anyone with even basic grasp of the game could see as obvious garbage for pve. saying "it affects lower players more!" isn't wrong, but it's also a completely separate issue.

and no, that doesn't mean the devs were "too stupid" to see that, it just means it being good for pve wasn't the goal of this change, the goal was to nerf it for pvp (since, arguably, an item throwing balance out whack in pvp is a more severe issue than pve, but I doubt a lot of pve players would agree).

as for "skill", some players can't or don't want to get on a level for a multitude of reasons, some of those how the combat in ESO works. and before anyone says "but the combat is great, what about it, they just need to git gud lol" - ESO's combat is usually the first thing people mention when they say why they quit. you can make the most convoluted combat system in the world, and there WILL be people lauding you for it (especially the ones that mastered it), but that doesn't mean it will get broad acceptation or more importantly sell the game. and that's ZOS main goal, no matter how much they change numbers here and there.
oh, and as much as people are complaining about the "boring" combat now or having "skill", I know at least 2 top parsers in my group were looking forward to wearing oakensoul. why? still enough damage, half the stress of pushing your buttons. funny how that works.