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PTS Update 35 - Feedback Thread for Combat Balance Changes

  • lordspyder
    lordspyder
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    I have been playing since Beta. This update may just cause me to uninstall. It locks me out of content. If I can't do content, then there is no reason to keep playing.
  • olsborg
    olsborg
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    https://clips.twitch.tv/PlumpRefinedPicklesEagleEye-GtjlMuRl25nta7Wg



    This was needing a change, but was not adressed.
    Edited by olsborg on July 11, 2022 10:02PM

    PC EU
    PvP only
  • Extinct_Solo_Player
    Extinct_Solo_Player
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    Vigor change doesn't make any sense at all, it didn't need major resolve and it it definitely didn't need a 22% heal nerf considering it's single target only. You should have just left it alone.
  • sabresandiego_ESO
    sabresandiego_ESO
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    This is the best patch in years. Fixes so much stuff and reduces power creep. Unfortunately players are too attached to the power level of their characters and simply can’t handle being made “weaker” even if it makes the game significantly better. And that’s why this thread is filled with masses of people who haven’t even tested the changes threatening to quit
    Ali Dreadsabre -Necromancer
    Ali Sabre -Nightblade
  • olsborg
    olsborg
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    Vigor change doesn't make any sense at all, it didn't need major resolve and it it definitely didn't need a 22% heal nerf considering it's single target only. You should have just left it alone.

    Major resolve on vigor does not make any sense to me, hurricane and ice fortress still too important to run, so you have to overlap buffs now, does not feel good, the healing nerf on the only HoT for stamina is too harsh too.

    PC EU
    PvP only
  • Amdar_Godkiller
    Amdar_Godkiller
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    olsborg wrote: »
    Vigor change doesn't make any sense at all, it didn't need major resolve and it it definitely didn't need a 22% heal nerf considering it's single target only. You should have just left it alone.

    Major resolve on vigor does not make any sense to me, hurricane and ice fortress still too important to run, so you have to overlap buffs now, does not feel good, the healing nerf on the only HoT for stamina is too harsh too.

    I see it as an indirect warden buff really. The warden skill that grants major resolve sucks.
  • virtus753
    virtus753
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    Jabs lost over 25% of its dps. Burning Light lost 33% of its damage per hit and can't hit more than once every other second on one target, down from about once per second.

    How does ZOS envision stamplar being viable in endgame with these changes when they give us nothing to make up for it? They want us to move away from Jabs to proc Burning Light, they say. They also lengthen DoTs (and nerfed Ritual's damage) so we can't use those more than 20 seconds apart, meaning we're going to be casting more of our spammables per rotation, not less. The spammable (and accompanying proc) that was just cut back terribly.

    I feel like a dog chasing its tail in circles with the lack of logic here.

    If our previous damage was "obscene," these nerfs are more so.
  • Malthorne
    Malthorne
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    d1f3sxawatuj.png

    Your honest feedback, aka “knee jerk reactions”’ are “tired and disappointing” according to the creative director.
  • adamsmith42
    adamsmith42
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    I just started playing in January and have been progressing into the more difficult content of the game; have cleared Flawless Conquerer and Spirit Slayer, Crag and vMoL HMs; rest of vet trials except HoF and DSR; after reading these patch notes I'm probably just going to quit playing if these changes go live; not only will I not be able to continue my progression through the content; I will no longer be able to clear the content I just spent the last few months working through... Are you guys trying to kill the game? Because this is how you kill a game.
    Edited by adamsmith42 on July 11, 2022 10:14PM
  • ajkb78
    ajkb78
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    There are some weird bits in these changes.

    I thought your goal was to make combat more accessible to newer players or those who don't have the luxury of super-optimised groups. But look: these are just some examples:

    Storm Atronach - fully ranked up cost stays the same, but base cost goes up to 275. This hurts newer players who don't yet have the skill ranked up.

    Heavy attacks - you claim you want to make heavy attacks more viable, but the marginal damage increase doesn't even come close to the fact that you miss a GCD in which you could cast an ability. A heavy attack takes 1.8 seconds; in that time you can cast a light attack, 1 ability and just reach the end of the cooldown and be ready to cast your next light attack. If you actually want to make heavy attacks nearly-but-not-quite as good as light attacks, start with a heavy attack doing the same damage as a light attack. Then add 80% of the damage done by a direct damage spammable (either melee damage standard for a melee weapon heavy attack or ranged damage standard for a bow or staff). Have this done as damage over time with a damage type corresponding to the type of weapon (bleed, elemental, I guess poison for bows) in order to limit the burst potential. Leave the resource restore as it is. And reduce the cast time to 1.5 seconds. You'll end up with a heavy attack that does a competitive amount of damage, offers resource restore but you'll still have to be super careful about when to fit it into your rotation, because you'll lose more total damage from the button press you miss if you heavy attack in place of a dot than if you heavy attack in place of a spammable.

    You want to reduce the power of dots but you've made them do twice as much damage in total as a spammable. Per button press, you get twice as much damage out of a dot as you do out of a spammable. The more dots you can fit into your rotation the better - you have to have a spammable, because there aren't 20 ability slots available, but we're back to dot meta.

    Given the whole point of the oakensoul ring was supposedly to help players who struggle with bar swaps, you've now brought its damage much further back from the meta. That might or might not be a bad thing, but it seems to be contrary to your intentions literally 1 patch ago.

    I'm not going to comment on the comparative damage of different classes, I guess that will come out over the next couple of weeks of PTS, but I do think it's a shame you haven't taken this opportunity to tweak some of the sorc skills a little. The buff to the atronach synergy is nice, but since they're just alternative morphs of the same skill there's no real opportunity to switch between them tactically during a trial, because you chose to monetize the armoury instead of allowing it to be a useful cross-platform alternative to dressing room. You could have done something useful like make the aoe ultimate provide guaranteed off-balance with a much greater uptime than you can get any other way and it could have been a very interesting alternative for sorc supports, now we have the exploiter CP option again. You could have fixed the almost useless tormentor special ability so that it was actually worth casting after the start of combat, and so that it was useful for more than 50% of the fight.

    I'm just left puzzled really. I think I see what you're aiming to do, but I don't understand how a lot of these changes will contribute to achieving it. Yes, overall damage will reduce a little. Not by as much as you perhaps think, because there are only so many dots one can have in a rotation so once they're cast the extended cast times will just allow for more spammables to be cast in the remaining rotation slots, and organised groups will just work harder on empower or find new set combinations to optimise for.

    Combat in ESO is unique. (Perhaps more by luck than judgement given the amount of changes there have been over the years - it never really seems like you have a strong vision for any kind of steady state you want combat to reach, but maybe the devs are all worshippers of Tzeentch and believe that perpetual change is good.) It's unique, and that's not a bad thing: there are lots of other MMOs that have rigid cooldown-based combat with no weaving. We're here, playing ESO, not playing those other games.

    Normally when a business achieves a product with a strong USP it doesn't try to water it down, it tries to double down on that USP and make the most of it. I've certainly spent a lot more on the game after my initial purchase than I did buying it in the first place and I think that's entirely typical. That USP is keeping me here and keeping me buying chapters, ESO+, crown store items etc. So please, however far your quest for perpetual change goes, please don't go *too* far and ruin the special sauce that makes this game unique. You nearly did with the proposed heavy attack change that fortunately got recognized as unplayably bad the other year: I don't think this is in that league of awfulness, but I do think that contrary to the idea of this being "the single big combat update for the year" you'll be left with a lot of fall-out and rebalancing to do in the Q4 update.
  • Hailan
    Hailan
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    This is just terrible. I hope for once you listen to your community and do not implement these combat changes, but odds are you won’t and you’ll kill your end game player base even more.
  • OnGodiDoDis
    OnGodiDoDis
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    This is the official feedback thread for the combat changes in Update 35. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:
    • Light and Heavy Attacks
      • Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?
        • If you did, was it better or worse in your experience?
        • What activities did you primarily feel the differences in, if any (parsing, dungeons, overland, dueling)? Please feel free to include before and after images of metrics on data, such as combat logs, to showcase your point.
      • Do you feel like Light and Heavy Attacks still provide meaningful impact to your play experience after the adjustments? Please explain your reasoning.
    • Damage over Time
      • Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?
        • If you did, was it better or worse in your experience?
        • What activities did you primarily feel the differences in, if any (parsing, dungeons, overland, dueling)? Please feel free to include before and after images of metrics on data, such as combat logs, to showcase your point.
      • After the balance changes, did you make changes to the amount of Damage over Time abilities your build utilized? Please explain any reasoning.
      • While using Damage over Time effects, did you notice any other impacts on your play experience?
    • Healing over Time
      • Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?
        • If you did, was it better or worse in your experience?
        • What activities did you primarily feel the differences in, if any (parsing, dungeons, overland, dueling)? Please feel free to include before and after images of metrics on data, such as combat logs, to showcase your point.
      • After the balance changes, did you make changes to the amount of Healing over Time abilities your build utilized? Please explain any reasoning.
      • While using Healing over Time effects, did you notice any other impacts on your play experience?
      • How do you feel about the healing experience and its overall impact in your primary activities (PvP/Dungeons/Solo/Trials)? Has your sentiment changed based on these PTS adjustments?

    You say you want magblades to be more powerful with the concealed weapon changes? I had my doubts, but it is now quite obvious that no one in the development team play the game. The people that use concealed are STAMINA nightblades. They run around, perma-cloaked, and gank people. Now you're going to make them even stronger. It is mind-boggling that you're giving them even more power, while Caluurion's is still out there.
  • DeathStalker
    DeathStalker
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    I would consider myself one of the people this patch is supposed to target. I've never been able to figure out weaving. I have severe limitations on my hands and wrists because of arthritis and can't do a lot of APM. With High Isle, I've been playing Stamina and Magicka templars a lot. Good damage and sustain with high survivability. I say good damage but for me, that means 20-25k dps on a 6 mil dummy wearing hundings briarheart and oakensoul. I have other classes to play with, one of each class at least. With a Templar, especially a magicka Templar, I seem to be able to do most of the content I come across. I can solo any public dungeon and even most world bosses. I don't do 4 man dungeons cause I know I'm terrible and don't want to ruin anyone's time playing and having fun.

    With all the above said to give context, I went on PTS to parse on my 6 mil dummy in my house. Templars first and could only muster around 12,500 - 15,000 dps. I found a similar drop on all classes with Necro seeing the smallest drop in dps from live. I worry if these changes go live, content I could clear before I won't be able to now. I wish I had recommendations but I don't. The damage nerfs didn't hit me as hard as some others have reported but they still hurt a lot. I also deeply dislike the oakensoul change and will consider it useless and stop using it if the current change goes live.
  • virtus753
    virtus753
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    Malthorne wrote: »
    d1f3sxawatuj.png

    Your honest feedback, aka “knee jerk reactions”’ are “tired and disappointing” according to the creative director.

    Then I would respectfully suggest he consider not whacking our patellar tendon so hard.
  • Sandman929
    Sandman929
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    Malthorne wrote: »
    d1f3sxawatuj.png

    Your honest feedback, aka “knee jerk reactions”’ are “tired and disappointing” according to the creative director.

    Imagine this dev team asking for a little faith in their mad skills...
  • vgabor
    vgabor
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    Did you guys tested the healing over time frequency changes in continuous high incoming damage situations like vKA HM main boss execute where the gap in healing ticks could wipe the party easily due the damage from the mechanics ticking continuously?
  • Tannus15
    Tannus15
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    The light attack nerf is bad, it's a huge dps loss, but whatever.
    I see literally no reason to nerf range light attacks an additional 10% but 10% of not much damage isn't something to care about. it's like, 200dps. whatever.

    the dot change is bad for the simple reason that it makes the spammable the most important skill on your bar by far. if you have a bad spammable then you have a bad build

    sustain will entirely depend on your spammable now. you can't leverage dots and skills from your secondary resource pool to help with sustain because you're not casting them enough for it to matter. this means something like 80% of your resource consumption now is from your spammable, so you better be able to sustain that. the additional flow on from that is that if you're not matching your armour weight to your spammable then you're in trouble.

    this patch has pretty much destroyed the past few "hybrid" patches by putting all the focus on the spammable.
  • Foxtrot39
    Foxtrot39
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    I would consider myself one of the people this patch is supposed to target. I've never been able to figure out weaving. I have severe limitations on my hands and wrists because of arthritis and can't do a lot of APM. With High Isle, I've been playing Stamina and Magicka templars a lot. Good damage and sustain with high survivability. I say good damage but for me, that means 20-25k dps on a 6 mil dummy wearing hundings briarheart and oakensoul. I have other classes to play with, one of each class at least. With a Templar, especially a magicka Templar, I seem to be able to do most of the content I come across. I can solo any public dungeon and even most world bosses. I don't do 4 man dungeons cause I know I'm terrible and don't want to ruin anyone's time playing and having fun.

    With all the above said to give context, I went on PTS to parse on my 6 mil dummy in my house. Templars first and could only muster around 12,500 - 15,000 dps. I found a similar drop on all classes with Necro seeing the smallest drop in dps from live. I worry if these changes go live, content I could clear before I won't be able to now. I wish I had recommendations but I don't. The damage nerfs didn't hit me as hard as some others have reported but they still hurt a lot. I also deeply dislike the oakensoul change and will consider it useless and stop using it if the current change goes live.

    Like many said when they announced the LA nerf : this isn't raising the floor for anyone, especialy not the one its supposed to help

    Those who can't weave before still can't after the changes but they loose a lot in the process makign their game experience worse for nothing
    Edited by Foxtrot39 on July 11, 2022 10:35PM
  • Billium813
    Billium813
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    Looking at the new PTS Volley:
    • Weapon
      • Bow
        • Volley:
          • This ability and its morphs now last for 20 seconds, up from 10.

    Looking at the current Volley:
    ... to enemies in the target area every 1 second for 8 seconds, after a 2 second delay.

    Is there a 4 second delay now or will it run for 18 seconds, dealing damage every 2 seconds (per the new DoT changes)? The latter would result in an extra tick of damage now, right?

    Also,

    Looking at the new PTS Endless Hail:
    • Endless Hail (morph): This morph now increases the duration of the effect by 10 seconds, up from 4.

    Looking at the current Endless Hail:
    ... to enemies in the target area every 1 second for 12 seconds, after a 2 second delay.

    So, is that +10 seconds to the damage portion of Endless Hail (28 seconds of damage + 2 second delay)?
    Edited by Billium813 on July 11, 2022 10:48PM
  • Jofootballo
    Jofootballo
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    I for one would love to see some devs play a stamsorc in battlegrounds on a livestream with this patch. The class is wholly worthless after this
  • Alaztor91
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    Is there any reason why Spirit Mender and Restoring Tether didn't have their durations adjusted?

    Why is Spirit Mender still a 16/8 seconds duration skill and Restoring Tether a 12 seconds one when their damage counterparts(Skeletal Mage and Shocking Siphon) were changed to the ''10/20 seconds ruleset''
  • lordspyder
    lordspyder
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    I would consider myself one of the people this patch is supposed to target. I've never been able to figure out weaving. I have severe limitations on my hands and wrists because of arthritis and can't do a lot of APM. With High Isle, I've been playing Stamina and Magicka templars a lot. Good damage and sustain with high survivability. I say good damage but for me, that means 20-25k dps on a 6 mil dummy wearing hundings briarheart and oakensoul. I have other classes to play with, one of each class at least. With a Templar, especially a magicka Templar, I seem to be able to do most of the content I come across. I can solo any public dungeon and even most world bosses. I don't do 4 man dungeons cause I know I'm terrible and don't want to ruin anyone's time playing and having fun.

    With all the above said to give context, I went on PTS to parse on my 6 mil dummy in my house. Templars first and could only muster around 12,500 - 15,000 dps. I found a similar drop on all classes with Necro seeing the smallest drop in dps from live. I worry if these changes go live, content I could clear before I won't be able to now. I wish I had recommendations but I don't. The damage nerfs didn't hit me as hard as some others have reported but they still hurt a lot. I also deeply dislike the oakensoul change and will consider it useless and stop using it if the current change goes live.

    This is me exactly down to the damage numbers. It's probably the end of the line for me if this goes live. I'm no longer going to be invited to trials or able to do vet dungeons. I've played since beta, and this is the first time I'm seriously thinking about packing it in.
  • Foxtrot39
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    Alaztor91 wrote: »
    Is there any reason why Spirit Mender and Restoring Tether didn't have their durations adjusted?

    Why is Spirit Mender still a 16/8 seconds duration skill and Restoring Tether a 12 seconds one when their damage counterparts(Skeletal Mage and Shocking Siphon) were changed to the ''10/20 seconds ruleset''

    The problem with too many changes is that its easy to overlook thigns like this

    Imagine vKA HM execute phase with HPS cut by half, fun times /s
  • Tannus15
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    helios777 wrote: »
    If these changes go live without being reverted this will be, by far, the worst set of changes since ESO’s launch in 2014 from a PVP perspective.

    on the bright side they will also be terrible for PvE. finally the community will be united...
  • francesinhalover
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    lordspyder wrote: »
    I would consider myself one of the people this patch is supposed to target. I've never been able to figure out weaving. I have severe limitations on my hands and wrists because of arthritis and can't do a lot of APM. With High Isle, I've been playing Stamina and Magicka templars a lot. Good damage and sustain with high survivability. I say good damage but for me, that means 20-25k dps on a 6 mil dummy wearing hundings briarheart and oakensoul. I have other classes to play with, one of each class at least. With a Templar, especially a magicka Templar, I seem to be able to do most of the content I come across. I can solo any public dungeon and even most world bosses. I don't do 4 man dungeons cause I know I'm terrible and don't want to ruin anyone's time playing and having fun.

    With all the above said to give context, I went on PTS to parse on my 6 mil dummy in my house. Templars first and could only muster around 12,500 - 15,000 dps. I found a similar drop on all classes with Necro seeing the smallest drop in dps from live. I worry if these changes go live, content I could clear before I won't be able to now. I wish I had recommendations but I don't. The damage nerfs didn't hit me as hard as some others have reported but they still hurt a lot. I also deeply dislike the oakensoul change and will consider it useless and stop using it if the current change goes live.

    This is me exactly down to the damage numbers. It's probably the end of the line for me if this goes live. I'm no longer going to be invited to trials or able to do vet dungeons. I've played since beta, and this is the first time I'm seriously thinking about packing it in.

    Has a stam sorcerer main, I am in the same situation... it feels good doing open world quests (granted i might not do anymore , i don't feel like completing zones i already did with different classes.) but knowing i'll never get a dungeon trifecta cosmetic that might be cool, just hurts so badly.
    I have been trying to get beast personality, but i guess it will never happen.
    Edited by francesinhalover on July 11, 2022 10:57PM
    I am @fluffypallascat pc eu if someone wants to play together
    Shadow strike is the best cp passive ever!
  • Cominfordatoothbrush
    I have very mixed feelings on this one. Doing some parses (on nightblade) I'm down about 10k and the dot extensions don't make it quite as boring as I thought it'd be. I just spend a looot longer spamming surprise attack than before. That being said I know nightblade is a dot heavy class and having a bunch of mismatched timers makes it more dynamic than cast dots for 8s -> spam 12s.

    Generally speaking I don't mind global dps nerfs BUT, big but: vRG and vDSR need to have lower boss health. It doesn't make sense to design trials around a 130k dps meta then slap down the highest parsing class by 30k (or so i've heard is the hit taken by sorcs) and everyone else by 10k or whatever.
    Edited by Cominfordatoothbrush on July 11, 2022 11:11PM
  • TPishek
    TPishek
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    Malthorne wrote: »
    d1f3sxawatuj.png

    Your honest feedback, aka “knee jerk reactions”’ are “tired and disappointing” according to the creative director.

    They don't deserve any trust whatsoever. They lie constantly. Even the patches where they said they weren't going to do any large changes still shook up playstyles dramatically, and now they are forcing through this horrific attempt to not only change the fundamentals of the gameplay, but to make us change the way we actually play. ZOS says changes are made for one thing, but they almost never do anything to actually accomplish the stated goals. They got away with stuff before because really the only people the changes affected before were the people who actually try hard to keep up with meta stuff (hybrid made us redo everything). Now they are making DoTs/AoEs more expensive (which they backpedaled on before a couple years ago) and making them last longer, which everyone is going to see and feel/be thrown off by. So either they are blatantly lying to us and using gaslighty language to hide that fact, or they don't actually know what they are doing and are hoping that no one notices that.
  • Tannus15
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    I have very mixed feelings on this one. Doing some parses (on nightblade) I'm down about 10k and the dot extensions don't make it quite as boring as I thought it'd be. I just spend a looot longer spamming surprise attack than before. Generally speaking I don't mind global dps nerfs BUT, big but: vRG and vDSR need to have lower boss health. It doesn't make sense to design trials around a 130k dps meta then slap down the highest parsing class by 20-30k (or so i've heard is the hit taken by sorcs) and everyone else by 10k or whatever.

    sorcs were crutching hard on crystal weapon and bound armaments last patch and this patch they are both basically useless.
  • BlueMoonRising
    These changes are bad. Light attacks doing ***-tier damage sucks. They should be a decent dmg ability consider you're casting them every second so it should add up. But whatever, this is not even the worst thing, dot changes are. Casting a couple of dots and then using spammable for 15 is extremely boring gameplay. Literally mind numbing. Things like channeled acceleration lasting for 1 min are also a joke.

    If these changes go live I wouldn't be surprised if many people quit. This patch is deeply changing the feeling of the combat. How about you stop with the random ass changes and do more than 1 trial per year? Maybe making fun content would be a better idea than doing things (almost) everyone is telling you not to.
  • AmendmentI
    AmendmentI
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    These changes are amazing. Please leave them exactly as they are now.

    Edit- In before someone takes this reply seriously
    Edited by AmendmentI on July 11, 2022 11:08PM
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