PTS Update 35 - Feedback Thread for Combat Balance Changes

siddique

HoTs going to tick every 2 seconds, Lord Falgy going on a killing spree with his damage that ticks every second. What a brainwave to make content more "accessible."

AmendmentI

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

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

Out of curiosity, in what way does becoming weaker make content better? It doesn't make it more accessible, fun, easier to complete, or allow for more group variety. So in what way does being weaker suddenly make the game better? Is it because of a challenge? That's fine but doesn't seem to fit their reasoning for the changes.

Tannus15

AmendmentI wrote: »

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

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

Out of curiosity, in what way does becoming weaker make content better? It doesn't make it more accessible, fun, easier to complete, or allow for more group variety. So in what way does being weaker suddenly make the game better? Is it because of a challenge? That's fine but doesn't seem to fit their reasoning for the changes.

it's arguable that vMoL is now too easy because dps is significantly higher than it was during it's hay-day.
the twins used to be a challenge, now we just burn through for example. solid interesting content is now redundantly easy, and for a large part i agree. we could easily nerf the group dps down, nerf the newer trials to match the new benchmarks and thus make older content more relevant.
we could also arguably buff old content to meet the new damage standards.

i think, however, that the old content has been allowed to slowly become easier due to power creep to allow an easier "on ramp" into trials. sure vHRC is trivial to me now, but i'm sure there are groups who find it a good level of challenge as they move from normal trials to vet.

Gaisma

I know this will get lost in this thread, but I am one of those casual players who cannot parse 100k. I also struggle with weaving (templar puncturing jabs are awkward to weave) and rotation in general. I have a carpal tunnel injury too, but I manage to do LA weaving with binding LA to a mouse scroll. I got High Isle chapter and farmed Oakensoul Ring to try out one bar build. This is not meta, but is a simple setup that lets me fight any boss or adds that I encounter without swapping gear and skills. I have installed Combat Metrics addon to see the numbers I do on PTS and live server. They have made me very, very sad.

My skills are as follows:


And this is my gear:

I used Perfected Bashei on PTS because it was an option. I don't dream to do vRG on live server anytime soon. I also forgot to change Oakensoul ring (on both PTS and live), so it has a weird trait and enchant.

I used the same Champion Points, magicka potions (on PTS I had alliance ones) and Witchmother's brew. I am not sure why my magicka regeneration is different on both (maybe related to new changes?) but I could keep my magicka very low (for Bashei's) consistently.

This is a parse from live server:


And this is from PTS:


This is really sad to see. Even 60k was a lot for me to do, I have come far in the past year, after I started to learn rotation and do trials to farm better gear. I don't understand how this is supposed to help me to do dungeons and arenas, and trials? No progression group will take me with these numbers. Why did I even buy High Isle Chapter and farmed this mythic?

For the fairness sake I will add that new jab animation is better, I could do more LAs (not that it helped with damage on PTS), I appreciate the idea of one or two dots that last 20 seconds, but the damage loss is horrible, because content is still the same and damage requirements are the same. Please, don't go live with these changes.

Tannus15

@Gaisma this is FAR more useful info than my own parse.

The negative impact on people who are trying to get into vet content should have far greater weight than those at the top end. Yes, the nerfs are really going to set back our vRG HM prog, but if it's stopping other people from doing vet content at all then that's devastating.

Jaimeh

Tannus15 wrote: »

@Gaisma this is FAR more useful info than my own parse.

The negative impact on people who are trying to get into vet content should have far greater weight than those at the top end. Yes, the nerfs are really going to set back our vRG HM prog, but if it's stopping other people from doing vet content at all then that's devastating.

So much for raising the floor...

PileggiPileggi

Why nerf spirit mender to the ground like that? 48% is way too much... Also, Guardian dies when you are taking lots of damage? Awful change.. And then tether and scythe are buffed which require corpse or target to get heals, not very accessible changes for necro which is already harder to play than other classes.

Why does vigour and regen get to be better than spirit mender, a class ability? If intensive mender was too strong, could have nerfed it's extra healing. Why make the whole skill complete garbage when it is one of necros main abilities? Nobody wants to use tether or scythe or vigour over intensive mender in pvp. Nobody wants to resummon prematurely dying guardian in pve or pvp.

Please revert, because honestly necro is already pretty fiddly to play, blast bones every 3rd ability and now we have to juggle spirit guardian when it randomly dies and stops healing exactly when we need it to heal.

ESO_Nightingale

Tannus15 wrote: »

@Gaisma this is FAR more useful info than my own parse.

The negative impact on people who are trying to get into vet content should have far greater weight than those at the top end. Yes, the nerfs are really going to set back our vRG HM prog, but if it's stopping other people from doing vet content at all then that's devastating.

You know what's gonna set back our prog more than this? Finding the replacements if this goes live lol

HiImRex

Gaisma wrote: »

I know this will get lost in this thread, but I am one of those casual players who cannot parse 100k. I also struggle with weaving (templar puncturing jabs are awkward to weave) and rotation in general. I have a carpal tunnel injury too, but I manage to do LA weaving with binding LA to a mouse scroll. I got High Isle chapter and farmed Oakensoul Ring to try out one bar build. This is not meta, but is a simple setup that lets me fight any boss or adds that I encounter without swapping gear and skills. I have installed Combat Metrics addon to see the numbers I do on PTS and live server. They have made me very, very sad.

My skills are as follows:


And this is my gear:

I used Perfected Bashei on PTS because it was an option. I don't dream to do vRG on live server anytime soon. I also forgot to change Oakensoul ring (on both PTS and live), so it has a weird trait and enchant.

I used the same Champion Points, magicka potions (on PTS I had alliance ones) and Witchmother's brew. I am not sure why my magicka regeneration is different on both (maybe related to new changes?) but I could keep my magicka very low (for Bashei's) consistently.

This is a parse from live server:


And this is from PTS:


This is really sad to see. Even 60k was a lot for me to do, I have come far in the past year, after I started to learn rotation and do trials to farm better gear. I don't understand how this is supposed to help me to do dungeons and arenas, and trials? No progression group will take me with these numbers. Why did I even buy High Isle Chapter and farmed this mythic?

For the fairness sake I will add that new jab animation is better, I could do more LAs (not that it helped with damage on PTS), I appreciate the idea of one or two dots that last 20 seconds, but the damage loss is horrible, because content is still the same and damage requirements are the same. Please, don't go live with these changes.

good news, the PTS dummy also gave you a 10% damage boost vs. live so actually you're losing almost half your damage

MetallicMonk

In a PvP setting surprise attack was already one of the most overloaded, hard hitting spammables in the entire game and you buffed it lmao. Not only that but your game is nearly incapable of reading positional requirements on moving targets mostly in pvp, so not only will surprise attack stun you even if they don't appear at your flank they will also be constantly critting you.

Out of touch change, like most changes in this game, no idea where you guys gather any of your information or why you can't seem to realize abilities can be perceived in two completely different ways in pve and pvp.

Your game is 8 years old and seem to still be struggling with the most basic principles, unfortunate truth is MMOs don't magically start getting better this far in.

Klingenlied

Warden changes in parts are awesome. I dislike bear dps nerf (of course I do!), but generally, in regards to skills & functionalty - awesome! Really awesome! Tese are best changes in regards to functionality and fixing class identity since an eternity.
Same goes for Nightblade, those changes are dope! I mean .. dang, those might break pvp Guaranteed crits -> you go for max crit damage, max weapon damage, ignore crit chance - and bam, still 100% crit whenever you manage to hit flank. And in general PvE, I assume Nightblade will jump up relative to other classes dps.

If there is one point I am not content with, it would be reducing power level. You play a game with constant progression. You don't want to get nerferd. At least you don't want to feel like you got nerfed. So .. yea, dunno in regards to that.

However! If some content gets readjusted, I even would not see anything wrong with a lower top dps. And with some content, I actually only mean the hardest of the hardest stuff - this should retain it's difficulty, not get more difficult. So nothing else but hardmodes or time limits for trifecta runs would need adjustment.

CameraBeardThePirate

PileggiPileggi wrote: »

Why nerf spirit mender to the ground like that? 48% is way too much... Also, Guardian dies when you are taking lots of damage? Awful change.. And then tether and scythe are buffed which require corpse or target to get heals, not very accessible changes for necro which is already harder to play than other classes.

Why does vigour and regen get to be better than spirit mender, a class ability? If intensive mender was too strong, could have nerfed it's extra healing. Why make the whole skill complete garbage when it is one of necros main abilities? Nobody wants to use tether or scythe or vigour over intensive mender in pvp. Nobody wants to resummon prematurely dying guardian in pve or pvp.

Please revert, because honestly necro is already pretty fiddly to play, blast bones every 3rd ability and now we have to juggle spirit guardian when it randomly dies and stops healing exactly when we need it to heal.

As a necro main, intensive mender kinda needed the nerf. It was healing for the same tooltip as my resistant flesh every 2 seconds.

However, they also made spirit guardian pretty much unusable in PvP as now it heals for even less than it already did and it can die now. Pretty insane.

Arthtur

So im just gonna post short feedback about overall changes (LA/HA, DoTs duration, weapon skills and sets).

Light Attack/Heavy Attack
Light Attack base damage - 2250
Heavy Attack base damage - 4500

Its too low. In my opinion LA should deal at least 3500 or 4000 damage while HA 7000 or 8000. I know that u want to nerf high end but it hurts more players who use HA in Overland while questing. Lets not talk about LA spammers in dungeons...

DoTs duration

Its just bad. Im DK main. Most of my DoTs last between 20 and 30s. 70% time of my rotation is spamming spammable. Sorry but its just too boring.
In addition DoTs are too weak. There is no point in using them on trash except those with Major breach. its just AoE spam, thats all.
And lets not talk about situation where u have to move around and reapply DoTs...

Increased Duration on skills with buffs (for example Skill from Mages Guild that gives Major Brutality and Sorcery) is okay but we cant have DoTs like that. They are just too weak.

Weapon Skills

Not too much to talk about.
2H - overnerfed. Skills cost MORE and deal LESS damage. Again the worst option for backbar.
DW - Yet again just for passives and double trait.

Sets

2H from Maelstrom got overnerfed. Its worse than Bow and Staff again. Its should be comparable and not useless compared to other 2. And for the love of.... dont nerf Bow or Staff. It could kill arena weapons on backbar as it would be better to use 5p set like Tzogvin....

Overall i dont like any of the changes to those things. Please revert at least DoTs.... dont make them so weak... Those changes wont help anyone, they just make it worse for everyone.

Thats all is from PvE point of view.

Pevey

I would say I am in about the top 10 percentile of ESO players in terms of skill doing harder content. That includes not just parse number, but also situational awareness and ability to learn mechanics and follow raid lead instructions without getting overwhelmed.

I’m a member of a number of different discords that do vet 4-person and 12-person content.

In some of these, most players are in the top 1-5%, and I am definitely “playing up.” We always clear. But even so, without it being a dedicated prog, we don’t do hard mode. I’ve only done a few hms, always with a dedicated weekly or twice-weekly group. The idea that top players are cheesing newer vet content with dps levels on live just does not hold water.

In others, I am middle of the pack, and we clear with some effort, perhaps a few wipes.

In other discords, I am one of the best dps by far. These are great groups, one in particular does a vet attempt every Friday night that goes for 3 hours and is has ppl of all different skill levels. More often than not, the group does not even clear, but it is fun and I join just because I enjoy their company and feel like maybe I can help them out. These are guilds like Loreseekers/Tipsy Trials/various trade guilds that do/attempt vet trials as a service to their members. Great people.

These latter groups have no shot at completing this content if these changes go forward. It is sad.

The changes are terrible, and that really irks me. But what irks me just as much is this lie that it will make content more accessible to a broader group. It is so obviously not true. How can the devs not see this?

Zastrix

If you REALLY need to nerf the weaving... if you really want to punish the players who spent a TON of time learning how to do that and you really hate because they're not a crown milking machine like new players then fine. But in the name of the divines, do NOT make the dots longer. You are literally going to shove meta BiS skills into peoples throat as they'll essentially be forced to use dots and then have a single BiS spammable. This way we had interesting gameplay now it's going to feel like a tab-target game.

BretonMage

Regarding DOTs:

I don't understand the reasoning behind making DOTs tick every 2 seconds instead of one? And/or lowering the damage per tick? That will just make fights last even longer, which is the last thing low DPS players need.

If they truly wanted to raise the floor, they'd leave the ticks and damage unchanged and just extend the duration a little, to make it more forgiving for players struggling with their rotation.

As a sorcerer I'm going to have to drop my pets and WoE now. Is this really what they wanted?

acastanza_ESO

BretonMage wrote: »

Regarding DOTs:

I don't understand the reasoning behind making DOTs tick every 2 seconds instead of one? And/or lowering the damage per tick? That will just make fights last even longer, which is the last thing low DPS players need.

If they truly wanted to raise the floor, they'd leave the ticks and damage unchanged and just extend the duration a little, to make it more forgiving for players struggling with their rotation.

As a sorcerer I'm going to have to drop my pets and WoE now. Is this really what they wanted?

What ZOS clearly wants is everyone who plays Sorcerer to quit.

At least, that's the only possible interpretation of what they've done to the class.

Tannus15

Pevey wrote: »

I would say I am in about the top 10 percentile of ESO players in terms of skill doing harder content. That includes not just parse number, but also situational awareness and ability to learn mechanics and follow raid lead instructions without getting overwhelmed.

I’m a member of a number of different discords that do vet 4-person and 12-person content.

In some of these, most players are in the top 1-5%, and I am definitely “playing up.” We always clear. But even so, without it being a dedicated prog, we don’t do hard mode. I’ve only done a few hms, always with a dedicated weekly or twice-weekly group. The idea that top players are cheesing newer vet content with dps levels on live just does not hold water.

In others, I am middle of the pack, and we clear with some effort, perhaps a few wipes.

In other discords, I am one of the best dps by far. These are great groups, one in particular does a vet attempt every Friday night that goes for 3 hours and is has ppl of all different skill levels. More often than not, the group does not even clear, but it is fun and I join just because I enjoy their company and feel like maybe I can help them out. These are guilds like Loreseekers/Tipsy Trials/various trade guilds that do/attempt vet trials as a service to their members. Great people.

These latter groups have no shot at completing this content if these changes go forward. It is sad.

The changes are terrible, and that really irks me. But what irks me just as much is this lie that it will make content more accessible to a broader group. It is so obviously not true. How can the devs not see this?

this is literally what we pointed out when they attempted the light attack damage changes last time.
this will affect the low end more than the top end.
damage nerfs always do unless it's damage caps like the crit damage cap.

wolfie1.0.

I am by no means a great parser, or a great DPS for that matter. Not near the top by any measure.i have several builds. but my main the last few updates was magplar. best parse on a trial dummy i have ever done on live was 70k on a 6 mill trial dummy.


i loaded up the PTS. my best parse so far with the same build is 55k. so even those of us on the lower end of things are losing here, and i was struggling to get that high.

most Vet Trial groups require 60-70k parses to join. i was able to do that stuff... now? i will be out of that content. it took me 2 months to get up to that level and trying to push for more. now it will probably be 2 -3 months until i can get back in. if people are still doing PVE content by then.

ZOS in your article on the web page you mentioned change fatigue, Well i think a lot of us have it, and its not just end gamers here. its people like me trying to get up there, trying to progress, but every time we get on the threshold some drastic change occurs.

My normal thing to do when a build gets nuked is to swap builds, swap classes. i just don't know what to swap this time.

honestly, i feel like giving up. i don't want to and i will try. but these changes are not doing anything to encourage me to play more, much less invest any additional money into this game. if the goal was to lower the ceiling then congrats you did that, but in doing so you also lowered the floor.

It might help if we were told about the "Good Things" that we are expected to have down the road. Because

between this, AWA, the lack luster High Isle content, and other changes... 2022 has and likely will be the worst year of ESO i have had.

You all asked for Feedback, and i provided it. Doubt it will be read, doubt it will matter, probably get banned for saying this.

Asdara

"New dps rotation start on back bar, activate your 5 dots, swap to front bar, activate 5 more dots, set down controller, go microwave food.. come back, repeat rotation, eat food, repeat rotation, read book..."

WreckfulAbandon

Nocturnals Ploy is an abomination that should never see the light of day. PvP in this game is dead to me if it goes live.

WreckfulAbandon

Hands off my buffs ZOS.

Tannus15

for those curious, how do things look outside the 21m with it's buff changes etc

3m live - 56k



3m pts - 45k



so 11k dps lost, just over 20%

lordspyder

Like people said this does not raise the floor. It drops the floor out from under us. This is terrible.

seahurzzz

This patch is just too out of hand. Its going to change the game so much its not the same ESO anymore. I can accept the LA and weaving changes, but the changes to DOT/HOT and damage/healing adjustments to abilities in line with the DOT/HOT change is just soooo much. Unless the devs really want to kill the game then they succeeded I guess. Maybe they just want to decommission the game by suicide.

francesinhalover

Tannus15 wrote: »

for those curious, how do things look outside the 21m with it's buff changes etc

3m live - 56k



3m pts - 45k



so 11k dps lost, just over 20%

Around 41k actually. Pts dummy buffs your dmg by like 8-10% atm

MindOfTheSwarm

Another issue is that newer content was released with high DPS in mind. I can see Maebroogha salivating at the prospect of laughing at all the players that can’t beat her anymore. Just imagine going into the portals and seeing her health hit almost 100% every time. I doubt players will have the patience for it. Let alone the walking circle of death, I barely managed to burn them down and that was with live DoT’s, spammables and weaving.

Tannus15

francesinhalover wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

for those curious, how do things look outside the 21m with it's buff changes etc

3m live - 56k



3m pts - 45k



so 11k dps lost, just over 20%

Around 41k actually. Pts dummy buffs your dmg by like 8-10% atm

this is a 3mil parse comparison so it's a level playing field.

maeee

Nope. Nope nope nope. I give up on ZOS ever listening to the community if these changes go live.

The whole community is telling you not to release this, PVE and PVP players alike. Just release the dungeon content and call it a day for the love of god please.

IZZEFlameLash

How they thought this was gonna help anyone that was unable to parse high DPS is beyond me. Same people you aimed to help will still be locked out of contents. Perhaps less annoying mechanics that are nightmare as a massive group to deal with would've been better I would think. This just hurts the lower end people even more.