Why the changes in Update 35 miss the mark and fail to fix the issues that it seeks to address

Jodynn

Nicely said Code.

I would add even in fights where a 20 DoT is practical to lay down, is it fun? Does it feel good?

Laying let's say 7 dots that last 20 seconds, you have 13 seconds of spamming, the same skill or between two skills for some classes (assuming you can get blastbones to work). To me, this is incredibly boring.

code65536

Jodynn wrote: »

I would add even in fights where a 20 DoT is practical to lay down, is it fun? Does it feel good?

Yes, that's a concern that I've seen a lot of people express, but I deliberately omitted mentioning it, because it is pretty subjective. What feels "boring" to one person might be felt as "relaxing and stress-free" for another. And with many players already offering feedback on that aspect of the duration change, I decided that it was better for me to avoid that particular angle and focus more on the problems that I think everyone can agree on.

fred4

code65536 wrote: »

PvP: Ground DoTs are already mostly useless in PvP because people will just sidestep them. Longer ground DoT durations will make them even less attractive.

I've got to wonder about this. If I was running a 12-man group, I might get everyone to stack such DOTs at a chokepoint.

And when fighting classes with accessible class purges (Templars and Wardens), 20s “sticky” DoTs make absolutely zero sense to use, since it’s very likely that they will be removed before they could do more damage than just a spammable skill.

I agree it doesn't make sense, but my reasoning would be slightly different. DOTs are pressure. PvPers don't care about the 10s breakeven point, but they care about damage per second. This will be diluted. A 20s DOT at 2x a spammable's value does less damage per second than a 10s DOT at 1.5x a spammable's value. If this turns out a nerf to DK above all, that may not be so bad with how class balance stands right now, but so much is changing you just don't know.

peacenote

code65536 wrote: »

Note: This thread is a repost of a post that I made in the official discussion thread.

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

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

[...]

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

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

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

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PART 1: Light Attacks, Heavy Attacks, and Weaving

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

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

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

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

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

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PART 2: Durations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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PART 3: Power Creep and Content Creep in PvE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_Finn

My actual reaction to this.

fred4

KefkaGestahl wrote: »

Do you really believe people on the floor are spamming light attacks all day? I NEVER use light attacks. Do you know why? It's because they're terrible. I can kill an enemy faster spamming my best skill and then execute than I could spamming a light attack. Yes, light attack weaving is why so many people do so much damage, but even ZOS said that it only makes up to 20% of the best players' damage output. If somebody is really on the floor with unoptimized non-gold gear, trust me, they're not light attacking.

I don't know what the new player experience is like today, but when I started in 2015, my character didn't have the sustain to spam skills. Light and heavy attacks with occasional skill use were the only way I could fight at first. I think I unlocked Strife, but the game gave me a greatsword. I didn't get magicka back from heavy attacking. I didn't have a mundus stone, potions, food or coordinated armor sets. Well, I guess that's probably different now. New characters get a lot of stats, but I could see someone growing up never learning anything, at least in the past. If they were purely interested in questing, they might even have a great time with better immersion than those of us who got good at combat.

Pevey

I also posted this reply in the feedback thread.

code65536 wrote: »

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

code made a really excellent post, as always.

I think this last part is worth some deep consideration. You see a wide gap between normal difficulty and veteran difficulty, and you are trying to narrow that gap. This is fair. I think part of this is probably numbers-driven. You have the stats on what percent of players are completing new trials and new dlc dungeons on veteran difficulty. And those stats can't be good. That is something that has been brought up in the forums before. Two of the four updates each year are dungeons that some people love and do on vet but most people dread and hate when they get them as a random normal. So much that they don't want to subscribe to ESO plus. The community of players capable of and actively doing vet trials, while larger than it had been in years prior to about 72 hours ago, is not the majority of players by far. So, how to bridge that gap?

First I would consider how it is that we got here. Consider that while some of the employees at ZOS do actually play the game, it's doubtful you could put together 12 employees who can clear one of the recent vet trials. Is that healthy? And why is that the case? It's not because a small percentage of players are doing "obscene" damage. It was a design choice to make the difficulty of vet trials that high. There is a slider, and it was a design choice to move the slider where it is today and create this gap. You could easily have set the slider somewhere else. Sure, that would mean a small number of players, maybe 300 total on both servers, would be able to smash those non-HM vet trials like they are vFG1. But who cares? Why this cat and mouse game with those few players, despite the hugely negative effect on the rest of the community? A lot of games have "speedrun" communities who do things mere mortals cannot, and there is not this contentious relationship with them.

Because of this obsession with a small percentage of players, "normal" players who have a builds and playstyles they like and stick with find their power diminished patch after patch after patch. Nerf after nerf after nerf. For a theoretical stamden wearing, say, Hundings and Briarheart, two decent stam sets, for the past 5 years, there has been no power creep. There has been the opposite of power creep. Average players feel this. Some players don't, because they adjust their build each patch to keep on the treadmill. But that is what many casual players don't like and refuse to do, and I think that is reasonable. Without any of the changes to any DOT or HOT or class skill, zos could have nerfed top end dps by about as much just by reining in stampede and a few sets. Rele, bahsei, kinras, kilt, etc. And it would have promoted build diversity. But that is a whole different story. Average players have felt their power go down. The trial dummy and the periodic buffs to it help mask this and give players some copium by letting them see big numbers. Those numbers are never comparable to prior numbers. This feels like it's by design.

So, in short, if you want to lessen the gap, just lessen the gap. Just move the slider. Vet difficulty has some room to come down. Even with live dps levels. And HM difficulty can come down. Let ppl compete for best times. And just accept that some ppl are going to manage to complete HM and maybe even do it enough times with enough hours of practice that they actually get (gasp) good at it. This is okay. Why have you decided to make the content so exclusive and now seem surprised that it is so exclusive?

p00tx

Really well said, and I completely agree. I have to admit that I enjoy how difficult the new content is, in spite of being one of the players this update is supposed to help (I'm older and lack the quick reflexes and coordination of these younger players), but I do think it's overtuned for the vast majority of the game. I didn't realize how few players actually had completes in the latest content until I saw some of the numbers posted on here today, and it definitely looks problematic. Thank you for saying so eloquently what so many of us were too upset to properly communicate.

tmbrinks

Pevey wrote: »

I also posted this reply in the feedback thread.

code65536 wrote: »

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

So, in short, if you want to lessen the gap, just lessen the gap. Just move the slider. Vet difficulty has some room to come down. Even with live dps levels. And HM difficulty can come down. Let ppl compete for best times. And just accept that some ppl are going to manage to complete HM and maybe even do it enough times with enough hours of practice that they actually get (gasp) good at it. This is okay. Why have you decided to make the content so exclusive and now seem surprised that it is so exclusive?

I feel like that would require the encounters/dungeon/trials team to make adjustments, and that is the one team that seemingly has refused to do so, catering to the 0.01%.

And since this change is coming from the combat team, I don't expect that to change at all. It'll be at least 6-9 months (2-3 patches) before any adjustments to the content will be made. By that time I feel it'll be too late.

The two teams don't seem like they are in sync (maybe they don't even talk to one another), which is unfathomable to me. Some of the comments made by devs on both teams on the "Thursday Night Streamers/Devs" runs (which are streamed by at least 8-9 other stream team members) made it seem as such. I found it very enlightening that one of the combat designers was seeing the new trial for the first time on the live servers.

Pevey

tmbrinks wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

I also posted this reply in the feedback thread.

code65536 wrote: »

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

So, in short, if you want to lessen the gap, just lessen the gap. Just move the slider. Vet difficulty has some room to come down. Even with live dps levels. And HM difficulty can come down. Let ppl compete for best times. And just accept that some ppl are going to manage to complete HM and maybe even do it enough times with enough hours of practice that they actually get (gasp) good at it. This is okay. Why have you decided to make the content so exclusive and now seem surprised that it is so exclusive?

I feel like that would require the encounters/dungeon/trials team to make adjustments, and that is the one team that seemingly has refused to do so, catering to the 0.01%.

And since this change is coming from the combat team, I don't expect that to change at all. It'll be at least 6-9 months (2-3 patches) before any adjustments to the content will be made. By that time I feel it'll be too late.

The two teams don't seem like they are in sync (maybe they don't even talk to one another), which is unfathomable to me. Some of the comments made by devs on both teams on the "Thursday Night Streamers/Devs" runs (which are streamed by at least 8-9 other stream team members) made it seem as such. I found it very enlightening that one of the combat designers was seeing the new trial for the first time on the live servers.

I'm definitely not suggesting they nerf content to match the combat nerfs.

I think all the combat changes in these patch notes should be scrapped.

If they want to narrow the gap between normal content and vet content, then just start doing that. Set the difficulty of the content accordingly, and leave combat alone.

Dagoth_Rac

tmbrinks wrote: »

I feel like that would require the encounters/dungeon/trials team to make adjustments, and that is the one team that seemingly has refused to do so, catering to the 0.01%.

And since this change is coming from the combat team, I don't expect that to change at all. It'll be at least 6-9 months (2-3 patches) before any adjustments to the content will be made. By that time I feel it'll be too late.

The two teams don't seem like they are in sync (maybe they don't even talk to one another), which is unfathomable to me. Some of the comments made by devs on both teams on the "Thursday Night Streamers/Devs" runs (which are streamed by at least 8-9 other stream team members) made it seem as such. I found it very enlightening that one of the combat designers was seeing the new trial for the first time on the live servers.

This is not a new problem, either. Remember when Morrowind (released 5 years ago!) nerfed sustain into the ground and the Trial that came with Morrowind was chock full of mechanics that ... drained your resources! The Dungeon/Trial design team seems to do a lot of mechanic design that is based on fighting the current meta. And then the players get caught in the crossfire when the meta changes.

renne

code65536 wrote: »

It’s when you have things like DPS checks in Rockgrove HM and insane speedrun time requirements in Dreadsail HM that are clearly aimed at those “tippity-top” groups that the power gap becomes a major problem in PvE.

It's literally this for me. They can't complain about the DPS the ABSOLUTE TOP teams are doing and then turn around and make content that has specifically tailored requirements to meet what these particular teams can do at the same time.

Nefas

code65536 wrote: »

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

I had my eyes glued to the PTS skill bars more than I do with Live skill bars on a dummy YEP.

jaster98

I am a "competent but mediocre" DPS player, I do about 50k-60k. a lot more than most players, but know where close to what most endgame DPS mains reach (tank main, don't spend time/gold to get higher). But I went on pts to parse anyway. I lost about 4k damage. Lotta lost LA damage, but more spammable damage, DoT's give or take the same.

This is not a massive loss and in the grand scheme of things, I will be able to gain 10x that with a better build/rotation if I wanted. But here is the thing, I know why I lost to damage, and how I could fix it. But I am an end-game player, I mingle with end-game players, and I don't struggle to clear content because the role I play doesn't require damage.

But the people this patch is supposed to aid cant just decide 'get good', spend some gold, and learn to double my DPS over the course of a single patch. They are stuck at 20k-30k, or lower. They struggle with base game vet DLC. They cant get top-tier players to carry them to get good gear unless they have millions of gold to pay them. They will also be losing DPS, and they won't know why or how to fix it.

The core issue isn't that it is hard to do damage, it's that they don't know how to do damage. The game and the official content do spareillingy little to give players the knowledge to 'get good'. Relying on getting lucky with a friendly beginner guild or finding good guides from the community content creators. Dumbing down game concepts from a 10 to a 6 won't help players who have hit a wall at 3.

So unless the combat team decides to put the ceiling at that 3, that wall will remain. And if the team does lower the ceiling to that low, any veteran player will leave. The only long-term solution to giving new/causal players more access to hard content is to properly teach them, preferably in-game, the keys to making serious improvements in their skills.

robinrwb17_ESO2

I may be among the players targeted by these changes. But the problem is not my low DPS, it's the stark difference in the difficulty of encounters. The difference is so huge and nothing in-game prepares you for that. I don't think combat changes are going to help.

Meldor_Greenwood

Upvote

Greeed2025

Couldn't have said it better thx!

xSkullfox

this thread should be pinned !

jecks33

@code65536 I really want you in the combat team!

Rimskjegg

Thank you for this post. Says everything that needs to be said without any of the divisive stuff. If this gets written off as just another kneejerk reaction I don't know what to say. Where is the petition for ZoS to read this?

EDIT: and the petition for ZoS to hire Code immediately of course

JustAGoodPlayer

People. Nerf is not really a good option.

Just think about old and new content. Players will need to pass it with lower DPS so it will need fix !

It is a man power !

All we really want - all be +- same and than nerf all players and than nerf dunguans and trials - may be it is more simpler to buff other builds ?

As example LA is source of damage.
If you do no LA after skill you get buf that make as example your next skill 3% more powerfull. If you do LA you lose it.

HA can give 5%-10% buff too all not HA damage after it, because it is lose of damage itself, so player will be possible do la+skill or skill+skill or skill+HA with out big lose of damage ? And not to do only HA.

What do you think ?

I think it is more simpler and better than nerf everyone.

The same time - dots can be all made 14 seconds. DK class dots, mage guild dots and etc. Or make the same as they are now on live- to not rework all sets after this changes.

It will not help players at all - it is just useless work, what do you think ?

Wendigo_Astur

Awesome post with perfect clear and clever reasons.

Hope Zenimax take a look into this...

Ashur_gul

This was a beautiful, well worded and on the money post. I really hope the developers take these complaints seriously. I play other mmos and have had patches that were very disappointing to the point of feeling dejected however I still played and adapted to the changes. But this...this is just madness, and if nothing improves by the time this goes live, I will cancel my ESO+ subscription and take a break from the game until they start fixing things up again.

Plectro

A very well written post. Thanks, Code. ZOS dev team really could use a few skilled endgame players like Code, or others, who understand the ins and outs of combat. There are so many overlooked things here and the butterfly effect some of the changes will have must be taken into consideration. For example making dots tick every 2 seconds instead of 1 will significantly reduce uptimes of backbar enchants. Most importantly Crusher but also Berserker.

Skilled veteran players will figure out a way to get it back to high uptimes which will probably involve a lot of barswapping / light attacking on backbar or similar, while before this change it was as simple as "Place down Wall of Elements / Blockade every 10-15 seconds and you have 100% uptime".

HackTheMinotaur

This seems to track well with what I've experienced on the PTS this week and what I posted in this latest video:

https://youtu.be/CwAimsO1gVE

Mastercris91

jaster98 wrote: »

I am a "competent but mediocre" DPS player, I do about 50k-60k. a lot more than most players, but know where close to what most endgame DPS mains reach (tank main, don't spend time/gold to get higher). But I went on pts to parse anyway. I lost about 4k damage. Lotta lost LA damage, but more spammable damage, DoT's give or take the same.

This is not a massive loss and in the grand scheme of things, I will be able to gain 10x that with a better build/rotation if I wanted. But here is the thing, I know why I lost to damage, and how I could fix it. But I am an end-game player, I mingle with end-game players, and I don't struggle to clear content because the role I play doesn't require damage.

But the people this patch is supposed to aid cant just decide 'get good', spend some gold, and learn to double my DPS over the course of a single patch. They are stuck at 20k-30k, or lower. They struggle with base game vet DLC. They cant get top-tier players to carry them to get good gear unless they have millions of gold to pay them. They will also be losing DPS, and they won't know why or how to fix it.

The core issue isn't that it is hard to do damage, it's that they don't know how to do damage. The game and the official content do spareillingy little to give players the knowledge to 'get good'. Relying on getting lucky with a friendly beginner guild or finding good guides from the community content creators. Dumbing down game concepts from a 10 to a 6 won't help players who have hit a wall at 3.

So unless the combat team decides to put the ceiling at that 3, that wall will remain. And if the team does lower the ceiling to that low, any veteran player will leave. The only long-term solution to giving new/causal players more access to hard content is to properly teach them, preferably in-game, the keys to making serious improvements in their skills.

One thing though, the new dummy is buffed, so you losing only 4K damage is in reality much more than that.

pklemming

Well said.

ApoAlaia

Very cogent and well articulated.

Hoping that the message will get through.

FluffyReachWitch

OP, I wish I could give you an Agree and an earnest Insightful in addition to the Awesome.

I’ve been here since late 2014, exploring Tamriel with my partner and trying to experience everything I can. Both of us are disabled in different ways. In my case I’m constantly dealing with a certain amount of fatigue from an autoimmune form of arthritis, so I don’t have the energy to make adjustments to my build as often as I would like. Like others with similar conditions, I also experience hand stiffness if I push it too hard. We would both like to see changes that help disabled players and refine the power gap, but after reading the patch notes and hearing feedback from the PTS, we’re confident saying that Update 35 isn’t going to do it. The content itself will need a significant rebalance to improve accessibility and clear rates, especially after the rework of damage over time and healing over time, should that make it to the live server.

Now, both of us have become pretty good at what we do. As I’ve mentioned here on the forums before, we like to duo PvE content whenever possible. We enjoy running normal DLC dungeons as a pair, we find veteran base game dungeons to be relaxing and more than doable, and we’ve also enjoyed carrying less experienced players through dungeons and normal trials. Both of us average 45-55K DPS on the live trials dummy, and can pull off 65K with a lot of effort. I have even reached 75K with pet and Siroria cheese, though I would not bring that setup into an actual fight. We consider ourselves casual in the original sense, meaning that we’re not here to be competitive. Score pushing isn’t our thing. We’re here to go on adventures, make stylish outfits, and melt some boss fights.

And this is why I find myself so disappointed by overtuned PvE content. A good challenge is one that you can overcome with reasonable effort, rather than an insurmountable wall. It feels great to get past a final boss because you learned how to build yourself up, how the boss moves, and what their weaknesses are. It is not fun to slam into a brick wall repeatedly, or to discover that the brick wall is twenty feet thick, covered in grease to prevent climbing, and requires you to have the rare opportunity to acquire the legendary Hammer of Twenty-Foot-Thick Wall Smashing +3. Even less so if it’s because someone else took out a picket fence with the Hammer of Twenty-Foot-Thick Wall Smashing +1.

Pevey

FluffyReachWitch wrote: »

Now, both of us have become pretty good at what we do. As I’ve mentioned here on the forums before, we like to duo PvE content whenever possible. We enjoy running normal DLC dungeons as a pair, we find veteran base game dungeons to be relaxing and more than doable, and we’ve also enjoyed carrying less experienced players through dungeons and normal trials. Both of us average 45-55K DPS on the live trials dummy, and can pull off 65K with a lot of effort. I have even reached 75K with pet and Siroria cheese, though I would not bring that setup into an actual fight. We consider ourselves casual in the original sense, meaning that we’re not here to be competitive. Score pushing isn’t our thing. We’re here to go on adventures, make stylish outfits, and melt some boss fights.

I wish more people with this playstyle and damage level would come here and provide feedback, because these are the people who will be most affected by this patch. But so many of this large class of players don't focus on pts, which is fair. It is just not their thing.

Despite all of the efforts to avoid it by nerfing average players time after time (with power creep sources being group buffs and certain trial sets, mainly), ZOS accidentally allowed a meta over the past 2 patches where damage levels increased mostly across the board.

And what happened? GOOD THINGS!

A wider variety of players than I have ever seen in my years playing ESO were starting to get into vet trials, and having success and fun with it. This was such a good sign for the long-term health of the game.

This patch will kill that instantly. It has already started. Opportunities for players to run training vets have already dried up.

This is the opposite of the accessibility they were aiming for. They got the accessibility they were aiming for over the last 2 patch by accident and despite their efforts.

Lowering damage will not help this game. It will not give players confidence to try to content. It will do the opposite.

sarahthes

This is an amazing post, and I hope the devs heed it.

I know the constant shifting and changes is why I stopped playing, because even though I played with the elites, I was not one on those players who dove deep into the spreadsheets and numbers and it always felt like I was playing catch-up. I just stopped wanting to learn how to deal with the changes, especially when a playstyle I liked got gutted (which has happened on 3 separate occasions at this point), all in the name of "balance".