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

Leogon

Hey ZOS, offer him/her a job.

code65536

Whiskey_JG wrote: »

I think the underlying culture at Zos is that LA weaving is still seen as a sort of "exploit" rather than a unique feature.

So they keep making changes to remove the effectiveness of LA weaving, so they dont have to incorporate a combat tutorial.

The combat tutorial doesn't teach anyone about using skills. Does that mean skill usage is unintended as well? The combat tutorial covers these things:

• Light attacks
• Heavy attacks
• Blocking
• Bashing
• Heavy attacking to exploit off-balance enemies

Absolutely zero mention of abilities. It's no wonder that light attack spammers are a thing. I still vividly remember one of my earliest experiences with a group dungeon: it was 2015, and I was in Direfrost Keep for the first time. We're at the boss with the Banekin suicide bombers, everyone except me died to those bombers, and I killed the boss by kiting it around the room while whittling it down with bow light attacks. Yes, I too was one of those light attack spammers back when I started!

prof_doom

Whiskey_JG wrote: »

I think the underlying culture at Zos is that LA weaving is still seen as a sort of "exploit" rather than a unique feature.

So they keep making changes to remove the effectiveness of LA weaving, so they dont have to incorporate a combat tutorial.

At this point, if they hate LA weaving so much, then they should just take it out. As long as it exists, the people that weave will do better than the people that don't, unless LA does zero damage.

But they won't, and we all know they won't/can't. Seriously, just look at the new sets from the new dungeons.

• When you deal damage with a Heavy Attack,
• Dealing damage with a Light or Heavy Attack grants you a stack of Remorseless for 5 seconds, up to 5 stacks, up to once every 0.5 seconds.
• On Light Attack Critical Damage, you apply Withered Soul,
• When you deal damage with a Heavy Attack

They hate it so much, yet they keep making new sets that rely on it.

code65536

In case anyone is curious, my group tested Kyne's Aegis Hard Mode on the PTS on Saturday night.

I detailed that experience (with log snippets) in the official feedback thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7660761/#Comment_7660761

BrentBlemish

As someone who considers myself a top end end game player... Doing hard modes and trifectas... You've hit the god damn nail on how ZOS seems to balance their end game content. And further nerfing damage is only going to grow the divide even more.

Like... There are so many players who cant even beat maelstrom on Normal. And for a lot of people it takes them months or even years to get their first clear on VMA. (Been there) Now I'm not saying "Make the game easier" I was never one who supported getting maelstrom and arena weapons on normal since I feel like it diminshed the reward and sense of accomplishment. But I do feel like some of the hardest content should be pulled back just a tad. Looking at things like Godslayer or even unchained.

But also I feel like the best way to help bridge the gap is in-game teaching arenas. I know WoW did this a while back... But put in little mini games to slowly teach players about LA weaving. (there is an add on the teach players LA weaving but this is only available if your on PC and use adds ons)

ZOS tried to do this with the "build guide" thing they made. But its not widely used or even understood. there needs to be some kind of in game mini game with easy modes, hard modes, expect, ect to help teach players to play. BUT.... I dont see this happening because ZOS really REALLY wants there to be "Play anyway you want" but then makes its end game content not built around it. Just doesn't make a lot of sense.

shadyjane62

code65536 wrote: »

In case anyone is curious, my group tested Kyne's Aegis Hard Mode on the PTS on Saturday night.

I detailed that experience (with log snippets) in the official feedback thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7660761/#Comment_7660761

Code thank you again for all your hard work.

Krym

BrentBlemish wrote: »

BUT.... I dont see this happening because ZOS really REALLY wants there to be "Play anyway you want" but then makes its end game content not built around it. Just doesn't make a lot of sense.

because they want to figure it out yourself, or ask your fellow players. also how would that work, can I become godslayer or emperor playing unarmed? every game has requirements and progression paths. I won't defeat the ender dragon in minecraft without mining and crafting stuff.

the proving grounds in wow didn't fix any of that btw, all they did is make people figure out how to beat them, and then forget all about it when they leave (plus even for wow it had some very debatable design). you need to understand why someone can not or doesn't want to improve, and then remove the stopgaps where you can while still offering some degree of challenge.

prof_doom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArpuZKqDekc&ab_channel=SkinnyCheeks
Code's writeup has been featured by Skinny Cheeks (along with Skinny's analysis)

Valenor

Great post as usual. I cannot click agree and insightful more than once but man I wish I could. Your statements regarding power gap and creep are on point and I really hope devs take this into account. This update, despite a its flaws, could be the best update if they listen to the people who play their game.

OolongSnakeTea

A very well made post, with supporting information and details. 10/10 thank you for the level headed report.

The biggest problem is however, ZOS is a company. The devs are paid for time/work. Reguardless of what we say, what we do, they put dev hours towards this, so changes- 80% or more of them- are going to go live and this is their way of thinking going foward. Because money from a company was spent to pay employees for their time. And thats the hard pill to swallow about it all.

For them to revert any portion - hour and hours of dev hours spent on making this combat update would upset the company and makem them go 'why are you wasting company time then?', if say they were to revert large portions.

Were they well spent work hours? Not at all. Anyone who runs and does content can tell you with their data, it was not tested in a manner that had any meaning or sigificance other then maybe the lowest tier of PVE and PVP play.

My own personal testing- Soloing vet 4mans - was that this patch hurt, in both sustain and damage (on stam sorc)- and that the way I enjoy the game may change (soloing hard group content because its fun to be challneged and get pledges done that way - to me; it's the right blend of easy for some and effort for others that I can consent and choose the challenge all while still mainintaining my account needs with the various currencies).

It's a fustrating situation, and I'm tepid but hope to see good compromises made? Or at least understanding? I don't want to see another Morrowind, or Elsywer or Murkmire.

MudcrabAttack

code65536 wrote: »

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

[...]

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.

They came closer to that goal when they gave literally everyone more base weapon and spell damage with a CP update. Just do something like that again.

or they could buff things that new players do, like light attack spam or reapplying DOTs too soon, taking more time to use skills, not to the point where it’s broken, but just less bad. Just thinking outside the nerf box

FearTheRealFett

It would be nice to see such insightful posts from the dev team as you have here Code.

Instead we get a twitter post from the Creative Director saying “knee jerk reactions” “tiresome and disappointing” “going off the deep end…”

Very sad 😞

Elsonso

FearTheRealFett wrote: »

It would be nice to see such insightful posts from the dev team as you have here Code.

Instead we get a twitter post from the Creative Director saying “knee jerk reactions” “tiresome and disappointing” “going off the deep end…”

Very sad 😞

Even though they have stopped mentioning it, they did indicate a Combat Team update this week. I am still hopeful that it is more than just a press release detailing how they intend to dig in.

mpicklesster

code65536 wrote: »

Note: 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?”.

^I think this is a great, underrated point. Timer-watching is a major stress point for newer players and the Update 35 changes do little-to-nothing to fix it. Raising the duration of DOTs by a constant is like a rising tide: it lifts all boats equally. So the timer-watching stress felt by new players will still be there if U35 goes live as is.

I hope the devs have the courage to scrap the current changes and instead do the "time consistency pass" you mentioned above. Newer players would benefit from that MUCH more than a superfluous lengthening of DOTs.

kringled_1

When it comes to timer inconsistency, the changes to deep fissure are so far from their stated goal that it still baffles me. On live, damage goes out 3s after cast. Just about everyone who plays warden has internalized this timing. On current pts, first pulse is 4s after cast, then the second pulse is 6s after the first. That sounds to me like there will be a lot more staring at timers, not less.

Cyber10

Fantastic write up! Very well thought out and informative.

Destyran

They should look at the levels of dps by VMA scores sorta. Like there’s people with 620k 610k and 600k and there’s a small gap between those guys. The natural high is probably 580k and that’s just I know where things spawn with no dying and then there’s people who do it multiple times with 433k and all that go to the leader boards and look at the score difference between placing

Destyran

Elsonso wrote: »

FearTheRealFett wrote: »

It would be nice to see such insightful posts from the dev team as you have here Code.

Instead we get a twitter post from the Creative Director saying “knee jerk reactions” “tiresome and disappointing” “going off the deep end…”

Very sad 😞

Even though they have stopped mentioning it, they did indicate a Combat Team update this week. I am still hopeful that it is more than just a press release detailing how they intend to dig in.

It’s gonna be ok we made VDSR Hm completable again now we make patch go live stop QQ now.

Tannus15

Krym wrote: »

Whiskey_JG wrote: »

I think the underlying culture at Zos is that LA weaving is still seen as a sort of "exploit" rather than a unique feature.

So they keep making changes to remove the effectiveness of LA weaving, so they dont have to incorporate a combat tutorial.

there have been plenty of tutorials in and out of the game for 8 years. yet you still get four-digit CP players who can't interrupt or do basic mechanics. the same players who die from standing in something red and keep doing it. you can't teach people who don't want to learn.

if they remove weaving (what quite a few people are asking for and proposing as a "better solution" btw), the same people that consider 20s dots boring would probably claim they'd fall asleep at a dummy.

it also doesn't matter what zos thinks about weaving (and keeping it in the game says as much), since it's here and people are used to it. people like to claim U35 IS MAKING EVERYONE QUIT!!111, what do people think is gonna happen if they remove weaving altogether?
nerfing LA is pretty much the only way they can go - making it a less crucial part of the overall damage and removing some of the "stress" of having to weave perfectly, while still keeping it in and rewarding the players who actually can.
players who are less stressed about weaving and needing it for their "damage" (on top of having to keep track of several ticking dots and buffs with different timers) will also have an easier time to do mechanics - like interrupting and not standing in stupid for example. dead dps doesn't do dps.

with the current changes you have to look at more than just damage, the same way flat out buffing lower player's damage wouldn't make them godslayers or fix the issues why they do low damage.

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

@code65536
I think that all of the arguments are based on the assumptions that the current difficulty level (particularly dps checks) will remain the same, but it seems unlikely it would be the case that changes go through, no one is able to complete content and they refuse to adjust those benchmarks. That doesn't seem likely at all.

Since this seems to be the most significant concern of the community, it might be good diplomacy for ZOS to address those concerns in particular.

yet at the same time "the community" assumes ZOS didn't test those changes internally at all before putting them in the patch notes. the same community who also thinks a stationary dummy is a valid representation for current dps checks in encounters, and "bursting through encounters to skip mechanics" is the intended way to play.

besides, dps checks have been adjusted in the past often enough, if ZOS' metrics show less players are completing the content than should (same metric who shows the gaps in the difficulty progression, there's a reason they're doing these changes in the first places) this will get amended, you can bet on it. and even if they haven't been adjusted those checks, inevitable powercreep will take care of it on it's own.

there are no content adjustments in the PTS as it stands, so at best we have 3 months where content has been moved out of reach for most of the player base.

Whatever trial or dungeon a progression group is working on is just much harder. This is why groups are looking at shutting down, many are already stopping because historically balance changes in PTS don't listen to player feedback and there is no expectation for any real adjustments.

I lead a vet trial group and we've spent the better part of the last 12 months working on vRG HM. If the PTS goes live in it's current state I can't imagine any other outcome other than stopping for 3 months and hoping we can put the team back together in a later update when either the content is made easier or we are buffed back up to the current dps level.

Right now the assumption has to be that the current PTS will be going live in it's current form. Anything else requires ignoring all past data and examples.

kojou

Code summed up everything I would have said and probably said it better than I would have. I wish I could like this post more than once.

Whiskey_JG

Also Zos tends to narrow "Accessibility" down to combat or damage only.......as if somehow that is the only gatekeeper to specific content. There is this impression that dps is the only single factor that holds back low level players from doing all content.

Well let's flip that upside down for the sake of the argument.

As an end game player, I don't have time for RP achievements like Master Angler.

So will Zos nerf the amount of fish I need to catch for each zone, so that achievement is more accessible to me??


my guess is NO

BlueRaven

Whiskey_JG wrote: »

Also Zos tends to narrow "Accessibility" down to combat or damage only.......as if somehow that is the only gatekeeper to specific content. There is this impression that dps is the only single factor that holds back low level players from doing all content.

Well let's flip that upside down for the sake of the argument.

As an end game player, I don't have time for RP achievements like Master Angler.

So will Zos nerf the amount of fish I need to catch for each zone, so that achievement is more accessible to me??


my guess is NO

Um… What?

That is not even remotely comparable.

Whiskey_JG

BlueRaven wrote: »

Whiskey_JG wrote: »

Also Zos tends to narrow "Accessibility" down to combat or damage only.......as if somehow that is the only gatekeeper to specific content. There is this impression that dps is the only single factor that holds back low level players from doing all content.

Well let's flip that upside down for the sake of the argument.

As an end game player, I don't have time for RP achievements like Master Angler.

So will Zos nerf the amount of fish I need to catch for each zone, so that achievement is more accessible to me??


my guess is NO

Um… What?

That is not even remotely comparable.

I was being sarcastic lofl. But to me thats how it sounds when i hear someone complaining about accessibility.

BlueRaven

Whiskey_JG wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Whiskey_JG wrote: »

Also Zos tends to narrow "Accessibility" down to combat or damage only.......as if somehow that is the only gatekeeper to specific content. There is this impression that dps is the only single factor that holds back low level players from doing all content.

Well let's flip that upside down for the sake of the argument.

As an end game player, I don't have time for RP achievements like Master Angler.

So will Zos nerf the amount of fish I need to catch for each zone, so that achievement is more accessible to me??


my guess is NO

Um… What?

That is not even remotely comparable.

I was being sarcastic lofl. But to me thats how it sounds when i hear someone complaining about accessibility.

Please don’t derail this thread. It’s well written extremely well thought out.

Sindrik8x

These are the types of people that need to sit on the dev team. Zos would be wise to bring someone on with true and tested knowledge like this. Everything stated is spot on. By far the best critique of update 35 I have seen yet between forums, and youtube/twitch.

Thanks for putting this into context for the community Code.

Holycannoli

I know I've said this elsewhere but it needs to be said again:

The idea of increasing accessibility to the game by nerfing damage is totally backwards.

It really is as simple as that. How do you increase accessibility to this game and all it's content by nerfing everyone's damage? How does that make sense? How does that help the average/casual player in any way?

And I think the change from 1 tick per second to every 2 seconds is for server performance, especially in Cyrodiil but it applies everywhere.

redspecter23

Sindrik8x wrote: »

These are the types of people that need to sit on the dev team. Zos would be wise to bring someone on with true and tested knowledge like this. Everything stated is spot on. By far the best critique of update 35 I have seen yet between forums, and youtube/twitch.

Thanks for putting this into context for the community Code.

Isn't that the exact situation that led to Gilliam getting invited onto the ZOS team?

StarOfElyon

HatchetHaro wrote: »

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.

You'd be surprised how many people actually play ESO like it is Skyrim 2.0; all they're doing is spamming light and heavy attacks with a small sprinkling of abilities mixed in.

That was me when I first started.

StarOfElyon

fred4 wrote: »

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.

I was literally in Spindleclutch as a new player spamming bow light attacks because I thought it worked like Skyrim.

StarOfElyon

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.

This is why I make it a point to help out new players when I see them in game. I had one player in Vet Depths of Malatar offer to leave the group because he thought he was "holding us back". I encouraged them to stay and eventually we completed the dungeon. They needed that experience to improve.