So... What's Wrong With a Skill Gap?

Stamicka

For a few years now, the devs have been putting a lot of effort into shrinking the skill gap, but why? What is wrong with a skill gap? Let's talk a bit about Gilliam's reasoning behind recent changes.

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Weaving

Currently, to be truly effective in ESO’s combat, you need to learn to manipulate something that is known as “weaving,” which refers to the act of squeezing multiple actions into the global cooldown window. Doing so drastically increases your agency and output, and it is a staple of the game that we’ve come to embrace, as it helps our combat feel different and exciting to participate in once you learn the ins and outs. However, the impact of weaving leads to a massive gap in performance where players who cannot interact with it as effectively are left miles behind those who can. While this is partially unavoidable and an important part of what makes the mastery of ESO or any activity utilizing a similar system particularly satisfying, we want to do what we can to shorten that delta. The closer the gap between the low and high end, the easier it is to create content that can accommodate a wider audience, while making more natural progression points for those looking to improve. To this end, we’ve started to look at the impact that one of the most common and important forms of weaving has in ESO: Light and Heavy Attack weaving.

So here it seems like the reason for trying to shrink the skill gap is to make it easier to design content for a wider audience. Is this not the purpose of Normal, Veteran, and Veteran Hard Mode difficulties? The same piece of content can be played by players of different skill levels with these optional difficulty modes. It seems like these changes were made to make Veteran Mode more accessible to people, but what's wrong with them doing Normal Mode instead of Vet? If you want Vet content to be less of a challenge, then why have a Vet Mode at all? At the end of the day, it is up to the player to choose to improve and work towards more challenging content. If someone does not want to progress to more challenging content, it doesn't need to be handed to them. This is the reality of any game. So the "make vet content more accessible" reason doesn't really make sense.

I see many people calling the skill gap "unhealthy", but why? Skill gaps exist because some people choose to put time into improving their skills, some people don't. This creates a skill gap. What is wrong with this? Why does it need to be fixed? How is it unhealthy? Share your thoughts.

DeathStalker

I don't think it's a skill gap in general but how wide the skill gap is and they just want to narrow it some. I could be wrong, My strong dislike for these changes on PTS is clouding my objectivity, to be honest with you.

Kiralyn2000

It's hard to balance/produce content for your playerbase when you've got too wide a range of DPS.

Every MMO I've played has had times when they did a "narrow the DPS gap" attempt.

Frequently doesn't work. (both because most things done to nerf the high end, also effect the low end; and because the theorycrafters/min-maxerrs just figure out how to work the new system to gain more DPS.)

Stamicka

DeathStalker wrote: »

I don't think it's a skill gap in general but how wide the skill gap is and they just want to narrow it some. I could be wrong, My strong dislike for these changes on PTS is clouding my objectivity, to be honest with you.

What's wrong with the wideness of the skill gap? At this point, the game has been out for over 7 years. Some people have had way more time to improve their skills than others. Pair this with the complexity of ESO's combat and you get a wide skill gap. In things like PvE which is cooperative, having this skill gap can be a very good thing. In PvP, BG's have a MMR system in place and Cyrodiil allows you to outnumber people above your skill level. There's really nothing wrong with the wideness of the gap.

chessalavakia_ESO

Content development isn't cheap.

For content to be successful, it needs to draw in enough people that are interested in it to pay for itself and generate profit.

As a result, having content that is only used by a small segment of the players only really works if it draws in lots of interest, draws in whales, or is part of a massive project so that drawing in a small % of players is still drawing in lots of people.

You also ram into the issue that players doing lots of damage can screw up content on normal. It's not really rare to have the mechanics for a fight on normal never actually fire. Then you can end up caught off guard when they actually do happen.

Mr_Stach

There's nothing wrong with a skill gap.

But it's easier to nerf people than to put in resources to help newer or less experienced players get better.

I think if Zos Implemented a Dojo System similar to what ff14 has there would be more skilled players as people would know what they are doing.

Stamicka

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

It's hard to balance/produce content for your playerbase when you've got too wide a range of DPS.

Every MMO I've played has had times when they did a "narrow the DPS gap" attempt.

Frequently doesn't work. (both because most things done to nerf the high end, also effect the low end; and because the theorycrafters/min-maxerrs just figure out how to work the new system to gain more DPS.)

This is the same reason ZOS used to justify their actions, but it just doesn't hold. I would understand the reasoning behind this if Normal Mode didn't exist, but it does. Players aren't completely locked out of a piece of content because they could just choose to do it on Normal Mode. They may be unable to do the content at a higher level of difficulty, but that is the very point of the higher level of difficulty. Why does everyone need to be able to do Vet difficulty without putting in the time to improve their damage naturally?

DeathStalker

Stamicka wrote: »

DeathStalker wrote: »

I don't think it's a skill gap in general but how wide the skill gap is and they just want to narrow it some. I could be wrong, My strong dislike for these changes on PTS is clouding my objectivity, to be honest with you.

What's wrong with the wideness of the skill gap? At this point, the game has been out for over 7 years. Some people have had way more time to improve their skills than others. Pair this with the complexity of ESO's combat and you get a wide skill gap. In things like PvE which is cooperative, having this skill gap can be a very good thing. In PvP, BG's have a MMR system in place and Cyrodiil allows you to outnumber people above your skill level. There's really nothing wrong with the wideness of the gap.

I'm the wrong person to try to tell anyone what's wrong with the width of the skill gap. I think ESO has floor and ceiling dps that they have decided are ideal. I also think they have decided to make changes until all the numbers high and low fit into their ideal dps floor and ceiling. I agree with you for the most part and wish ESO would just bluntly state what their Ideal dps floor and ceiling actually is because I don't think they have. Until they do we the players are chasing our tails and having reaction conversations instead of having Proactive conversations with ESO to achieve the goals as one community.

spartaxoxo

They said they want to reduce it, not eliminate it. They said having one is natural and healthy for a game. But they want a more natural and logical progression to harder and harder content. So, this is a bit of a strawman.

Currently the endgame population is unsustainably low. Some guilds have trouble even filling prog rosters. And there's a wide mass of people that want to do that content, but can't, due to the power gap. You can't let everyone run in the Olympics, but the Olympics also can't be just be Usain Bolt running against random objects because there's not enough people for an actual race.

BloodMagicLord

As I understand it, the "skill gap" is already addressed perfectly by having overland content, normal dungeons/trials, veteran difficulty, and hardmode. There is something for people of all skill levels.

The devs are trying to fix something that isn't broken and uprooting the entire game in the process.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

One gaping problem with the skill gap is that content itself has a massive gap. Between normal and vet, the difference is vast. Content itself needs to be adjusted if there is ever to be any hope of a more healthy gap.

spartaxoxo

BloodMagicLord wrote: »

As I understand it, the "skill gap" is already addressed perfectly by having overland content, normal dungeons/trials, veteran difficulty, and hardmode. There is something for people of all skill levels.

The devs are trying to fix something that isn't broken and uprooting the entire game in the process.

It is broken because normal is too easy for a lot of people but they hit a wall at the vet content. As a result not enough new people become vets when the old ones leave, resulting in a vet population that has been dwindling for a while now.

BlueRaven

Stamicka wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

It's hard to balance/produce content for your playerbase when you've got too wide a range of DPS.

Every MMO I've played has had times when they did a "narrow the DPS gap" attempt.

Frequently doesn't work. (both because most things done to nerf the high end, also effect the low end; and because the theorycrafters/min-maxerrs just figure out how to work the new system to gain more DPS.)

This is the same reason ZOS used to justify their actions, but it just doesn't hold. I would understand the reasoning behind this if Normal Mode didn't exist, but it does. Players aren't completely locked out of a piece of content because they could just choose to do it on Normal Mode. They may be unable to do the content at a higher level of difficulty, but that is the very point of the higher level of difficulty. Why does everyone need to be able to do Vet difficulty without putting in the time to improve their damage naturally?

Well I don’t have numbers. But what if internally there are people wondering why they are putting resources into hard modes if so few people are doing them.

What then? Do we reduce the hard mode difficulty? Or do you try to get more people in a position to do the hard modes by lowering the difference between low and high dps?

It really could be that simple. This could be a way of saving the budget for the harder levels of difficulty.

••••

As an aside. I am in five 500 person guilds with 1-2 week off-line kick policies. So they are active guilds. None of them are RP guilds btw.

And NONE of them have organized trial groups anymore. Not one. And this is not a recent thing, our last trial organized weekly trial group fell apart when they nerfed tank damage a few patches ago.

No one picked up the mantle and to be honest there does not seem to be any DEMAND for trial groups. And this was just normal trials.

Like I said, I don’t have numbers but yikes.

These are the people zos is trying to get into dungeons and the like.

If you like trials, if you like hard modes. You WANT zos to succeed in getting more people to use them.

Stamicka

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Content development isn't cheap.

For content to be successful, it needs to draw in enough people that are interested in it to pay for itself and generate profit.

As a result, having content that is only used by a small segment of the players only really works if it draws in lots of interest, draws in whales, or is part of a massive project so that drawing in a small % of players is still drawing in lots of people.

You also ram into the issue that players doing lots of damage can screw up content on normal. It's not really rare to have the mechanics for a fight on normal never actually fire. Then you can end up caught off guard when they actually do happen.

From a profit standpoint, ZOS doesn't benefit at all from this. If you purchase a dungeon DLC, ZOS gets the money whether you choose to do it on Normal or on Vet. For trials, these are sold with Chapter releases, so even if someone doesn't care about the trial, there may be some other reason they buy the newest Chapter. Whether or not they buy the Chapter for the trial or something else, ZOS makes money. Regardless, of whether you choose to do Normal Content or Vet Content, ZOS makes the same amount of money.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They said they want to reduce it, not eliminate it. They said having one is natural and healthy for a game. But they want a more natural and logical progression to harder and harder content. So, this is a bit of a strawman.

A more logical progression to harder content? Not sure what you even mean by this.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Currently the endgame population is unsustainably low. Some guilds have trouble even filling prog rosters. And there's a wide mass of people that want to do that content, but can't, due to the power gap. You can't let everyone run in the Olympics, but the Olympics also can't be just be Usain Bolt running against random objects because there's not enough people for an actual race.

Interesting... the endgame population is low, yet end game players keep getting nerfed then leave the game. I've watched both PvP and PvE endgames shrink, but its BECAUSE of changes like Update 35 happening year after year. Also, what do you mean by "players want to do the content, but can't?" If players want to do content, then they will do the content. This doesn't mean they will COMPLETE the content, but they try to do it. With enough practice maybe they will get a complete. Endgame would actually be more alive if what you were saying was true, you would just be seeing more progression guilds rather than score pushing guilds.

spartaxoxo

Stamicka wrote: »

If players want to do content, then they will do the content.

Untrue. Many players want to do content but can't because of their damage hitting a wall. And this has been a common complaint for years. ZOS has the data on this too and have talked about players trying a lot but hitting walls that most never overcome. They aren't invited to the progs because they don't have the damage.

Why ZOS decides to go about fixing this problem in that way is anyone's guess. Their idea to fix it baffles me. But, the problem they've identified and tried to fix is real.

Stamicka

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

If players want to do content, then they will do the content.

Untrue. Many players want to do content but can't because of their damage hitting a wall. And this has been a common complaint for years. ZOS has the data on this too and have talked about players trying a lot but hitting walls that most never overcome. They aren't invited to the progs because they don't have the damage.

Why ZOS decides to go about fixing this problem in that way is anyone's guess. Their idea to fix it baffles me. But, the problem they've identified and tried to fix is real.

I guess by "do" content I don't mean complete, I mean go into the content and try. So do you mean they want to COMPLETE content, but they can't? If they try and fail, sorry, but they just have to keep trying. But if they give up after hitting a wall and failing a few times, how bad do they really "want to do" the content?

spartaxoxo

Stamicka wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

If players want to do content, then they will do the content.

Untrue. Many players want to do content but can't because of their damage hitting a wall. And this has been a common complaint for years. ZOS has the data on this too and have talked about players trying a lot but hitting walls that most never overcome. They aren't invited to the progs because they don't have the damage.

Why ZOS decides to go about fixing this problem in that way is anyone's guess. Their idea to fix it baffles me. But, the problem they've identified and tried to fix is real.

I guess by "do" content I don't mean complete, I mean go into the content and try. So do you mean they want to COMPLETE content, but they can't? If they try and fail, sorry, but they just have to keep trying. But if they give up after hitting a wall and failing a few times, how bad do they really "want to do" the content?

Okay go run a race with only Usain Bolt and see if you still have an Olympics. A healthy amount of raiders in most MMOs is like top 5% of playerbase, here it is .1%.

LordDragonMara

Stamicka wrote: »

DeathStalker wrote: »

I don't think it's a skill gap in general but how wide the skill gap is and they just want to narrow it some. I could be wrong, My strong dislike for these changes on PTS is clouding my objectivity, to be honest with you.

What's wrong with the wideness of the skill gap? At this point, the game has been out for over 7 years. Some people have had way more time to improve their skills than others. Pair this with the complexity of ESO's combat and you get a wide skill gap. In things like PvE which is cooperative, having this skill gap can be a very good thing. In PvP, BG's have a MMR system in place and Cyrodiil allows you to outnumber people above your skill level. There's really nothing wrong with the wideness of the gap.

[snip]

And here is where i disagree with you. There is no such a wide gap. Actually the skill gap is already low enough, and they will literally remove it with the changes.

Any decent players that comes from different games, and understand what he need to do to, is going to improve and close that gap really fast.
Light Attack Weaving is not a hard thing to do, it's just a timing and to get it right consistency, which is pretty much muscle memory and will come naturally with some time.
The Dots and the 10 sec. window, this is not some hard thing to do, it's require around what 150-180 APM on just a few button, which is not a hard thing to do, and anyone with little practice can get there.

[snip]

What is wide skill gaps is in FPS games, in BR games, in Strategy games like SC, SC2, Wc3, and in MOBBA games.

And here we have normal content, for people that just don't want to improve, and i fail to see the problem.
Why they remove the skill from the game, and punish people that were actually working hard to get where they are ???
Worst thing they have done to be fair.

So many people are done with the game, because of that. Many won't even touch the game, because they don't want to play, just a gear-based game, and want their skills as a player to matter, as it should be.

Main reason why the huge player base is in FPS, BR and MOBBA games > player skills. MMORPG genre should have learn from that.

[edited for baiting & discussing disciplinary actions]

francesinhalover

Because https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/ez7nhf/do_you_guys_like_combat_in_eso/ People dislike eso combat, by at least making players that have bad weaving or don't weave, get closer to pro players they increase the chances of keeping lower skilled players interested in content. It's an amazing idea tbh, the issue is they nerfed everything not only light attacks

LordDragonMara

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They said they want to reduce it, not eliminate it. They said having one is natural and healthy for a game. But they want a more natural and logical progression to harder and harder content. So, this is a bit of a strawman.

Currently the endgame population is unsustainably low. Some guilds have trouble even filling prog rosters. And there's a wide mass of people that want to do that content, but can't, due to the power gap. You can't let everyone run in the Olympics, but the Olympics also can't be just be Usain Bolt running against random objects because there's not enough people for an actual race.

Lowering the skill gap and lowering the ceiling is always a bad thing to do. Trying to babysitting new players not going to work. People that want to get better will get better, lazy ones won't. It's that simple.
The gap in skills was already low, and the game doesn't offer much skill to be completely fair. Now they are effectively removing it.
What they are doing is rewarding bad players, and punishing a good ones. Try to explain me how is that a good thing ?

The end game population is low, because of patches like this, and the constant try to remove any skills that was left in the game. Also it's not just the end game, and the so call elitists that want this game to have a clear skill gap and high skill ceiling. A lot of mids and newest players want to same, they want to challenge themselves and get something in return for playing the game in terms of skills.

For example playing FPS games and trying to improve in there, will help my mouse control, keyboard control or i would say, APM, WPS, whatever you wanna call it, my hand-eye coordination, my micromanagement(like in Apex Legends), my reaction time, and even make my brain work faster, aka take faster decision. On top of that also things like positioning and many more.
Most of this skills is going to help you in pretty much every genre, every game you play.

I'm grinding on Kovaaks, which is aim trainer, and every single game that i decide to play, even on Console, comes super naturally, really fast. And the method to improve in any given genre/game is actually pretty much universal/the same.
It's the same in life to be fair:
This videos are very telling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5A26Sc63F0&t=0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_i-CjcIM-w&t=366s

And your comparison with Olympics is absolutely terrible, and here it's why. Everyone in that Olympics to be there have to compete in order to get in there. They have qualifiers and they need to hit certain times in order to get there. Does anyone lower the standard for anyone, because they are lazy and bad at something ? Hell, no! This guys are working super hard to get in there. No one has give them anything on free.
It's the same principle in life, and it's the same in the game if you want to be successful.
If you don't, you can still run for fun at the track, right ?

spartaxoxo

It's got nothing to do with laziness. If it did it would have the same population as any other MMO. Games do this all the time so that they keep people in a grouping where skill is rewarded, but content is still played by enough people that groups can reasonably be formed.

No game or sport allows for a situation where they can't get new blood. And I don't get why you think this one should. That's how to kill a game 101.

Amottica

Every MMORPG has a skill gap. It is the difference between players who put a lot of effort into finding out what works best and perfecting their gameplay and those who are happy playing the game without such knowledge.

However, in ESO that skill gap is huge compared to most major MMORPGs. Anyone who has spent time in dungeons has seen players that can barely do 10% of what the top DPS in this game can pull. Heck, one does not even have to deal with random players to be aware of this fact as there is a regular cadence of threads talking about it.

That is an absurd difference and is a major reason for the toxicity we see in the game (again, this bleeds over to the forum with people creating threads and posts about it.

At the end of the day, it is part of the developer's responsibility to manage such things.

LordDragonMara

spartaxoxo wrote: »

It's got nothing to do with laziness. If it did it would have the same population as any other MMO. Games do this all the time so that they keep people in a grouping where skill is rewarded, but content is still played by enough people that groups can reasonably be formed.

No game or sport allows for a situation where they can't get new blood. And I don't get why you think this one should. That's how to kill a game 101.

It has everything to do. Because Weaving and managing your Dots is not so hard thing to do, comparing to aiming for example, in order to get a good mouse control, it takes a lot of time, years and a lot of hours.

In ESO everything comes naturally, if you actually want to improve and get to that level, instead of just complaining that is too hard.

And which are this games you are talking about, how many are alive actually ? Is it specific to MMORPG ? A genre that is constantly losing people, cause some people/devs refuse to understand that it needs to evolve, like every other genre ?

As far as skills goes, they are making LA weaving almost a none-factor.

In the so call Combat Effects, they remove any skills that was in there, like the average APM you need, that may have separate me from the "slow" one, as well as the micromanagement part.
With 10 to 20 seconds, they literally that skill out of the game. On top of making the combat incredible boring.

As far as the sports goes, no sport allows lazy and bad people that just refuse to understand, to learn and to get better.
Tell me a sport that changes it's fundamentals, because the amateurs are bad, and it's the only way they can think of, to be able to catch to Pros ? There is none.
There is a skill requirement, as well as commit requirement, as well as work requirement to be successful in sport, in life, in video games and in so.
Also if you are not on the level needed in football for example you won't play for the biggest club. Same in Tennis. If you are not good enough, you wont participate in Grand Slams, and etc.

You trying to make a point with sport or life based events, but it's result in exactly the opposite, because it's simple not right.

And again i'm not an elitists. I call myself a casual gamer, that spend around 2-4 hours per day in gaming. Yet i still known if i do the things right i can get where i want in no time in terms of skills. And i have learn the hard way, that if you want to be good at anything you have to put the work. Nothing is given for free to you, neither it should be.

And let's be real, one of the huge gabs between low and pros players, that they mention and they want to reduce is mostly in gear. And it's their fault, cause they introduce the OP sets and so on.
They still need to grind and to get that level and that gear.
So they did the worst possible thing they could have done. Pissing huge part of your low, mid and end game base.
Again it's not just the end game playerbase that cared for the players-skill. And now a lot of players are going to quit, and that is for sure.
We will look at the numbers in a few months and see the results.

Kiralyn2000

LordDragonMara wrote: »

It has everything to do. Because Weaving and managing your Dots is not so hard thing to do, comparing to aiming for example, in order to get a good mouse control, it takes a lot of time, years and a lot of hours.

In ESO everything comes naturally, if you actually want to improve and get to that level, instead of just complaining that is too hard.

Here's the thing - I'm just here to play a game for enjoyment. All this "you gotta study hard, perfect your <blah blah blah>, put in the hours, etc"... it's crazy to me. Even back when I was a highschool kid, with a million hours a week to play, I didn't care that hard. As a non-competitive 50-something, it's not remotely in my mind.

That said, I also don't care about "endgame" or leaderboards or competition, so I'm not the one complaining about things being "too hard" or cluttering up your dungeon groups.

But this expectation that playing games should be some life's work of constant improvement & studying? Weird. I play games for fun, not to do homework.

(I'm reminded of those "gamer personality tests" that people keep coming up with, from the original Killer/Socializer/Achiever/Explorer one, to the more complex ones. I'll never score high on competitiveness, aggression, or striving for perfection. I'm just there to explore & experience. Part of why I find "boss fights" to be one of the low points of single player RPGs - they're a roadblock to experiencing the story, something annoying & tedious to get past so I can get back to the game.)

And again i'm not an elitists. I call myself a casual gamer, that spend around 2-4 hours per day in gaming.

I'm not sure I'd connect "casual gamer" and this, from your previous post:

For example playing FPS games and trying to improve in there, will help my mouse control, keyboard control or i would say, APM, WPS, whatever you wanna call it, my hand-eye coordination, my micromanagement(like in Apex Legends), my reaction time, and even make my brain work faster, aka take faster decision. On top of that also things like positioning and many more.
Most of this skills is going to help you in pretty much every genre, every game you play.

I'm grinding on Kovaaks, which is aim trainer, and every single game that i decide to play, even on Console, comes super naturally, really fast.

That seems like super-hardcore dedication, to me. /shrug


---

question: if you practice & perfect & master the skills, and work your way up to the top 1% of DPS... does it matter if that's 100k DPS or 60k DPS? You're still top 1%, and you're still demonstrating your utter mastery of the game.

TaSheen

z

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

LordDragonMara wrote: »

It has everything to do. Because Weaving and managing your Dots is not so hard thing to do, comparing to aiming for example, in order to get a good mouse control, it takes a lot of time, years and a lot of hours.

In ESO everything comes naturally, if you actually want to improve and get to that level, instead of just complaining that is too hard.

Here's the thing - I'm just here to play a game for enjoyment. All this "you gotta study hard, perfect your <blah blah blah>, put in the hours, etc"... it's crazy to me. Even back when I was a highschool kid, with a million hours a week to play, I didn't care that hard. As a non-competitive 50-something, it's not remotely in my mind.

That said, I also don't care about "endgame" or leaderboards or competition, so I'm not the one complaining about things being "too hard" or cluttering up your dungeon groups.

But this expectation that playing games should be some life's work of constant improvement & studying? Weird. I play games for fun, not to do homework.

(I'm reminded of those "gamer personality tests" that people keep coming up with, from the original Killer/Socializer/Achiever/Explorer one, to the more complex ones. I'll never score high on competitiveness, aggression, or striving for perfection. I'm just there to explore & experience. Part of why I find "boss fights" to be one of the low points of single player RPGs - they're a roadblock to experiencing the story, something annoying & tedious to get past so I can get back to the game.)

And again i'm not an elitists. I call myself a casual gamer, that spend around 2-4 hours per day in gaming.

I'm not sure I'd connect "casual gamer" and this, from your previous post:

For example playing FPS games and trying to improve in there, will help my mouse control, keyboard control or i would say, APM, WPS, whatever you wanna call it, my hand-eye coordination, my micromanagement(like in Apex Legends), my reaction time, and even make my brain work faster, aka take faster decision. On top of that also things like positioning and many more.
Most of this skills is going to help you in pretty much every genre, every game you play.

I'm grinding on Kovaaks, which is aim trainer, and every single game that i decide to play, even on Console, comes super naturally, really fast.

That seems like super-hardcore dedication, to me. /shrug


---

question: if you practice & perfect & master the skills, and work your way up to the top 1% of DPS... does it matter if that's 100k DPS or 60k DPS? You're still top 1%, and you're still demonstrating your utter mastery of the game.

All I want to do is play a fun game. I gave up endgame after a decade in WoW and Rift, which by the end (when I simply walked away from both, and haven't ever been back) caused me more angst than almost anything else in this world to date.

I'm - just not going to make a job out of any game I play for fun any more. I did that. And when it quit being fun I just quit the games.

So far, ESO has been fun. But I don't see the fun continuing after this patch.

Carcamongus

A skill gap, in principle, is just natural. Unnatural would be a situation in which everyone is equally skilled. What can be problematic isn't the existence of a gap, but its nature. Is it an ossified gap that can't be bridged or can people reasonably hope to go from the low end to the high one? Is the process clear and fair to all?

For the most part, I'd say the process is arduous but doable. It's not so simple that I'd call those who can't make it lazy, but if people spend the time, do their research and practice, the odds of success are good. Guilds help a lot, too.

Some players, though, have difficulty with certain aspects of the game and that has nothing to do with dedication. Another thread mentioned how colorblind folks struggled with some dungeons, like White-Gold Tower. For a long time I struggled with some bosses, eg the Earthbore Ammonia, because of slow reflexes and a hard time seeing the alert that the boss was about to heavy attack.

I'd say the best way to deal with the skill gap is to be clever with dungeon/trial/boss designs and smart about new content. If something big's about to happen, make it so everyone can clearly see that. Don't fill the screen with so many disorienting effects and other shinies that the player may at times have trouble seeing themselves (or risks having seizures, like in that Pokémon cartoon decades ago...). Change the heavy attack animation to be more visible. Instead of adding OP sets that everyone knows will be nerfed, be more reasonable. Instead of nerfing almost everything, buff non-meta sets that less experienced players might use until they can collect the crème de la crème.

In sum, elite players worked hard to get where they are and they should be able to reap the rewards of their efforts. Having in place a reasonable process with which people can join the elite ranks is much better than nerfing everything.

Note: I don't include myself among the elite ranks, but I do feel their pain.

FantasticFreddie

Announcement from an extremely popular discord. They are shuttering their doors and hosting no more raids. Account wide achievements drove away a lot of experienced raiders, this one is just too much.

merpins

Mr_Stach wrote: »

There's nothing wrong with a skill gap.

But it's easier to nerf people than to put in resources to help newer or less experienced players get better.

Basically what I was gonna say. It hurts the low end the least because a 20% damage drop at 10k dps is 2k damage. It hurts the mid-game and end-game the most. But ZoS main priority is early game, since that's where most of their profit is supposedly coming from.

EozZoe1989

thing is they want people to be more social and play eso multi player lol
people mad eit more solo and have been antisoical ..
they event was awsome dont you think.

LordDragonMara

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Here's the thing - I'm just here to play a game for enjoyment. All this "you gotta study hard, perfect your <blah blah blah>, put in the hours, etc"... it's crazy to me. Even back when I was a highschool kid, with a million hours a week to play, I didn't care that hard. As a non-competitive 50-something, it's not remotely in my mind.

That said, I also don't care about "endgame" or leaderboards or competition, so I'm not the one complaining about things being "too hard" or cluttering up your dungeon groups.

But this expectation that playing games should be some life's work of constant improvement & studying? Weird. I play games for fun, not to do homework.

(I'm reminded of those "gamer personality tests" that people keep coming up with, from the original Killer/Socializer/Achiever/Explorer one, to the more complex ones. I'll never score high on competitiveness, aggression, or striving for perfection. I'm just there to explore & experience. Part of why I find "boss fights" to be one of the low points of single player RPGs - they're a roadblock to experiencing the story, something annoying & tedious to get past so I can get back to the game.)


That seems like super-hardcore dedication, to me. /shrug


question: if you practice & perfect & master the skills, and work your way up to the top 1% of DPS... does it matter if that's 100k DPS or 60k DPS? You're still top 1%, and you're still demonstrating your utter mastery of the game.

And that is perfectly fine. I also play for relaxation and enjoyment. But i also find enjoyment in getting something in return if i can say it that way. Mastering something also gives me great pleasure.
I'm pretty much like that in everything i do.

As far as playing games should be some life's work of constant improvements and so on, here it's my take:
You can always play just for fun, whether it's FPS, BR, MOBBA, Strategy or MMORPG. And actually the best you going to feel in MMORPG, because you can stay in the PVE field, and leave the competitive field away, cause it's not much fun to constantly get killed by better players.
But MP/Online games and MMORPG are games where you going to face different people obviously and the games are huge and with depth mechanics. And just like you say, it's your choice to either learn that mechanics or not.
And MMORPG always offers this. Even if you are not following any particular build, and completely be out of meta, and out of any % of optimal, you can still do the basic game content, and finish the game.

But obviously a lot of people play Online gaming for it's competitiveness, for challenging contents, for grouping with other people and etc.

And there is nothing wrong with that, as this was the main point in Online gaming.

I usually prefer to play SOLO, but still try to improve on my rotation, on my character, on my skills.

As far as my experience at FPS gaming and getting an aim trainer(Kovaaks) to get better i did that more of a stubbornness, because i was getting wrecked and that wasn't fun at all. I just decide to put the work and it's paid off in my ways to be fair. As having a top mouse control helps me in everything, and my works as well.

As far as the damage goes i really don't care if it's 60, 70 or 100k. I think i was clear about that. My problem is with removing the skill from the game, as they are literally trying to do that.

Jaraal

Accessibility and skills gap are nice talking points, but anyone can see that the U35 changes are focused on curtailing power creep…. ie: higher than envisioned damage numbers that trivialize some content. Everything else is just a diversion.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

One gaping problem with the skill gap is that content itself has a massive gap. Between normal and vet, the difference is vast. Content itself needs to be adjusted if there is ever to be any hope of a more healthy gap.

The easiest way to raise the floor without lowering the ceiling would be to add a third mode. Veteran, Normal, and Beginning, Training, or whatever you want to call it. Let new or low skilled players learn to work together in easier versions of dungeons, trials, and arenas. And of course scale the rewards down accordingly. And add training tutorials with performance recaps, similar to death recaps, with tips on how to improve based on their battle choices during the training.