ZOS, the only way forward is to scrap these changes, apologize, and let us help you do better

acastanza_ESO

The community has been resounding in it's rejection of your intent to take the game in this direction.

To your credit, you have accurately identified that there is a problem with the skill-gap in the game, but you have badly miscalculated how to address it.
It needs to be addressed through teaching people to play the game you've built in the game.
Put in a weaving tutorial. Bake in a combat metronome.
Give players access to performance metrics without needing someone to tell you about specific addons.

Let people know that there even is something they need to learn, and then give them the tools they need to learn it. That is how you address a skill gap.

Then you put in tools to bring up people that still can't manage it. Oakensoul was a good attempt at this for helping struggling players in small group content (if still needing some refinement to not make it OP in other areas). The Pearlescent Ward set was a great attempt at helping struggling Prog groups.

Maybe consider a reverse-Molag Kena set, something that buffs your attacks when you cast two consecutive abilities? But you know, actually good.

Then, once basic issues are addressed, work on bringing the highest end of damage down with focused nerfs to specific areas - you did a good job with this with the champion points changes last patch.

This is where you need to spend your combat development time, not spending 6 more weeks refining changes that 75% of you community does not want anything to do with.

Please listen to your community. We're begging you.

Mr_Stach

I'm going to bring this up here since it's yet again right on topic with giving people the tools to improve. Look at ff14, I'm not a huge fan or anything with it, I don't play it anymore, but they have a much better approach to teaching new players mechanics and how to improve and generally learning their roles.

I Think that ESO would would greatly benefit from a Dojo Type System where people can learn how to improve their DPS, Healing, and Tanking Skills. Introduce Weaving IN GAME, make it official. There's still a lot of things in combat that people just don't understand, especially with Tanking.

You want to lessen the Damage Floor and Ceiling, you don't sweep everyone's legs, you give people the tools to be successful then see where the real outliers are.

virtus753

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I'm going to bring this up here since it's yet again right on topic with giving people the tools to improve. Look at ff14, I'm not a huge fan or anything with it, I don't play it anymore, but they have a much better approach to teaching new players mechanics and how to improve and generally learning their roles.

I Think that ESO would would greatly benefit from a Dojo Type System where people can learn how to improve their DPS, Healing, and Tanking Skills. Introduce Weaving IN GAME, make it official. There's still a lot of things in combat that people just don't understand, especially with Tanking.

You want to lessen the Damage Floor and Ceiling, you don't sweep everyone's legs, you give people the tools to be successful then see where the real outliers are.

They do introduce both weaving and animation cancelling in game but through load screen text.

One of the best dps I know learned about LA weaving from those screens, but most players I play with have no recollection of ever having seen either one.

They should understand that not everyone sees or pays attention to load screens, especially when some are very - and very clearly - outdated. (No, Craglorn is not the only place to get nirnhoned armor and weapon drops anymore - the three arenas and the DLC trials from at least 2019 on drop items in that trait too.)

Having players learn actively by doing is always a better way to teach than expecting them to find buried or randomly presented information and count on passive absorption and self-driven implementation of that knowledge.

It was very disappointing to hear in the live stream this week all the reasons for which they’re unlikely to create such a tutorial.

LarsS

ZOS could also promote Guilds that are willing to teach new players like for example EVE. In that way no one need to lag behind.

BretonMage

virtus753 wrote: »

Having players learn actively by doing is always a better way to teach than expecting them to find buried or randomly presented information and count on passive absorption and self-driven implementation of that knowledge.

It was very disappointing to hear in the live stream this week all the reasons for which they’re unlikely to create such a tutorial.

I don't watch streams, what did they say, if you don't mind quickly summarising? I thought it was obvious a tutorial was needed.

ShinyBacon

LarsS wrote: »

ZOS could also promote Guilds that are willing to teach new players like for example EVE. In that way no one need to lag behind.

i am in one of those guilds, basically teaching overland players to learn their characters, skills explain them rotations and set ups. we spend a lot of time and dedication explaining to them what the game should do. we take those players and teach them vet trials and get them ready to clear that content
And honestly we are exhausted, the changes happen to fast and to extreme for casual players to keep up wit. The game does not a good job to explain the basic mechanics and an even worse job explaining the changes.
There is no point promoting those guilds because there wont be many of those guilds left soon

Jaimeh

Given the responses of the devs on social media about the playerbase's uproar, I don't think they'd scrap them, let alone apologize. However, I also don't think they'd need to apologize either, they are human after all, and doing the best they can--they just need to go back to the drawing board, and leave any combat changes for the long run, with methodical thinking, while borrowing feedback from the players, and then change small things over a longer period of time, testing in the meantime how they fare. But ZOS, imo, seems to double down on their decisions, especially when they are highly criticized for them, which seems a bit unprofessional, and also like they take things on a personal level. I hope they prove me wrong and not ruin combat, just to make a point.

Klingenlied

I don't think tutorials will fix the game. I am convinced the devs are right in one regard: there is a skill gap. The skill gap has to do with APM & weaving. Now you needa think about that in ESO, compared to other MMORPG's, combat is more active, you got more defensive option, you actively target opponents and so on. However, this is something people generally enjoy and it is just the style the game was build around.

But this might be something people doing overland content and quests only will never care about. For those that want to push content, well, that is not something that you do alone. And that makes it actually "better". This might be controversial, but having some hurdles to entry is not necessarily a bad thing. If you need some form of class mastery and understanding of a game to do fine in content, that ain't bad.

The biggie here is: how intuitive or unintuitive are said systems? And yea, to be honest, ESO weaving is the worst. My comparisons might be very harsh, but if I compare ESO to any fighter, to any good action title or even some middle-ground JARPG's - or dang, even to some MMORPG action-combat systems, even "failed" ones - ESO's combat looks bad and that makes it feel bad! When I explain weaving, I often end with: "once you perfected it, it won't be looking as bad because there is hardly any animation happening at all any more".

So yea, I might be kinda with a lot of you that this is just second nature for me now and I kinda stopped seeing / caring about it? Weaving is just like heartbeat and breathing. But I needa go beyond the "dang this is one ugly hell of a combat system"-hurdle to start enjoying it. And - in my opinion - this is one of the massive issues the game has had forever now and that continued to drive players away.

How to fix this? Well, there would be a lot of possible fixes, a "real" rework of the combat system would be best.
But for now? Scrap the patch. Leave Oakensoul for at least another patch cycle. Think about maybe unique buffs for using one bar and for using 2 bars. Just don't go through with a patch that will be hated by everyone but those not realizing what is happening.

-> This conversation btw is even bigger then just ESO community already And it is spilling in a bad way. If a announcement of changes is so bad that it starts driving active players away, players that now talk about what a pitiful state the game they once loved is in, how ignorant the developers are - this is going to hurt and do so real bad.

shadyjane62

This patch is not fixable from my standpoint. They are gutting my char and I will spend the rest of the year and into next just waiting for it to be over.

divnyi

Hard agree on every point @Klingenlied , except Major Heroism from Oaken still should go away.
It might not be noticeable in PvE, but it was abused in PvP ultgain builds in absurd ways, became the S-tier meta.

prof_doom

divnyi wrote: »

Hard agree on every point @Klingenlied , except Major Heroism from Oaken still should go away.
It might not be noticeable in PvE, but it was abused in PvP ultgain builds in absurd ways, became the S-tier meta.

Or... we just don't have it kick in in PVP... because just maybe all of the PVE players are getting a bit tired of having our gameplay gutted because the devs refuse to properly separate PVP and PVE.

ZiggyTStardust

prof_doom wrote: »

the PVE players are getting a bit tired of having our gameplay gutted because the devs refuse to properly separate PVP and PVE.

We all would want that, but zos seems resistant to balancing like this (though they have done it before, so maybe there is hope). If they don't want to have it function diffrently in pve and pvp I propose to give it Major + Minor Aegis/Slayer instead of Heroism, so that pve will not be impacted negativley as much

Klingenlied

divnyi wrote: »

Hard agree on every point @Klingenlied , except Major Heroism from Oaken still should go away.
It might not be noticeable in PvE, but it was abused in PvP ultgain builds in absurd ways, became the S-tier meta.

Oaken without extra ult regen? Yea, that might not even be noticed by a lot of PvE one bar players. And it would benefit PvP greatly already. So absolutely a smart choice.

Ishtarknows

I don't even think a tutorial needs to focus on LAW (no need to raise any heckles for the LA=bad lot). Focusing on the global cooldown and encouraging players to use a skill every second would go a long way towards bridging the gap between low and good dps.

So often I see terrible dps in dungeons and all the DD is doing is using one skill every 5 or 6 seconds then a shield then a few HA then another odd skill etc. There's no real thought put into it. A decent tutorial explaining how to select DoTs, use them first then spammables til the DoTs end, rinse and repeat. I did the tutorial recently and I didn't even have a skill to use while being shown how to combat. No wonder new players don't use skills much!

Krym

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

The community has been resounding in it's rejection of your intent to take the game in this direction.

interesting. I guess I'm part of the community too, yet haven't rejected anything. what does that mean...?

Klingenlied wrote: »

-> This conversation btw is even bigger then just ESO community already And it is spilling in a bad way. If a announcement of changes is so bad that it starts driving active players away, players that now talk about what a pitiful state the game they once loved is in, how ignorant the developers are - this is going to hurt and do so real bad.

every change drives players away. NOT changing things drives players away. in the end ANYTHING drives players away.

personal anecdote, but I know plenty of people who have quit over the years - if the game was so great up until this point, why did that happen? I know of at least two who never hit 50.
lots of people complaining about the gap, how difficult it is to learn the combat, the side effects it causes in difficulty and progressing through it, but no one is willing to take the hit to fix or even alleviate it. understandably players are never eager to see their damage nerfed, yet no one complained when the damage increased year after year across the board - or how do people think we ended up with the current state of the game? why do THEY think the "ignorant developers" wanted to change it in the first place?

people comment and "have an opinion" without even understanding where the issues come from they're complaining about. there are 4 big changes in this patch, LA nerf, dot duration, overall damage nerf (classes and skills, mostly dots again), oakensoul ring. of course any player who needs the current version of the oakensoul ring to hit 30k damage will feel that much harder on the PTS - hardly because the LA nerf, or the longer dots, but the current damage numbers and oakensoul. does that mean everything needs to be changed back or only parts of it? if so, which? worse, any improvement the first 2 would bring a low player (not that they're immediately obvious anyway) gets drowned out by the lower number on the dummy in the first week of the PTS.

point is most of this "conversation" is people dooming & glooming on the forums, heck they did that before the PTS and the patch notes were even out. the actual discussion with the pros/cons and constructive suggestions is few and far between.

Thorncrypt

LarsS wrote: »

ZOS could also promote Guilds that are willing to teach new players like for example EVE. In that way no one need to lag behind.

they could also recommend initiatives such as project vitality which was an attempt by Eso University (nefasQS) to help people learn to clear entry level raids and overcome their fear of vet content.

CGPsaint

The answer is and always will be to balance PvE and PvP separately. They have been steadily increasing the difficulty of the content for years to try and combat the power creep which they themselves have created through introducing new more powerful sets and CP allocations. Then players take advantage of those changes to make meta builds in PvP which immediately get complained about here on the forums and then the vicious cycle of nerfs and buffs continues. I don't care if there are people who can hit 140K on the PvE side. That has no bearing on what my group can accomplish by coordinating and optimizing the sets and skills that we use. The ability to hit crazy numbers in terms of damage, resistances, and ultimate uptime clearly has an impact on PvP though, which is where most of the issues arise. Stop trying to solve the "problem" until you actually acknowledge and understand what the problem is.

Izar_Berning

CGPsaint wrote: »

The answer is and always will be to balance PvE and PvP separately.


And here is the right answer.

The biggest mistake zos made from the start of this game was not keeping PvE and PvP separate from each other.

It would of saved so much trouble and hassle.

sxmilo42

I have to agree completely with this. I am a pretty new player (1.25 years) Into my second year of ESO+ and have probably spent more outside of ESO+ on this game then any game I have ever played in my life. It managed to hook me in a way no other game has. And I have enjoyed my time tremendously up till now. Just the announcement of this change and feedback that is traveling like lightning through the community as people see the impact in PTS has CLEARLY impacted in game activity and it has not even gone live yet!

This has also lead to discussions that I personally was not aware of. Patterns, like for example this Oakensoul ring. That you can ONLY obtain if you purchase the latest chapter. The ring is in PTS for how long before the release of the chapter and receives one or more adjustments or nerfs. The chapter releases and people have to bend over backwards to obtain the ring and then it is decided after a short time period that the ring is overpowered and deserves a 50% reduction in almost every positive it brings? That seems like either poor planning or intentional. Either one coupled with the patterns other people are pointing out is another factor that can deflate someones drive to play this game and spend continued money on it.

At some point you begin to feel like you are being taken advantage of. As I said before I am a relatively new player, and this U35 combined with this ring and now learning this is a pattern makes it REALLY hard to want stay enthused about this game.

Player activity in game is clearly already suffering from just the announcement of this coming change. It seems like they need to take as equal of a extreme measure to quickly counter what this has started. (Scrap the changes and regroup in a better way) Even doing that some damage has already been done, it will take time to recover.

Baharoth77

The non stop stupid changes this dev team makes is why I quit this game and have not looked back. The pendulum is just in huge flux all the time and for seemingly no reason. These patch notes are quite literally the worst balance and gameplay changes I have seen in mmo history and I have been playing mmos since UO. Wrobel is looking like a godsend right now. Fire whoever created this mess. .

kindred

FFIV is actually great about that, and zos could learn a lot from them. They have separate pvp and pve skills. So that solves a ton of problems right there. (pvp isnt the best they are more the kings of pve) They are also very good at balancing. They have top dps classes, but the top and bottom class are very tight. There is no huge gap. They're changes are incremental and INTELLIGENT, with balance always in mind. Not huge swinging changes like we see here. They're cash shop is minimal. Most of the mounts and especially the really cool mounts can be obtained IN-GAME by earning achievements. They communicate with their community and when they mess up, they freely admit and apologize. Last but not least they have respect for their players.

Caribou77

OP nailed this one, spot-on.

Clear, well-explained and engaging game tutorials are conspicuously absent from eso.

Focus on improving game stability and server performance if you want to attract and keep customers.

acastanza_ESO

Krym wrote: »

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

The community has been resounding in it's rejection of your intent to take the game in this direction.

interesting. I guess I'm part of the community too, yet haven't rejected anything. what does that mean...?

The community as a general consensus has resoundingly rejected these changes. That you haven't means you're in an extremely small minority of the playerbase. At least, the playerbase that is aware of the changes and engaged with providing feedback on them.

merpins

ZiggyTStardust wrote: »

prof_doom wrote: »

the PVE players are getting a bit tired of having our gameplay gutted because the devs refuse to properly separate PVP and PVE.

We all would want that, but zos seems resistant to balancing like this (though they have done it before, so maybe there is hope). If they don't want to have it function diffrently in pve and pvp I propose to give it Major + Minor Aegis/Slayer instead of Heroism, so that pve will not be impacted negativley as much

The old Dev Team was the one that tended to balance PVE and PVP separately. The current Dev Team doesn't do it nearly at all (other than mist form, but backwards for some reason?). I agree that they should use the tools at their disposal and balance the two game modes separately. I also agree that Major Slayer and Aegis would be a fine way of balancing the ring in a way that you could call balancing pve and pvp separately. But it doesn't really set the precedent of really doing what we've been calling for, for years.

Wolfpaw

If a game needs such a emphasis on training to play it "correctly", ZOS supported guilds to train players (that's kinda laughable), a extremely low percentage actually clearing endgame pve, etc...well something has to change.

Mmorpg's of the past that require 2nd job devotion, hardcore, snail pace to accomplish are dead. It doesn't even match the speed of content releases.

Pick-up and play, get into the game and accomplish content in reasonable time, open to the masses, is the future to keep these doors open.

Not tipping my hat for or against these changes (don't care), but I can acknowledge ZOS perspective, it's not this year but the next 5-10years.

This game needs more fuel than "content creatores", jobless, & players that can devote 8+ hours a day to engage their content/sales.

merpins

Krym wrote: »

interesting. I guess I'm part of the community too, yet haven't rejected anything. what does that mean...?

The consensus of the community is that they reject the current direction the devs are taking in terms of balancing combat.

If you look at all the threads that have polls, and the polls on other websites like Youtube or Reddit, you'll see that only about 8% of the community is for the changes. 80% are against, and 12% are either mixed or don't care. More people are mixed or don't care than there are people that actually like the changes. And I know you might say it's a biased poll, but take Skinny Cheek's poll for example; it has about 3k votes, with 80% of the votes being against the changes. With a sample size that large, statistically speaking, there is only about a 3% room for error. Meaning statistically speaking, the largest amount of people that could sway the results is 3%. So the highest possible amount of people that are happy with the changes is 11%, and the highest possible amount of people that are unhappy with the changes is 83%. Either way, the VAST majority of players do not want these changes. The votes for a president of the United States only need to equate to 51% of the vote, or in some cases 49% if the electoral college makes the call to have some orange guy win.

80% is an honestly ridiculous statistic that does not happen often. The fact that 80% of the ESO playerbase actually agrees on something, hell, the fact that 80% of people in general actually agrees on something, is astounding. If ZoS does not do something about it, they are legitimately telling 80% of their players to shove it, and that will cause an exodus and a ton of toxicity.

Wolfpaw

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

Krym wrote: »

interesting. I guess I'm part of the community too, yet haven't rejected anything. what does that mean...?

The consensus of the community is that they reject the current direction the devs are taking in terms of balancing combat.

If you look at all the threads that have polls, and the polls on other websites like Youtube or Reddit, you'll see that only about 8% of the community is for the changes. 80% are against, and 12% are either mixed or don't care. More people are mixed or don't care than there are people that actually like the changes. And I know you might say it's a biased poll, but take Skinny Cheek's poll for example; it has about 3k votes, with 80% of the votes being against the changes. With a sample size that large, statistically speaking, there is only about a 3% room for error. Meaning statistically speaking, the largest amount of people that could sway the results is 3%. So the highest possible amount of people that are happy with the changes is 11%, and the highest possible amount of people that are unhappy with the changes is 83%. Either way, the VAST majority of players do not want these changes. The votes for a president of the United States only need to equate to 51% of the vote, or in some cases 49% if the electoral college makes the call to have some orange guy win.

80% is an honestly ridiculous statistic that does not happen often. The fact that 80% of the ESO playerbase actually agrees on something, hell, the fact that 80% of people in general actually agrees on something, is astounding. If ZoS does not do something about it, they are legitimately telling 80% of their players to shove it, and that will cause an exodus and a ton of toxicity.

If ZOS is going in a direction not in favor with Reddit and Youtube...

ZOS you now have 100% of my support.

TPishek

Wolfpaw wrote: »

MovesLikeJaguar wrote: »

Krym wrote: »

interesting. I guess I'm part of the community too, yet haven't rejected anything. what does that mean...?

The consensus of the community is that they reject the current direction the devs are taking in terms of balancing combat.

If you look at all the threads that have polls, and the polls on other websites like Youtube or Reddit, you'll see that only about 8% of the community is for the changes. 80% are against, and 12% are either mixed or don't care. More people are mixed or don't care than there are people that actually like the changes. And I know you might say it's a biased poll, but take Skinny Cheek's poll for example; it has about 3k votes, with 80% of the votes being against the changes. With a sample size that large, statistically speaking, there is only about a 3% room for error. Meaning statistically speaking, the largest amount of people that could sway the results is 3%. So the highest possible amount of people that are happy with the changes is 11%, and the highest possible amount of people that are unhappy with the changes is 83%. Either way, the VAST majority of players do not want these changes. The votes for a president of the United States only need to equate to 51% of the vote, or in some cases 49% if the electoral college makes the call to have some orange guy win.

80% is an honestly ridiculous statistic that does not happen often. The fact that 80% of the ESO playerbase actually agrees on something, hell, the fact that 80% of people in general actually agrees on something, is astounding. If ZoS does not do something about it, they are legitimately telling 80% of their players to shove it, and that will cause an exodus and a ton of toxicity.

If ZOS is going in a direction not in favor with Reddit and Youtube...well ZOS 100% has my support now.

Way to be contrary for no reason, lol.

acastanza_ESO

Wolfpaw wrote: »

If a game needs such a emphasis on training to play it "correctly", ZOS supported guilds to train players (that's kinda laughable), a extremely low percentage actually clearing endgame pve, etc...well something has to change.

Mmorpg's of the past that require 2nd job devotion, hardcore, snail pace to accomplish are dead. It doesn't even match the speed of content releases.

Pick-up and play, get into the game and accomplish content in reasonable time, open to the masses, is the future to keep these doors open.

Not tipping my hat for or against these changes (don't care), but I can acknowledge ZOS perspective, it's not this year but the next 5-10years.

This game needs more fuel than "content creatores", jobless, & players that can devote 8+ hours a day to engage their content/sales.

ZOS's changes will literally make it much harder to acomplish your stated goal of wanting people to be able to "Pick-up and play, get into the game and accomplish content in reasonable time, open to the masses, is the future to keep these doors open." Yet you're in favor of the changes simply because it's "going in a direction not in favor with Reddit and Youtube..."????

Wolfpaw

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

Wolfpaw wrote: »

If a game needs such a emphasis on training to play it "correctly", ZOS supported guilds to train players (that's kinda laughable), a extremely low percentage actually clearing endgame pve, etc...well something has to change.

Mmorpg's of the past that require 2nd job devotion, hardcore, snail pace to accomplish are dead. It doesn't even match the speed of content releases.

Pick-up and play, get into the game and accomplish content in reasonable time, open to the masses, is the future to keep these doors open.

Not tipping my hat for or against these changes (don't care), but I can acknowledge ZOS perspective, it's not this year but the next 5-10years.

This game needs more fuel than "content creatores", jobless, & players that can devote 8+ hours a day to engage their content/sales.

ZOS's changes will literally make it much harder to acomplish your stated goal of wanting people to be able to "Pick-up and play, get into the game and accomplish content in reasonable time, open to the masses, is the future to keep these doors open." Yet you're in favor of the changes simply because it's "going in a direction not in favor with Reddit and Youtube..."????

You think this is it? This looks looks to be just the first few steps of changes with many more to come.

Pevey

Wolfpaw wrote: »

If a game needs such a emphasis on training to play it "correctly", ZOS supported guilds to train players (that's kinda laughable), a extremely low percentage actually clearing endgame pve, etc...well something has to change.

Mmorpg's of the past that require 2nd job devotion, hardcore, snail pace to accomplish are dead. It doesn't even match the speed of content releases.

Pick-up and play, get into the game and accomplish content in reasonable time, open to the masses, is the future to keep these doors open.

Not tipping my hat for or against these changes (don't care), but I can acknowledge ZOS perspective, it's not this year but the next 5-10years.

This game needs more fuel than "content creatores", jobless, & players that can devote 8+ hours a day to engage their content/sales.

Making content more accessible is a reasonable goal. ZOS identified a legitimate problem. Most (not all) people have no problem with making content more accessible.

What has most people so upset is that the massive changes introduced don't do that. They are all over the place with gutting class identity, fundamentally changing combat, making the majority of skills useless going forward... It is the most radical solution that could have possibly been proposed to address the problem... and it doesn't even fix the problem. It makes it worse, as the community is now explaining to them, and as so many could have explained to them ahead of time. So we are left scratching our heads how it is that the people in charge of combat in this game could not see the inevitable effects of these changes, and that they are the opposite of what they were going for? That is why so many people are upset. Who is even driving the bus here?