Update 35 PTS Combat Feedback & Upcoming Changes

Sallymen

Caff32 wrote: »

Stop. Looking. At. Spreadsheets.
Start. Listening. To. Your. Players.
WE. DON'T. WANT. THESE. CHANGES.

This a 100%, we keep telling y'all that these changes do not make the game fun it just puts more stress on the player because of the reduce damage and healing. And seeing yall double down on these changes is really disappointing. At this point the player base would be 100% happy with making no changes to combat and just releasing the new dungeons as it is.

OolongSnakeTea

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

A friendly reminder that providing data always helps us far more than anecdotal feedback, though both are still welcome. Finally, thank you all for your patience and time in helping up improve upon these areas. May your roads lead to warm sands.

Hey Gill-
(I wrote a lot because it's my lunch break and I just have a lot of feelings lately outside of this patch; most of them involving the community as a whole and the friends I've made in it, so sorry if it comes off to lengthy, or otherwise heavier than expected but that's where we are today, and we're just gonna post this I guess!)

Hope it's not too crazy over there. Juggling aspects of math, a player community, a gaming company job and a big problem of 'ceiling to floor' to look at. Hope you folks in the combat department take some good time to decompress and be fair to yourselves. Tempers and disagreements happen (the forums are a wretched hive as always, social media doesn't help), but we're all human and dealing with human things outside of Tamriel. It's still rough out there for many people, and maybe that's why it feels like this particular patch cycle has been more tense than other ones as people have taken it too personal. While others have taken cool level heads and showed their homework. All of which can still add up and feeling like things are either to hot or to interpersonal and cold, so it makes it a mixed bag- or so I imagine.

Thanks for piping up early, its rare after all, and not expected but super appreciated all the same to ease the weekend tensions for many, I'm sure. Looking forward to testing out the new stuff when it comes out later, as always, because well- no guide or build can replace what and how I play with my human meat sack errors I make.

I'll try to get some ESOLogs up for yah for sure to compare my apples-to-pears. My builds have def tweaked either through my own personal learning and enhancement of DPS, as well as just how things will be changing with the patch. This is to not say anything about a disagreement or disliking it, it's just normal to change builds and load outs a little bit every patch in a lot of games, ESO is not an exception.

I classically for DPS have played stam-sorc since 2014ish? period, but never got serious till later after Morrowind. My overall testing on the PTS wasn't too terrible- just odd and a little relearning but I won't lie my initial reactions a bit frustrated (IE: inferno staff??? but redugard?? More DPS than bow or 2hander?? Or maybe me just bad at parse! - high likelihood) -- My taste for end game was experienced as a healer however, and I only went DPS as a means to an end to see more content (ie; trials need more DPS and only 2 healers, as well as I needed to get solo arenas done). Standard player evolution.

Some of the changes were working out pretty well. The DOT rotations did open up some more challenging DPS classes for me (Necromancer, Nightblade and Warden) on the dummy- and I found my uptimes did in fact go up. But we all know the math homework from smarter better players then me. But in combat didn't feel as good as before, as I had stated in my feed backs. So, I'll be excited to see the W3 patch.

My 5 jellybeans I call a brain might not always understand things, but I am at least just trying to make it work so I can continue to have fun at the game play level I enjoy with friends. Thanks for making Tamriel be that place where I can enjoy my leisure time with friends.

TL;DR- Thanks again for the transparency and efforts, it really is appreciated. Hope all is well with you folks on the combat team. You are cool!

With sincerity- Oolong/Sound

"It's all about speed. Two light weapons and quick feet. You need more than just fast attacks, you need to be able to predict your opponent's moves, show up where he least expects you, run circles around him, and call him names. If you can frustrate your challenger, you gain an even better advantage." — "Heartstriker" Goranion

PS: To the community- its ok to be frustrated and go through the brain reaction cycle of unlearning/relearning. Its ok to be frustrated. What's not ok is to be inhumane. Try to get the poison out healthily and safely for everyone. We have seen what happens to a dev team under fire like with Destiny 2, let us not be that bad. We have a very special privilege with the amount of access and communication, whether you understand that or not.

Blackbird_V

Bruh. What the actual hell am I reading? This now makes it EVEN more confusing and harder for new players and those with disability. It doesn't even address the butchering of classes like Sorc, weird ability cost of DK Whip and whatever the hell you did to Templar Jabs (it's awful).

This is just insulting to your playerbase now.

BlackCatOnline-

While you're at it, how about reworking the class skill system? If each skill not only has magicka and stamina options (not just certain morphs) but also PvE and PvP variants that would be incredible. To compare with Swords of Legends Online, the skill system there has split menus that swap between PvE and PvP related abilities. I imagine it would be infinitely easier to balance the two aspects of the game if skill variants weren't so limited.

In addition I'd recommend updating the ui. If fans can design add on's for pc and if I were on the development team I'd be questioning my competence as a designer. Not that zos isn't doing a great job though... Honest. Not all changes are asked for or appreciated but I know you guys are trying. Thank you 🙂

--Opinions from a Black Cat Online

Snit

I suspect that a poll would find 80%+ of the player base does not want this patch to go live. MMO devs often feel that their player base is mostly ill-informed lemmings who would quit if they actually got what they asked for. There's some truth to that. But that doesn't mean the players are always wrong. Maybe class identity matters to us as much as those spreadsheets do to the devs.

I think you need to put this back in the cooker. I don't think most players want their damage to drop. I don't think most players want class-specific abilities to be inferior to general skills. I don't think most players want heavy attack builds or Oakensoul completely neutered in PvE.

FearTheRealFett

Why push this update so hard when the community is asking for none of these changes? Giving us an inch back of what we already have but still taking a mile doesn’t make for a more engaging experience. It just builds up frustration with the process and tests our patience.

Add to the experience, don’t take away.

Destai

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Greetings, everyone. We’d like to update you all on where we are at with the PTS feedback we have seen and our plans of action. Firstly, we would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to go through the changes and hop onto the PTS to get hands-on experience before submitting their feedback. The sheer amount of data and in-game application has helped us tremendously to hone in on the problem spaces that the larger sentiments have pointed out, and has also given us a better idea of how to isolate and tackle those problems. Let’s quickly go over the main themes we would like to improve on.

There are three main issues we would like to address with some targeted adjustments in next week’s PTS patch. These mainly pertain to Damage and Healing over Time effects, as we’ve found those have been the focus of the majority of conversations between all types of players. The first is the loss of reactive gameplay with ticking Area of Effect-based abilities, where delayed tick rates make them feel far less reactive to their surroundings and further punish their lack of mobility as such. The second is how the extension of durations on Area of Effect-based abilities actively harms their effectiveness since their power has been stretched out over a longer period, further increasing their risk of targets not staying in the area. The final is how ESO has always been a game about choice, and how global standards can over-define the reality of ability portrayal and can actively harm that idea. Now, let us go over what you are probably really here for – what we are doing to address these points.

We have taken considerable time to go through and better differentiate standards for Damage and Healing over Time effects based on the type of ability it is. In next week’s patch, abilities that stick to a target (such as Fiery Breath or Lightning Form) will retain their longer duration effects, where they take longer to deal damage at an increased rate per cast, but less per second than what’s currently on the Live servers (i.e., all public servers that are not the PTS). Meanwhile, abilities that are bound to a static area, such as Wall of Elements or Spear Shards, will have shorter durations (closer or identical to their current versions on the Live servers) and less Damage per Cast, but more Damage per Second than their “sticky” counterparts. We have also adjusted the cost to be higher than those “sticky” abilities but will still cost less than they currently do on the Live servers. The standard details are as follows:

• “Sticky” over Time effects will retain their initial PTS iteration of 20+ second durations, 2 second frequencies, with .105 coefficient potency per second (their scaling modifier divided by time), and a baseline cost of 135 per second (2700+)
• Static over Time effects will return to their original duration of 10-15 second durations, 1 second frequencies, with .14 coefficient potency per second (U35 PTS Combat Feedback & Upcoming Changesdown from .1575 on Live, but up from .105 on PTS), and a baseline cost of 270 per second (2700+)

It is our hope these new standards better differentiate the gameplay realities these skills have, reinforcing their strengths and weaknesses, while making them easier to engage with in some ways than compared to what’s currently on Live (easier to manage “sticky” effects, and overall, significantly less cost per second drains).

We have also spent more time looking at durations of where certain skills are sourced and are going to give them base line timers that follow a common denominator. For example, Stampede will remain a 15 second effect as Carve’s final duration is 30 seconds, making it easier to create a rotation where you align a ratio of casts to one another. We hope these differing standards allow you to better decide what type of pacing your build utilizes. If you prefer a higher risk and reward playstyle that is more challenging to keep up and manage, you can opt to take Static over Time abilities. Alternatively, if you want easier to utilize and safer skills with less risk, you can choose to use more Sticky over Time abilities, or a blend of both depending on the encounter or build you’re playing against.

After these changes go in next week, we will continue to monitor feedback and act accordingly where deemed necessary, so please continue to provide constructive takes and discussions. Note that we are already planning some additional changes for the Sorcerer and Warden, based on your feedback, that will go on the PTS before Update 35 launches. A friendly reminder that providing data always helps us far more than anecdotal feedback, though both are still welcome. Finally, thank you all for your patience and time in helping up improve upon these areas. May your roads lead to warm sands.

@ZOS_Gilliam Thanks for coming here and providing your thoughts.

As a console player, I don't have access to PTS because ZOS unfairly decided I needed to purchase the game again. Regardless, that leaves me with only anecdotal feedback and what I see in the community.

I think it'd be helpful for you to demonstrate these changes much like the stream team has done and defend why you think your changes are good for the game - especially in the face of such ubiquitous negative feedback and rejection. Ultimately, most people are saying this isn't a change we want or asked for, so I think some clear demonstrations - even with the stream team members - would be helpful at this time.

We'd also appreciate an explanation for how you feel these changes will increase accessibility. I think many of us are not seeing that yet.

And as always, until demonstrated otherwise, it'd be appreciated if you actually conversed in this thread and directly addressed concerns where legally allowed. We appreciate the post, but dialogue is better.

thadjarvis

The communication is appreciated.

The main problem of the update for low and mid-tier trial communities is lowering DPS without any content changes.

See clear rates of the two most recent trials. If accessibility is the goal, then those numbers should go up or stay the same. Otherwise the update is a failure on accessibility grounds.

Any accessibility reduction of already released content causes group disbands, community leadership disengagement, and players canceling ESO Plus.

Please ensure these coefficients for skills meet the goals.

Firstmep

OolongSnakeTea wrote: »

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

A friendly reminder that providing data always helps us far more than anecdotal feedback, though both are still welcome. Finally, thank you all for your patience and time in helping up improve upon these areas. May your roads lead to warm sands.

Hey Gill-
(I wrote a lot because it's my lunch break and I just have a lot of feelings lately outside of this patch; most of them involving the community as a whole and the friends I've made in it, so sorry if it comes off to lengthy, or otherwise heavier than expected but that's where we are today, and we're just gonna post this I guess!)

Hope it's not too crazy over there. Juggling aspects of math, a player community, a gaming company job and a big problem of 'ceiling to floor' to look at. Hope you folks in the combat department take some good time to decompress and be fair to yourselves. Tempers and disagreements happen (the forums are a wretched hive as always, social media doesn't help), but we're all human and dealing with human things outside of Tamriel. It's still rough out there for many people, and maybe that's why it feels like this particular patch cycle has been more tense than other ones as people have taken it too personal. While others have taken cool level heads and showed their homework. All of which can still add up and feeling like things are either to hot or to interpersonal and cold, so it makes it a mixed bag- or so I imagine.

Thanks for piping up early, its rare after all, and not expected but super appreciated all the same to ease the weekend tensions for many, I'm sure. Looking forward to testing out the new stuff when it comes out later, as always, because well- no guide or build can replace what and how I play with my human meat sack errors I make.

I'll try to get some ESOLogs up for yah for sure to compare my apples-to-pears. My builds have def tweaked either through my own personal learning and enhancement of DPS, as well as just how things will be changing with the patch. This is to not say anything about a disagreement or disliking it, it's just normal to change builds and load outs a little bit every patch in a lot of games, ESO is not an exception.

I classically for DPS have played stam-sorc since 2014ish? period, but never got serious till later after Morrowind. My overall testing on the PTS wasn't too terrible- just odd and a little relearning but I won't lie my initial reactions a bit frustrated (IE: inferno staff??? but redugard?? More DPS than bow or 2hander?? Or maybe me just bad at parse! - high likelihood) -- My taste for end game was experienced as a healer however, and I only went DPS as a means to an end to see more content (ie; trials need more DPS and only 2 healers, as well as I needed to get solo arenas done). Standard player evolution.

Some of the changes were working out pretty well. The DOT rotations did open up some more challenging DPS classes for me (Necromancer, Nightblade and Warden) on the dummy- and I found my uptimes did in fact go up. But we all know the math homework from smarter better players then me. But in combat didn't feel as good as before, as I had stated in my feed backs. So, I'll be excited to see the W3 patch.

My 5 jellybeans I call a brain might not always understand things, but I am at least just trying to make it work so I can continue to have fun at the game play level I enjoy with friends. Thanks for making Tamriel be that place where I can enjoy my leisure time with friends.

TL;DR- Thanks again for the transparency and efforts, it really is appreciated. Hope all is well with you folks on the combat team. You are cool!

With sincerity- Oolong/Sound

"It's all about speed. Two light weapons and quick feet. You need more than just fast attacks, you need to be able to predict your opponent's moves, show up where he least expects you, run circles around him, and call him names. If you can frustrate your challenger, you gain an even better advantage." — "Heartstriker" Goranion

PS: To the community- its ok to be frustrated and go through the brain reaction cycle of unlearning/relearning. Its ok to be frustrated. What's not ok is to be inhumane. Try to get the poison out healthily and safely for everyone. We have seen what happens to a dev team under fire like with Destiny 2, let us not be that bad. We have a very special privilege with the amount of access and communication, whether you understand that or not.

I highly recommend you check out Poe, if you think this amount of communication is great.
Also do keep in mind the tone of this post and combat preview post is not exactly friendly.
It's more condescending and passive aggressive.

I dont think people that say these changes are bad, or criticize the dev team for not listening to feedback are inhumane.

I've seen a few ad hominem attacks, but people mostly expressed their frustration over the changes, and that's absolutely fine.

FluffyReachWitch

The risk-reward differentiation sounds good on paper, but those 2 second ticks are still going to make sticky DoT/HoT abilities painful to use in the situations that call for them.

In PvE I can get by with static abilities since I’m accustomed to moving in ways that keep the targets within the AoE. I'm glad to see that these abilities will remain useful. (Although removing the longer duration is a bummer, since just lengthening the duration without touching the DPS would have been a nice accessibility update.) My partner however is going to have to change their build dramatically to account for the reductions in self-healing, since their self-healing is tied directly to sticky class abilities.

As for PvP, I think it needs to be considered that players can already cleanse sticky DoTs or heal through them with ease. The 2 second ticks are just going to make these abilities even more trivial, like static DoTs.

Thretion

So you're still ignoring player feedback? Well, good luck, we are waiting for the next mount for entering the game, when people run away from you. Striking misunderstanding of one's own player base XD

Darzaka

@ZOS_Gilliam,

Nightblade got hurt much worse than I anticipated, but only in certain situations.

If I stuck to two DOT's and mained Suprise Attack, my DPS loss was about what you predicted (~12-13%), and combat became very simple.

However, if I did not flank, my DPS loss was unrecoverable at about 20-25% regardless of the 11 setups I tried. Please do something to accommodate Nightblade's newfound dependency on flanking. Otherwise, Nightblades will suffer greatly in trials and dungeons where they are unable to flank, like Sunspire.

starkerealm

The irony in these changes is, they're going to work out to be even worse than the Week 1 changes.

This keeps the absolute crippling damage nerfs on new players and lower end DPS, while it lessens the nerfs on the mid to upper end players.

So, where the existing PTS build hits new players extraordinarily hard, while nerfing endgame DPS, this is going to slap endgame DPS on the wrist, and still cripple new players.

The whole revolving door routine only works if you have people coming in the door.

Veesk

Please scrap the Templar jabs changes, the animation looks off and not how someone would hold/use a spear. The old animation/current one on live looks so much better and is more in line with Templar identity and aesthetic. There is a majority asking to keep the old jabs because it feels important to Templar identity.

x99KungFuTacosx

While I appreciate the communication about your plans, it's even clearer that you all are not listening to your player base. The major changes in this upcoming patch are ill-conceived and unasked-for, and that has been the trend lately.

You need to do some serious polling about the state of the game and restructure your plans based on what the player base actually want.

Edit: Forgot to end with the fact that I've just canceled my ESO+ subscription. Maybe I'll restart if you ever start listening to the community.

xylena_lazarow

FluffyReachWitch wrote: »

As for PvP, I think it needs to be considered that players can already cleanse sticky DoTs or heal through them with ease. The 2 second ticks are just going to make these abilities even more trivial, like static DoTs.

DoT skills already underperformed in PvP and their damage was nerfed further, making most of them completely unusable. There are a very small handful of outliers and proc sets that may make PvP DoT builds still possible in u35, at least until those are "standardized" into worthlessness because half a dozen players still rejected 1 button spam builds. Maybe next year's chapter will give us Super Oakensoul mythic: quad stats, but you can only slot and use 1 skill.

TPishek

starkerealm wrote: »

The irony in these changes is, they're going to work out to be even worse than the Week 1 changes.

This keeps the absolute crippling damage nerfs on new players and lower end DPS, while it lessens the nerfs on the mid to upper end players.

So, where the existing PTS build hits new players extraordinarily hard, while nerfing endgame DPS, this is going to slap endgame DPS on the wrist, and still cripple new players.

The whole revolving door routine only works if you have people coming in the door.

Half the classes also won't be able to sustain with how much more expensive they made the ground dots. I don't get why we are making ground dots more expensive than single target ones AGAIN when this was tried before and this same team reverted it due to the backlash.

sbr32

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Maybe next year's chapter will give us Super Oakensoul mythic: quad stats, but you can only slot and use 1 skill.

But it has a 6 week expiration date

Jaimeh

I'm glad ground DOT timers (and ticks) are getting reverted, otherwise rotations would be awful, but they'll still be weaker, and with no mention of the LA changes, I don't see how the floor will be lifted, which was the intention of the changes in the original combat article. The fact that this wasn't addressed is both odd and worrisome.

K9002

TPishek wrote: »

Half the classes also won't be able to sustain with how much more expensive they made the ground dots. I don't get why we are making ground dots more expensive than single target ones AGAIN when this was tried before and this same team reverted it due to the backlash.

Unstable Wall of Elements and Templar's Shards won't be usable as AoE spammables anymore. Clearing trash packs in dungeons will take even longer and people will come into actual boss fights with less resources. Just fantastic.

acastanza_ESO

While this is a SMALL step in the right direction, it is, as a whole, completely and totally insufficient. 2 second ticks on any ability is a fundamental and unwelcome shift in gameplay. We've told you we don't want it. This is two steps forward one step back, now we have tick inconsistency too.

You still appear to be, or haven't addressed, gutting light attack damage when many low tier players make heavy use of heavy and light attacks.

You still have completely failed to address how ANY of these changes actually improve accessibility when we've shown you over and over how they DO NOT.

Keep walking it backwards, you're almost there.

A_hab

I think I can really help you cut to the chase here and get back on track.

Cancel update 35 combat changes in their entirety. Go back to the drawing board.

ZOS_Volpe

After review, we have removed a handful of posts that were bashing and/or non-constructive. While we understand that players and members can be upset about the PTS Combat Update 35, we do ask that all posts be kept civil, constructive, and within the guidelines of the rules that we have in place. If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding.

Dalsinthus

I appreciate the communication.

Unfortunately, this really misses the mark. You've had volumes of feedback to filter through and the message from players has been remarkably consistent. Around 80% of players oppose the changes. You are creating giant class disparities (i.e., Nightblade >>>> Sorcerer and Warden). You are lowering the floor and the ceiling. You're nerfing accessible build options like oaken soul and lightning heavy attacks. You're upending the game and not achieving any of your stated goals.

Please slow down, change less. Bring the game to a place of stability. Give us a roadmap of where we're going with all these changes.

chongguang

Will you cancel NEC static aoe dots buff and other classes nerf (such as NB's Shadow Path), to make them on par with each other.
I would say NECs are already op in PVE currently, ppl are so tiered to see so many necs dominating trials leaderboards...

Necrotech_Master

first of all this is the kind of dev communication that is appreciated, acknowledgement that there is a major problem

as others have noted though this only touches on one of the key problems, the dot/hot nerfs

changing sticky dots to last longer is still appreciated, but doing less dmg per tick and 2 sec tick rate is still not making them much better (as they are still in the nerfed state)

reverting the changes to ground dots/hots will certainly help and be appreciated, although if the dmg is still nerfed - why?

i personally am reserving judgement on the change for monday when we actually see the changes as i do hope there are some other adjustments being made as well, because again as others are noting, there seemed to be no rationale for the changes besides the light/heavy attack changes

starkerealm

I'll say this again, and more succinctly:

Combat on the PTS is not fun.

While Gil's sitting there going over his data, and playing with his spreadsheets, the actual experience of engaging with this build's combat is not fun.

Now, he's getting paid to figure out why. The rest of us are not. If he's having difficulty getting emperical data to work for, it might be simply because people are choosing not to play on the PTS, because it's not fun.

It doesn't matter if the math works out flawlessly: If the end result isn't enjoyable, people are not going to continue playing.

It doesn't matter why. If people don't enjoy playing the game, people aren't going to spend money on it.

Halcyon_Kismet

Please for the love of divines just scrap all combat changes and just release the dungeons.
The combat on live is in a good spot and just needs a few tweaks to some overperformers... not a complete slaughter of the game so many of us love and invested untold hours into...

Sandman929

Here we go with the excessive moderation. Classic ZOS when everything is suddenly beneath the constructive comment cutoff. Maybe if the update was being well received this wouldn't be necessary, but as always, the lesson that should be learned will be easier to simply dodge.

GlassHalfFull

This was a nice start, thanks for sharing.

I believe those on consoles can only provide "anecdotal" feedback, you really on spread sheet data too much.

Those with "accessibility issues" can only provide "anecdotal" feedback since items such as hand-cramps per second does not fit on a spreadsheet.

You want our data, many have provided it, yet it does not appear you took it into account. If you have, then great, show us where. Better yet, show us your vRG trial video and logs, and how they match to the spreadsheet. Be sure to include those with "accessibility issues" on your team.