Update 35 PTS Combat Feedback & Upcoming Changes

Sandman929

EmilyElizabethESO wrote: »

@ZOS_Gilliam can you share the 80 hours of testing you said you did?

That must be a massive spreadsheet

Rimskjegg

Thank you for this effort to communicate with your players / public testers. I understand that dealing with a massive backlash to your hard work is not always a pleasant experience. At this time, I urge you to remember that the players who have taken their free time to give you feedback do so because the game you have developed and are developing is something that they love, something that really matters to them. This is true of those of us who have tested on the PTS, but also those who have simply read the combat preview, the patch notes, and/or now this communication, and have applied reasoning to it, or tried to communicate to you how the game and the PTS is like to them.

We can't always test everything we like either. I've tested solo, but I really can't ask my whole beginner vet trial team to go test with me, we are simply too casual for that.

Now to the content of this communication. I particularly like that player choice is now something that is treated like a valid aim again. All depends on the execution of course, but here I really do support your aim. Also, my initial reaction to differentiating between sticky effects and ground effects is - this seems like it might be a good idea. A lot depends on how it's executed of course, with such a vast array of different skills, most of them doing other things besides just damage-over-time or healing-over-time, but of course I'm not expecting the full patch notes at this point, I'm glad to see you communicate!

However, it still seems to me that particularly for the heals-over-time, the "low-end experience" is still getting by far the roughest treatment here, because it's those beginning players who move out of the ground heals that will be hurt by sticky heals only ticking every 2 seconds. Now that may not always be just a bad thing, perhaps this will really force them to learn to stick with the healer and the group. I do remain concerned about my ability to self-heal in Cloudrest portals, since I assume Vigour will only tick every 2 seconds... I can probably find ways to adapt to this, but again, the more low-end players are the harder they will find it to adapt. But I will reserve judgement for now. The proof of this pudding is in the eating.

As for sticky DoTs, if you also alter passives so that sticky DoTs durations actually do line up in practice, then we have the very interesting idea that beginner players could choose these DoTs and have simpler rotations without shoving them down the throats of those who like faster-paced rotations. Personally, I already prefer Blockade over Wall of Elements - at least on my Stamina builds.

However, as a total beginner in vet DLC content, the benefit of a long list of 20 or even 30-second durations still seems uncertain even in PvE. Others have already pointed out that some bosses like Z'Maja simply purge even their sticky DoTs. Another concern I have is next time the raid lead calls "stop damage!" Am I going to have to reply, "yes boss, but the 4 DoTs I just put down will stay up for the next 16 - 26 seconds"? Then again, I guess I could go with shorter duration skills in some fights and longer in others... but again as a casual player, learning even more different setups may prove yet another hurdle... Anyway, time will tell. I am.. intrigued, actually looking forward to experimenting with this on the PTS to see how it pans out on the dummy.

Now please, can I direct your attention to the part of the article that is scaring players and is causing hostility again:

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

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.

Highlighting this as "three main issues" creates the impression, falsely I hope, that apart from very minor tweaks, and some buffs to Warden and Sorc, DoTs and HoTs is all you'll be changing. Surely that isn't all? Right?

Right?

I mean what about the heavy attack builds you promised you'd want better for? Or werewolves and light attack spammers? What about the obvious issues with nerfing damage without touching content? What about accessibility to combat in general, what about the "low-end experience" you didn't want to hurt? What about making a change now that didn't just need more re-changes every next patch? Oakensoul builds in PvE? Sticky DoTs still underperforming in PvP? Etc etc etc etc etc?

I just took a brief look at the The 10 lowest-parsing DDs in eso-logs for vet Aetherian Archive, which is where most people starting out in vet trials begin. And as far as I can see, all of them had light or heavy attacks in their top 5 most damaging abilities. (I think most had at least one DoT as well, though I confess, my German isn't good enough to tell for sure). I peeked at the other DDs in their teams as well, who were doing all kinds of damage. Most of them had light attacks in their top list of damaging effects as well.

Yet the "main issue" you're working on is to tweak the HoTs and DoTs while making sure they do less damage than on live? The impression we get left with then is that the overriding concern here is bringing down DPS and HPS for everyone, no matter what.

Now I am really hoping the dev team's intention is not to deliver such a Jesus Beam to already struggling teams here. But if you really are, would it really be too much too ask the developers, not the high-end players, to explain exactly why this is necessary in a way that makes any sense? Because it doesn't make it "easier to create content that accommodates a wider audience" if you just nerf players to the point where they can't get into vet content.

OK, so maybe you just can't do all that stuff that would actually balance DPS nerfs with a real increase in accessibilty over the course of just one PTS cycle. I would understand that. Perhaps you really do mean this is all you're really going to adjust for now, and you are just being realistic about the time frame. But if that is the case, then please, please step back and reevaluate whether there is any merit in sticking to your one-PTS time frame. Don't confirm the fears of those of us who have been told by content creators and other players, ever since the combat preview, that we simply won't be able to progress in Update 35. Also, don't alienate those players who believed certain parts of the preview and actually thought they'd be getting a better experience next patch - instead of having a worse one until you can fix things over the next series of patches.

Rich Lambert asked for us to "have faith". That's a bold gamble, actually. He put his reputation on the line for the combat team right there. And when that's what the Creative Director says, the combat team is going to have to deliver. I know, right, no pressure or anything! But that's actually where we're at right now.

As for me, I still do have that trust. I so love this game you've made. I love the friends I've made and want to progress with. And I do trust you to make make those players who will probably call me naive for trusting your team, eat their words.

But I also think Monday will be the penultimate test of that trust. (The ultimate one will be the live server, of course). And I can't lie here, based on the quote above, this update made me more worried than before, not less.

Psiion

Greetings,

After review of this thread, we have had to remove a few comments that violated the Community Rules, and were generally non-constructive to discussion. Feedback threads like this are intended to give the team an idea of player reactions on updates and changes, but we ask that post stay respectful and refrain from Bashing.

Please feel free to review the Community Rules here and remember to keep them in mind moving forward.

CyberSkooma

The main thing I don't understand is why it is felt by the dev team that changes need to happen in the first place. ESO is eight years old, and somehow the combat has not fully settled into its foundation. At some point this has to happen, and you guys have to stop changing how things work.

You say that you want the combat to be more "accessible", but I can tell you for sure, that the least accessible thing you can possibly do for players of ALL skill levels is to continue changing how the combat system functions in the first place. I don't know for sure how many hours you guys spent on these changes in-office, but if it were my decision, I would revert every single change you have made EXCEPT for the very specific change to light attack damage. That's the only thing that makes any kind of justifiable sense.

We just want things to stop changing. I am so tired.

starkerealm

CyberSkooma wrote: »

...but if it were my decision, I would revert every single change you have made EXCEPT for the very specific change to light attack damage. That's the only thing that makes any kind of justifiable sense.

Ironically, that change is one of the most destructive.

Like, I could understand if the LA changes were for performance (I'd still argue they should be looking for that somewhere else), but the LA and HA changes are some of the most destructive changes for new players.

CyberSkooma wrote: »

We just want things to stop changing. I am so tired.

Yeah, we're all tired of this. Hell, in his now infamous tweet, even Rich complained about being tired of the inevitable blowback from these kinds of massive changes, as he signed off on another round of these changes.

kylejkylenub19_ESO

Maybe its time to finally fix the bug that causes the combat issues you are trying resolve. No surprise a Bethesda property treats a bug as a feature because its easier then fixing it. To be clear I am not against animation canceling, in fact I prefer it to be part of combat in most games. When it is thoughtfully implemented it added a depth to combat that is enjoyable and feels and looks like it belongs in the game. The “animation” canceling found in ESO feels and looks like a bug which make sense since it is.

You can try to narrow the gap between those that use the bug and those that dont as much as you want it will not change the meta and it will not change the community. Combat needs an overhaul and what is purposed is not going to cut it, its dancing around the issue because addressing it directly is hard.

Fix your game, then fix your combat. Stop with the bandaids.

CyberSkooma

starkerealm wrote: »

Ironically, that change is one of the most destructive..

Yeah, but at least it would give them the one win of bringing the ceiling down a bit. But yeah as agreed upon we just want things to settle in already...

VoidBiscuit

One logical problem I have with this update is that weapon damage no longer represents the damage of your weapon.
If one were purely balancing a game using spreadsheets and statistics, rather than thinking critically about changes implemented, I can see how this might happen.

James-Wayne

The Sticky vs Static changes are what I always thought it should be and have said in my testing feedback on PTS... will be interesting to see how it goes this week thou.

Please still look at the damage of Jabs with 3 only Jabs now.

Zoltan_117

I'd prefer to fix the bug in the first place as well. Animation cancelling should be allowed for blocks and rolls but you lose the damage. Skills are queued up and don't animation cancel Light and Heavy attacks. This would also help those with higher ping in PVP.

This is in line with other games, and it's intuitive.

Steel-256

I'm with a lot of people on this subject, why are you even messing with this stuff. Leave crap alone. Also I do agree with several others that suggest and should be correct, that class skills should always produce more damage. Maybe we are wrong but anyways just leave *** alone for once. Nobody ask for you to make these stupid changes.

BretonMage

I am encouraged by the new changes. I think reverting the biggest changes to DoTs is a good step, though I really don't understand why the damage needs to be lowered.

One thing I've been wondering about is, if ZOS is genuine about improving accessibility for newer and learning players, then why nerf abilities and attacks? They are what's shared by players of all abilities across ESO. Wouldn't blanket nerfs to damage affect the newer players more than experienced players? After all, experienced players have the knowledge and resources to adjust and compensate for damage changes (although understandably they'd be burnt out with all the changes).

I may not be the most experienced player here, but it seems to me that it makes more intuitive sense to tweak the content itself. For example:
- Adjust the powerful sets instead of adjusting the abilities these sets manipulate (to use ZOS' words);
- Add more content that helps learning players learn more effectively (eg. tutorial quests, adding real time instructions for mechanics etc); and
- Add more mid-tier content to help learning players ease into harder content.
- Basically, all the things that people here have mentioned over the many threads that U35 has inspired.

Stamicka

It's good to see that at least some feedback was listened to, but I don't think that ZOS as a company understands what these patch notes meant to a lot of players.

These patch notes:
1. Made many endgame players feel unwelcomed
2. Showed a clear lack of direction for ESO's combat
3. Caused players to lose confidence in the dev team
4. Made the devs seem completely out of touch with the game and all types of players

At this point, I don't want to play the game while this current team is making decisions. When every update makes the game worse for many people rather than better, there's a big problem. It feels like it won't get better with the current team.

MindOfTheSwarm

One step in the right direction but a couple more needed.

This is what I suggest based on community feedback:

1. Have the sticky DoT’s increase their damage over time if they are going to last this long. So at the very least they feel impactful.

2. Do something for Heavy Attacks. Buff them a little for players that want to build around them.

3. Stop with the standardisation nonsense. It’s not wanted. Having one ground DoT dealing more damage than another is perfectly fine. Why is it so wrong for Winter’s Revenge be the hardest hitting ground DoT? Why is it wrong for Searing Strike to be a hard hitting single target DoT? Why can’t we have a bursty ground DoT that lasts say 5 seconds dealing damage every 0.5 seconds. Why no option to focus on increasing damage output on status effects? Every class should have its unique strengths and weaknesses. Every class having one or two skill types that are better than other classes is good for the game, it gives them a perk over the others but at a cost. Every play style should be accounted for. It pushes towards diverse play style which is ultimately what we want.

Tannus15

i really like these changes.

i'm not sure why exactly ground dots will do less damage than on live when they have the same duration. like, why?

i look forward to seeing the PTS patch notes for week 3.

starkerealm

WittyWindwalker wrote: »

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DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Sandman929 wrote: »

Is PvP even an afterthought when these changes are being tossed around?

No, and it shouldn't be. Trying to balance PvP and PvE in a game like this is mathematically impossible. [snip]

[snip]

I mean, they're a bit blunt, but they have a point, actually a bigger point than they realize.

PvPers are a tiny segment of the community, though, ironically, a slightly larger segment than the endgame PvEers that this patch is directed at. To an extent, neither of these groups should be the justification for major balance changes, and really should only even be a consideration when things are so far out of whack that PvP is actually unplayable. If they want to mix up PvP's metagame, they should do that with magic bullet sets (which, they also do.)

Messing with 5pc set bonuses to shake things up is one thing, messing with basic game rules to actively mess with, maybe 10k of one, and 500 of the other, is incredibly disproportionate, and is going to end with a dead game, and a disbanded team.

[edited to remove quote]

Riptide

Tannus15 wrote: »

i really like these changes.

i'm not sure why exactly ground dots will do less damage than on live when they have the same duration. like, why?

i look forward to seeing the PTS patch notes for week 3.

I do too, and am keeping a close eye on it as is virtually every endgame player I know.

The 2 second dot business and trying to keep as much of it as possible sure does seem like server optimization is driving a lot of this, but sigh.

Here are really the brass tacks for me - if my wife, who is at the able to solo a normal base game dungeon with difficulty stage is significantly inconvenienced by what goes live then I will allow our subs to lapse as it is currently scheduled to to.. If I can, with some inconvenience, rebuild her so that she is able to drive on as before, then I’ll nab one more month and see.

What will pound the nail in the coffin for a prolonged period of time is if I have to rebuild her multiple times over that month and she still feels more anemic than prior to this mess. I cannot emphasize it strongly enough, if multiple tweaks are made that swing things about in the weeks just after gritting our teeth and seeing if it can be lived through, necessitating multiple gear/build/rotation changes at the low to mid tier then the damage to the brand will be lasting and be noticed in the wider MMORPG community.

That may be anecdotal but it is real truth that ought to be listened to and listened to well. Better by far to pull changes that you are unsure about now and reapproach next quarter or the one after. Because it will be like treating heartburn with orange juice if there are piecemeal pullbacks and course changes to this in the 30 days after it goes live.

merpins

Can we also not change the animation of Puncturing Strikes and its morphs?

The majority of players are against the sudden change of a skill that is widely favored. It could be nerfed, and the skill animation could be sped up to .8 seconds, rather than reducing the number of hits and changing the animation. Changing the animation of a player-favorite skill is not something that should be done. It's something that should be done on skills where players absolutely hate the skill animation or how it feels to use;
players love Puncturing Strikes, how it looks, and how it feels to use. Nerfing the damage a bit won't change that.
An example of a skill players very much dislike is Warden's Dive skill and its morphs. It's slow and doesn't feel good to use, and after its nerf, it's pretty lack-luster now. THIS should be a skill worth looking at animation changes, not skills players adore.

A good example of a skill that was worth changing is Flurry and its morphs. I have not met many people that like flurry's original animation or how it felt to use. The new animation is a bit lacking, but the intent of changing the old one to something that feels better to use is good. And it does feel good to use now! Though it's a bit slow for the theme of a flurry of blows, and the animation is definitely either the light or heavy attack animation for dual wield, so the skill itself does deserve its own unique animation that follows the theme, or at worst a re-name. But otherwise, I like the intent here. It shows that the devs were listening to the players, a majority of whom did not like this skill and how it felt to use.

But again, Puncturing Strikes and its morphs do not need a new animation. It wasn't something players were asking for. I've gone over, over the last few days, why the new animation is lacking. I won't go over it here, but it feels stiff and not as impactful as the old skill. So please, I implore you as one of your many Templar players; do not change this skill, and please do not change skills players love. At least, don't change how they look and feel to use. Adjustments to damage numbers are inevitable, but fundamentally changing the skills players love is not constructive.

Faltasë

Lol I'm glad I pre-emptively quit this game over U35. [snip] This changes nothing. Scrap the update, that is your only fix.

PS: Power creep is not a bad thing, let Codes forum post be the amalgamation of everyone's criticism. Just stop nerfing the game based on the players hitting high numbers. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

Sandman929

"Power creep" is a way to avoid saying "past bad decisions". No one is hitting the Tamriel Gym and getting stronger on their own.

wolfie1.0.

Troodon80 wrote: »

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wolfie1.0. wrote: »

@ZOS_Gilliam

I agree with others here that we want to see the dev team (and only dev team) complete trifectas with these changes. Especially in the hardest dungeons and trials out there.

If you can do it then awesome the nay sayers are wrong and this update is great.

If you can't then maybe you should reconsider the whole thing.

Parsing on dummies is one thing. Being able to apply that to content is another.

You should probably clarify here that you'd like to see it done without it being on an internal build with dev commands; one-shots / buffed ability damage (like the damage from the last quest against Molag Bal), AI disabled, or god mode.

I was assuming that if they took me up on this challenge that they would do it in good faith and not resort to tactics that would be against the terms of service if regular players used similar hacked tools.

DarcyMardin

First, I appreciate the communication from Gilliam and the recognition that the community has been very concerned about the upcoming changes. I’m glad the devs are trying to listen and respond. So thanks for that.

But, as a casual PvE player, who has been casually playing every day since beta, all I can say is that the “play the way you want” philosophy is not being encouraged in any way by all the frequent, dramatic, and, to my mind, unnecessary changes. Like, I suspect, a great many other casual gamers, I don’t continually parse my DPS, gold out all my gear, obsess over the meta, or make spreadsheets detailing my progress. And I don’t particularly think about which DOT skills are “sticky” and which are not. Differentiating the two types is just going to add yet another degree of complexity to a combat system which is already complex enough.

It’s taken me long enough to learn to effectively weave and develop rotations on all the different classes that I play. Particularly when you consider that every three months, there are major, disruptive changes to the way things work. Frankly, I am tired. I just want to peacefully explore and adventure and quest and craft without embarrassing myself when I join a group dungeon or arena.

For vet content, I need more damage output, not less. All the nerfs are putting everything that is the least bit challenging out of my reach. Oakensoul, the only mythic item I’ve ever used consistently, really helped me, as did the damage I was finally deriving from weaving my light and heavy attacks, but now both have been eviscerated.

More and more, I’ve been getting the impression that the current dev team are perfectionists who have a “vision” (which constantly seems to change) that simply isn’t shared by the community at large. Yet they keep insistently imposing it on us. While I am confident that they mean well and even that they might eventually, after many trials, errors, and corrections, succeed in realizing their vision of the perfectly balanced game, the stress of getting there is going to keep eroding the community and driving once-loyal players away.

Katlefiya

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Stop with the standardisation nonsense. It’s not wanted. Having one ground DoT dealing more damage than another is perfectly fine.

This! The harder hitting skill should simply cost more resources, that is all standardisation that is needed.

Hegron

One groundbreaking idea for better accessibility:

Don't change the combat system every 3 month!

Maybe, just maybe my rotation will get better, if i don't have to relearn it every three month.

Thorncrypt

Dear Zos,

do you think you will be able to achieve the goals you have stated:

1) reduce "obscene" production of damage at the high end
2) make the game more accessible

with Update 35?

Or... 3 months afterward... in Update 36, will we experience more sweeping changes?

we have change fatigue. slow down.

Thanks.

Goldtistic

I'm excited about the communication, despite still being upset that damage and healing is being nerfed, but it's an understandable change. I'm not sure how I feel about the sticky DoT and HoTs keeping the long duration and 2s tick frequency. The last paragraph also has me excited, as a stamsorc main feeling rather depressed. Something that does have me worried is the clear-ability of harder content, especially with global DPS going down. I wish that some of the harder content would be adjusted to be able to be cleared by more people and make large group content more popular in general.

For something I'd like to see in the future, I would love to see class identity be revisited and have lesser used morphs be turned into something more unique, and for a revision to be made so that class skills are stronger than most weapon skills, as they should be.

Lalothen

I'm hoping HA related changes simply haven't been referenced in this post but will be included when the PTS is updated..... otherwise you guys are still going to be a very far cry from "HA build lovers.... we want better for you" - and that's from both a data and anecdotal feedback point of view.

Jazraena

With all the people deriding standardization here I'd just like to mention that standards aren't bad - it means you get multiple different options to the same end result. Preferably I'd want secondary effects to round out my choices so each has it's niche, but even having visually distinct but mechanically similar options helps maintaining theme and power fantasy for a character.

The crux however is that this Sticky vs Static differentiation is the opposite of standardization. Long duration weak stickies vs strong short duration statics just means everyone will gravitate towards the latter; doubly so considering you need at least one of them for the backbar enchant anyway. People will use strong skills over weak skills.

That's not standardization, that's making one set of skills objectively better than another set of skills unless you actually give those weaker skills their own niche that you would realistically sacrifice damage for.

Pro-Tip: The duration on it's own isn't it.

Priyasekarssk

@ZOS_Gilliam , I have never seen such [snip] and unbalanced game. For last 2 years ESO only losing players and nearing its end. Dropped way below top 50 played games.Only 2 reasons
1. Content for dollar is low.
[snip]
[edited for bashing]

nwilliams2107b16_ESO

Seriously, 2 weeks of testing and this is it! What about Templars? Hit like a kitten now! I have been subbed since launch, defended this game to the hilt, but no more the day these go live, my sub will be cancelled along with droves of my various guild mates, you really need to rethink these changes!
Incidentally, already installed Neverwinter, it’s better than I thought it would be, and will keep me ticking over until a better MMO arrives.