Upcoming PTS Combat & Balance Adjustments

Matteo11

Update 35 still represents huge nerfs to Class identity that are not being addressed.

There is also the frequency and severity of these balance changes, that seems to contradict what the game 'teaches' us at every turn



You have a situation where Biting Jabs is so bad that Dual Wield Flurry will be the go to 'spam attack' for Templars in U35. I think Wardens are in a similar boat. Testing this change is just one example of how U35 is utterly disappointing.

Is that really the intention here? Literally what is the point of Stamplar without Jabs? Its what people play when they want a really satisfying attack skill, the same type of skill that players request on every other class.

I believe Warden is in a similar boat where its gonna replace its awesome signature skills with "Flurry" as well... don't you think thats pretty whack?

I really wonder why ZOS doesn't strive to give every Class a hallmark skill that 'feels as good' as Jabs or the Warden Skills, instead of just dismantling fun kit that people have enjoyed for years.

You could instead incentivize other jobs in ways that make sense. You've already pushed a 'Grim Focus Lite' and 'Imbue Weapon' onto StamSorcs. Templars get the 'Flurry' already in Jabs. Maybe other jobs can get meaty attacks that provide Minor Force, or the benefits of Deadly Cloak, or otherwise free them from the most cookie cutter elements of Stam builds.

These are just basic examples, but there are so many ways you could preserve your vision while making players feel powerful and proud to claim a class as their main. Instead... these changes actually make the game more homogenous, while discouraging the time and effort people put into learning. Its confusing, and I have a hard time seeing how its good for the game.


PS: Sooner or later we have to accept that PVE and PVP cannot be so closely balanced at the same time. They are wildly different activities, and need to be tuned independently. I think if a number of these nerfs were only 'damage to players' or whatever the case may be, the backlash would probably be less intense.

Aquelarre

A longer pts cycle looks interesting, ZOS.

What happen with Empower?

PhoenixGrey

Selot wrote: »

Buff magblade please

No, buffs are reserved for stamina specs. Mag classes are PVE only

Magdk is just an embarrassing outlier soon to be nerfed to dust

Urzigurumash

PhoenixGrey wrote: »

Selot wrote: »

Buff magblade please

No, buffs are reserved for stamina specs. Mag classes are PVE only

Magdk is just an embarrassing outlier soon to be nerfed to dust

MagPlar, MagCro?

LarsS

I have been in local politics for some 30 years, in a party that have been in power in my city for 50 years. Its not because we don’t do mistakes, but because we cancel changes that create the type of uproar these battle changes have done. Instead, we make a fresh start and discuss with those who object, the new decision is always better, and people continues to trust us because we can admit to stupid decisions.

This update makes me sad, even with the partial back tracking it’s obvious that ZOS have lost much trust and respect. Its still not too late to minimize the damage and cancel the combat related changes in the upcoming update and to start a real dialogue with your customers. It’s not about right or wrong but about keeping your customers and hard numbers don’t matter at all at this moment.

Bosco916

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Psssst.

Zos.

Gimme.

My.

Melee.

Spammable.



Also thank you for the weekly feedback and sneak peek. this should happen in every PTS regardless of the Amount of Feedback Received

Vampire have melee spammable: Evicerate.

francesinhalover

jecks33 wrote: »

I am so exhausted after all these changes that I barely have the desire to log. I no longer care about my 6 year main templar being devasted, but please leave Dark Cloak as it is on live!
NB tank is my last source of fun, don't kill it or I'm done with this game.

Please @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Gilliam

At least, crushing weapon looks really good on templar... i feel your pain, i lost my sorcerer and my rapid strikes... 2 years building my main to perfection just to lose him...I hate with a huge force crystal weapons, but i have no other options unfurtunaly. Shrouded daggers has bad dmg...

francesinhalover

ksbrugh wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

We wanted to take a minute to give you some insight into some additional changes coming to the PTS affecting combat and balance.

As we’ve continued reading through your feedback from testing these changes, we determined that some of our goals were actively competing with each other and not reaching the target audiences in ways we intended. We ultimately want to help raise the floor and reduce the ceiling in regard to DPS output, while simultaneously improving class balance in some problematic areas. So far, this has led to competing changes that have hurt some groups of players despite us stating we didn’t want to actively harm playstyles with any particular change; we are committed to following through with additional ways to mitigate these issues while still meeting our intended goals.

With all that said, in next week’s PTS patch you’ll find that we will be re-evaluating some of the adjustments to Light and Heavy Attacks so they are a bit less drastic. Light and Heavy Attacks will once again scale with your stats, just to a lesser extent than before. Overall, there will still be a nerf on Light Attack damage, but this will allow us to give a lot more love to Heavy Attacks and will be less stark of a difference.

There will also be a handful of tweaks to some class abilities in next week’s PTS patch, based on the feedback we’ve received, but the majority of these will come in the final PTS patch. Note that the focus of these adjustments will be on Magicka-based Nightblades, Wardens, and Sorcerers.

Additionally, for Dungeons and Trials, we’ll be reducing the health of all bosses on Veteran difficulty and above in the final PTS patch to account for the overall DPS loss. For Trials specifically, we’ll be reducing the health of all Champions and Bannermen on Veteran difficulty and above. The reduction in health for each boss will vary from encounter to encounter, but the results should be that each Dungeon and Trial boss fight will provide a similar challenge to what is on Live currently. The Trial bannermen and Champions provide a challenge in their own right so we felt additional adjustments were warranted.

We recognize there has been a lot of concern surrounding the combat changes currently on the PTS, and we truly believe with some continued adjustments and iterations, this is the best course of action for the long-term health of the game. We’re also working on a brief Q&A that should help address some of the more general questions surrounding these changes. Thanks for reading and, of course, taking the time to provide so much in-depth and valuable feedback.

Sincerely

Here is my suggestion for a solution to the power creep and Gap. That would be balanced and skill oriented. And would get rid of the unnecessary balance changes that the devs have set forth for testing.

My suggestion would be to leave the core mechanics similar to what they are already existing in the game. For these veteran trials and hard modes and veteran dungeons and their hard modes, what should be done is already an existing core mechanic in other parts of the game and could be incorporated into these dungeons and trials.
What I'm speaking of is like for example the Dolmens in Summerset. The harder you come at them and the more powerful you or your group including randoms around you hit it. The more the Dolmens throw at you meaning they get harder and the final boss has more health and becomes more difficult to kill. If you are by yourself and stand there and light attack the ads that come at you taking your time and barely doing any damage the final boss is like a wet noodle. NOW I'm not suggesting if you do like light damage in a trial than the boss would be like a wet noodle there should be a bottom level where all bosses start at in their power and the harder you hit the dungeon from the beginning the more powerful and harder it is for that bosses to be killed including the ads in between bosses and the ads thrown at you during the boss fight would reflect your power output. Essentially veteran mode could be removed (meaning) that the harder you hit the dungeon it becomes veteran because of your damage dealt.
And things like Trifecta and no death runs achievements would only be given if you hit the dungeon from the very beginning with everything you got all the way to the end and you reach a certain score of damage and time it has taken you together for the game to consider you doing it in hard mode vet.
This way people at the bottom of the power level would still be able to enjoy trials and DLC dungeons and learn the mechanics and get better so they could progress, have something to work for while having fun doing it. Which would also mean people at the very top tier, the 1% of gamers could and would still be challenged by a dungeon that's smart enough to know you are coming in there whooping some butt and it's going to throw everything it's got at you just like as if it was that hard mode. And mid-tier gamers would have a dungeon or trial thrown at them slightly less harder than the 1%, but definitely harder than the lower percent of the power band. Rewards and achievements would be given out based on overall performance. Higher performance higher rewards.

Say things like DLC dungeons. Low end players could enter that dungeon and practice and see how far they can get. And say maybe the game would give a scorecard letting them know how far their group was from receiving a vet accomplishment which would include a monster helmet. Not an individual scorecard but a group scorecard knowing the basic damage and time outputs of that group with maybe a few suggestions on what they can do to improve performance. Or (this would probably be better) if you give a individual scorecard let it be private only to that player so the group would not be able to see it but the player would know what they need to do to improve.

So to sum this up.
Smart dungeons & trials that adjust to your power band and give rewards accordingly to your progression through that dungeon or trial. Meaning no achievements unless you come at it full force but still passable by mid and lower tiered players

Leave existing basic combat mechanics that the community has grown to love and gotten used to except for small minor changes adjustments and tweaks.

Implement a group or individual suggestion card for improvement and help after completing said dungeons or trials.

I wholeheartedly believe this would satisfy the upper 1% the upper 2% and the lower end and everything in between. Making the game fun and accessible and challenging for all ESO players from all walks of life. Even the wood elves

i do like the idea, the issue is trifecta would still be stuck behind speedruns.
also seems hard to add to the game.

francesinhalover

Matteo11 wrote: »

Update 35 still represents huge nerfs to Class identity that are not being addressed.

There is also the frequency and severity of these balance changes, that seems to contradict what the game 'teaches' us at every turn



You have a situation where Biting Jabs is so bad that Dual Wield Flurry will be the go to 'spam attack' for Templars in U35. I think Wardens are in a similar boat. Testing this change is just one example of how U35 is utterly disappointing.

Is that really the intention here? Literally what is the point of Stamplar without Jabs? Its what people play when they want a really satisfying attack skill, the same type of skill that players request on every other class.

I believe Warden is in a similar boat where its gonna replace its awesome signature skills with "Flurry" as well... don't you think thats pretty whack?

I really wonder why ZOS doesn't strive to give every Class a hallmark skill that 'feels as good' as Jabs or the Warden Skills, instead of just dismantling fun kit that people have enjoyed for years.

You could instead incentivize other jobs in ways that make sense. You've already pushed a 'Grim Focus Lite' and 'Imbue Weapon' onto StamSorcs. Templars get the 'Flurry' already in Jabs. Maybe other jobs can get meaty attacks that provide Minor Force, or the benefits of Deadly Cloak, or otherwise free them from the most cookie cutter elements of Stam builds.

These are just basic examples, but there are so many ways you could preserve your vision while making players feel powerful and proud to claim a class as their main. Instead... these changes actually make the game more homogenous, while discouraging the time and effort people put into learning. Its confusing, and I have a hard time seeing how its good for the game.


PS: Sooner or later we have to accept that PVE and PVP cannot be so closely balanced at the same time. They are wildly different activities, and need to be tuned independently. I think if a number of these nerfs were only 'damage to players' or whatever the case may be, the backlash would probably be less intense.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/594210/what-is-your-favorite-stamina-spammable-and-happy-holidays/p1

only 90 votes, but these poll shows ppl just love jabs and veiled strike comes second.

you know somethings wrong when only 2 classes had spammables that felt amazing to use and 1 of them is now dead.

GlassHalfFull

ajkb78 wrote: »

Week 4 they finally did something because probably enough people talked with their wallets.

I agree with you. I cancelled my ESO+ renewal, as have others I game with.

This past week I had a blast online with my daughter playing Serious Sam 4. This means to me, that I have found gaming enjoyment and online social events outside of ESO.

No spreadsheets were needed to make this decision, and it was very fun.

Elsonso

Aquelarre wrote: »

A longer pts cycle looks interesting, ZOS.

Define "interesting" Can the community handle more Monday morning PTS patch notes? Right now we have two months to recover. It's not enough.

GlassHalfFull wrote: »

ajkb78 wrote: »

Week 4 they finally did something because probably enough people talked with their wallets.

I agree with you. I cancelled my ESO+ renewal, as have others I game with.

A hearty 👍, but two things... First, canceling the subscription only matters to them when it expires. I suspect that there are people who rage cancel ESO Plus, tell everyone about it, then quietly renew it before it expires. Until it expires, they haven't lost anything at all. No one has.

Second, I doubt that the team is that closely tied into subscription numbers that they notice weekly trends. They are probably more tuned to active daily player numbers than subscription numbers. If you really want to send a message, stop or reduce playing and stop logging into PTS.

After 8 years, I have noticed that ZOS listens, but is reluctant to take action. I decided to do the same. I listen to what they say, but play other games more than I play ESO. Yes, I also don't pay them for anything. If enough people do this, they will notice. Not sure what good it will do, though. Them responding to declining player numbers might have been what got us into this predicament in the first place.

Destyran

@ZOS_GinaBruno what are the odds of this not going live and waiting till you guys can get in touch with your community. this is a meme? This is so out of touch and you guys have reversed changed back and forth you gotta stop this it looks bad for what the community thinks. Idk what you guys are thinking but scale content to the median group and make heroics for the sweats that only last for a month after launch. Leave things as they are and stop making P2win sets that break your balance.

jle30303

If you want to raise the floor, rather than lowering it, the one thing you CANNOT do is reduce the damage from Light and Heavy attacks. Not by so much as one point.

The "floor" is people for whom Light and Heavy attacks are the staple attack because they have run out of magicka or stamina, and are using Heavy Attacks to restore enough resources to use a skill or two and having to spam light attacks in between to actually do any damage.

Lykeion

Are the adjustments to Dark Cloak included in the adjustments to Magicka-based NBs that you mentioned? There are a lot of discussions and suggestions in the community about this skill change, but we haven't gotten any official responses yet.

Dagobertfuk

Im talking from pvp perspective, with halfed heal

Dark Cloak how it is on actual PTS will be a Skill nobody will use ever again. A nerf for no *** reason. Like it was stronger than other Heals. Vigor was way stronger. And since vigor gets major resolve its even less worth it, to even think about using it as a Nightblade.

My Nightblade in Cyrodiil on live servers with 40k HP gets 2,6k hps with dark cloak. After the first Dark Cloak Nerf in pts week one or two, i had to be 50% Player HP to get the heal value from live servers. Right now on pts after the second nerf, i have to be at 10% player HP to get almost old value of 2520 hps. I did the math with the pts maximum of 14%. Even Vampire Drain, a skill nobody with more than 2 braincells is using in PvP to heal up, heals more than actual PTS Dark Cloak.

Any reason why anyone should use PTS Dark Cloak instead of another healing ability other than for style? I can't think of any. Mainly because every other healing ability heals me more by a frightening margin, no matter how much HP I have, except at 10% where Dark Cloak get it old healing value.
Image when i dont have 40k HP. Hard to imagine but it gets even worse rofl.

Dark Cloak nerf makes it totally useless in PvP. With all that crosshealing going on and hybridscaling everyone is anyway running around with high weapon/spellpower. Those stats even make post pts Vigor stronger than pre pts Dark Cloak.

Altrough Vigor will heal for a lot more and grant more uptime on Major Resolve than Dark Cloak with the NB passive Shadowbarrier does with full heavy armor setup.

Full heavy armor NB Major Resolve 16s vs vigor's 20s per cast and more healing than pre PTS Dark Cloak.

And overall a skill that only really works, when i am already with both legs in the grave, and pretty far into execute range to eat 400% extra dmg from enemy execute's, is a total abilityslot waste

Cigy

"some of our goals were actively competing with each other and not reaching the target audiences in ways we intended"

so you bought back medium weaving!? How does that go against your stated goals?

acastanza_ESO

@ZOS_Gilliam Frost Clench should not be increased in cost, it is a terrible version of the skill as it is, the range increase is only going to bring it up to par, increasing the cost will only push it back down into an awful skill again

WrathOfInnos

Cigy wrote: »

"some of our goals were actively competing with each other and not reaching the target audiences in ways we intended"

so you bought back medium weaving!? How does that go against your stated goals?

Pretty sure that was an accident. Nobody wants medium weaving. Hopefully will be fixed before this hits live.

Trundik

Oh, good place to complain.

One of my characters is Magblade. And i'm already scared by this upcoming tweaks.

Magblade in my opinion have very limited amount of good class skills. As spammable I use blood for blood. Dots is all bad except twisting path. Another good skills is impale/killer blade and resolve, but thats all. I use degeneration. its because there is no point to use potion - you don't have good skill to replace it anyway.

Ranged shadow clone is exceptionally awfull i can admit - i tried to use it in pvp and its simply doesn't work as it must to be. I think it requires to be on same hight in short range and in vicinity to teleport in. Its god damn impossible to use it as save ability in result because playgrounds are far from being flat and empty. I have good expirience playing another games with similiar abilities (like guild wars 1 and 2), allowing you to teleport in place of clone and this one is worst implementation I met.

Greeed2025

Honest opinion about U35 and ESO in general. Good and bad

I ve played quiet a few on MMOs the last few years and online games from complety different genres. Some with a really huge player base and some smaller ones. I m not saying I m part of the so said elite endgame community. But I did all trial HM's have 2 trial 2 Trifectas. Did all dungeon trifectas with every role and on ALL classes. So I can atleast say that I have a vague picture of how Tanks, Damage dealers and Healers from different classes perform in dungeon content. I m not mentioning this to brag in any way. I just want to make it clear that I genuinly enjoy the PvE content and combat of ESO. English is not my native language so I invested quiet a bit of time in typing all this so apologies in advance

I ll start with the positive arguments.

- The amount of quality content ESO brings out every year is just amazing. And the fact that its even so well sheduled beforehand is also just insane. We are guaranteed to get 4 amazing dungeons, a new trial, a new huge chapter zone and a dlc zone and so much more (new sets, events, motif/style pages/crown store content) There also are the big content updates like companions and ToT. Even tho I m quiet happy with the amount of content we get every year that doesnt mean I enjoy every content we get. I bought both Blackwood and high isle chapter and didnt spend more then 4 hours with companions or ToT. Not because they are bad. Its just because I dont enjoy those. But ZOS cant please everybody with everykind of content. But there is always something that I enjoy.

- This one is something that not enough people appreciate. It is the one thimg that keeps ESO for me above every other single mmo. The Content team does an amazing unbelievable good job at adding content be it cosmetics or PvE Content that ALWAYS fits the ESO lore and world. Every dungeon, trial, set, dlc zone or character has a tie to the world and lore of ESO. Especially cosmetics. People dont realise what a great job ZoS does at adding cosmetics into the game that fits the style and world of eso. Honestly how many did people encounter those over the top cosmetics in other mmos. Those bright yellow chicken costumes, robot laser weapons and flying gorilla mounts in even one of the more popular mmo games. I dont wanna call out the names but I m pretty sure most people have encountered at least one of those at some point. I cant thank the content and art team enough for releasing those unique arms packs every month. Or new crates every few months or those style pages from the events. The house Dufort banneret style is only of so many perfectly fitting cosmetics in this game.

Now a few things that I just simply dont understand in U35 and the previous updates in genereal and where I m just not sure what to think about.

Many other popular games be it FPS, Battle Royals or mmos. They all have either a problem of just beeing lazy and not adding new engaging fun content or just trying to keep their game alive by adding only mediocore cosmetics and not touching the core gameplay mechanics of their game for an eternity. Players numbers drop over time due to those changes. And this is why I m just baffled about the state of ESO. I have never seen devs that invest so so so so so much time in changing and playing around with a games BASIC combat mechanics in such a drastic way. I m not gonna talk about how good or bad those changes are. I just dont understand. Why change something thats not broken. I understand there must be changes! Especially regarding class meta, sets meta and so on. Those are appreciated in addition with the superb content we are already getting. Many games change their meta from update to update or in different games from other genres from a season to the next season to keep their game fresh. But most devs are usually lazy. So why is it that the combat team is so fixated and adding sooooooooooo many core combat changes that just harm the overall health of the game. I m not saying the game is dead or that its going to die with the next update. But I m confident in saying that these combat changes sadly won't benefit the huge majority at all and will only do harm. I m 100% convinced that only adding content of U35 and not touching the core gameplay at ALL is the only way not to harm the overall health of this game.

I really really appreciate your efforts at listening at answering to the eso community and our feedback. But please consider the possibilty of delaying the combat changes and taking all the time you guys need to addres the problems as power creep and accesibility you were aiming for. We are all humans. We all make mistakes. But with more time and communication i m sure we can address those problem together in the future. Much love cheers

wilsonwjesse

Can you make Inferno and its morphs Cauterize and Flames of Oblivion Major Savagery while active rather than while slotted?

deleted221205-002626

@ZOS_GinaBruno Leave Dcon the way it is on live but add cc immunity to rush of agony. Its the real problem not dcon as everyone thinks cuz they cant see it.

Kirawolfe

Please reverse what you've done to Rapid Strikes/Flurry. Please. It's horrible. And I just mean the animation. You seem dead set on nerfing, so I don't feel what I say will make much difference there, but holy cripes the new Flurry/Rapid Strikes is BAD.

You're flailing in some kind of demonstrative swinging motion. There's no sense of impact, not sense of rapid/flurry anything. Awful.

VolrathStormborn

Another PTS week where no mention of any fixes to Console Inputs, Skill queuing, triggering Pots/Ultimates, and just the simple ability to Heavy Attack from a SnB block or staves with all of this work on LA/HA.

Makes me sick. Is it not worth the Dev time since it is not as big of an issue on PC? I had someone test it on the PTS and it's still there with his controller mode.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

Falcon_of_light

So zos basically take back surprise attack crit, like "every 4 seconds guarantee crit" will be nullified by cloack, crit rate etc, but they still dont get back stun from sa? Wow, just delete nb already, you hate this class 2 much...

rmajereub17_ESO

Spent two hours on PTS, then let my wife sit down and play. Words out her mouth would get you cancelled in 2022 and that’s what we did with our three accounts. Disgusting. And has absolutely killed two guilds I was in already with people leaving. The only two classes I’ve played and I’ll forever are in utter chaos. I tried over an hour to find a rotation and build I could somehow enjoy and even the looks of my attacks alone were changed and disheartening. Hope we have a new team come U36 and I’ll see ya then if it’s any better.

master_vanargand

Don't take pleasure in giving despair.

Tanis-Stormbinder

Last PTS patch before certification and No fixes to restoration staff heavy attacks, No buffs to Templars Jabs/Puncturing Sweeps, No word on medium weaving attack weaving raising the skill gap level. I have been playing since Beta and just canceled my sub. Tired of all these negative sweeping changes.

Falcon_of_light

Its simly disaster. You balance nb around surprise attack and now kill it in pvp wihtiut any real buffs of other sides of a class... You just killed nb...

JanTanhide

Tanis-Stormbinder wrote: »

Last PTS patch before certification and No fixes to restoration staff heavy attacks, No buffs to Templars Jabs/Puncturing Sweeps, No word on medium weaving attack weaving raising the skill gap level. I have been playing since Beta and just canceled my sub. Tired of all these negative sweeping changes.

Same here. Canceled.