Questions for Devs

siddique

My pts feedback is primarily in the form of various questions I wish the game developers at least think about, if not answer.

What I dont understand is how after nearly 8 years, the devs think its necessary to completely overhaul combat like its some sort of year 1 of a beta game.

Minor changes and adjustments are understandable but if you cannot decide on how combat should look like after nearly a decade, something is wrong.

1. Who asked to increase dot times?
2. Who asked to nerf wall, jabs, path and a multitude of other skills?
3. Who asked to practically ruin sorcs and wardens?
4. Who asked to destroy healing?
5. Who asked to come up with a random idea of sticky and other dots?

6. What is the reason? You said accessibility.

7. How is increased dot times more accessible?
8. How is less dps more accessible?
9. How is no class identity more accessible?
10. How is more complicated healing more accessible?
11. How is maintaining multiple dot times more accessible?

12. Who comes up with these ideas?
13. Are you being dishonest in explaining your true motivations?
14. Do you listen to any feedback?
15. Are you doubling down on the changes you saw so much backlash on only because of a false sense of ego?

16. Why do you think it is okay to antagonize the community?
17. Why do you think power creep is a bad thing?
18. Why is there no communication?
19. Why do devs refuse to test changes in actual content?
20. Why did you parse on dummies and not go try your own trial trifectas?
21. Why is it considered a problem to do more dps?
22. Why shouldnt we be able to clear things if we put in more effort than someone else?

You are practically destroying the one thing, arguably, ESO has better than any other game, its combat.

You reverted some stuff back to as it is on Live, you reduced HP of enemies to make it feel like Live, and now you destroyed Empower. Why?

If your "thought out" changes were so terribly bad that you had to revert them to make them look like live, what makes you think you will fix this unwarranted mess in the remaining PTS cycle?

If anyone is listening, please listen to the sane voices. Swallow your ego. Admit these changes were wrong. Revert. Rethink.

You will have a much happier community if you just released the dungeons and reverted all combat changes. This has been an absolute trainwreck of a patch.

Swagata01

I wish just everyone would leave eso. Maybe then the top authority would notice.

James-Wayne

Should no one answer you I will give it a go

1. Who asked to increase dot times? Probably combat team discussion on the damage of dots
2. Who asked to nerf wall, jabs, path and a multitude of other skills? No one asked for this, not even the devs
3. Who asked to practically ruin sorcs and wardens? I thought Sorcs needed tuning but Wardens, nope not me on that one
4. Who asked to destroy healing? Healers were removed many patches ago
5. Who asked to come up with a random idea of sticky and other dots? Devs needed a way to differ the two

6. What is the reason? You said accessibility. Correct.

7. How is increased dot times more accessible? Because they last longer you dont need to react as fast
8. How is less dps more accessible? Watch this space, new sets incoming to make you accessible
9. How is no class identity more accessible? Play how you want, not what you want
10. How is more complicated healing more accessible? We discussed healers already
11. How is maintaining multiple dot times more accessible? Choose one or the other but not both

12. Who comes up with these ideas? Certainly not me
13. Are you being dishonest in explaining your true motivations? Of course. 100% we have new combat systems coming!
14. Do you listen to any feedback? Sometimes
15. Are you doubling down on the changes you saw so much backlash on only because of a false sense of ego? No our long term plan is still in play

16. Why do you think it is okay to antagonize the community? Its not on purpose, if you knew the grand plan you would understand
17. Why do you think power creep is a bad thing? Because it leaves players who cant access power creep behind
18. Why is there no communication? I'm communicating now what more you want
19. Why do devs refuse to test changes in actual content? Thats what the PTS is for, middle letter stands for TEST
20. Why did you parse on dummies and not go try your own trial trifectas? We dont have enough staff that can get through Trials that are geared for the 1% of the player base, hence the changes coming
21. Why is it considered a problem to do more dps? Because you are finishing the content too fast, we can only produce this stuff at a set rate
22. Why shouldnt we be able to clear things if we put in more effort than someone else? You will just need to put in more effort then

Sluggy

All I can think of is...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_6U9gkQeqY


The forum goers are Robert Webb as the frustrated director. ZoS is David Mitchell as the indeterminant actor.

francesinhalover

siddique wrote: »

You are practically destroying the one thing, arguably, ESO has better than any other game, its combat.

It's 100% the voiced quests and activities related to open world that gives it a big solo game feel.

BuzzLightYear

Issue is solo players and questers don't even know about the stuff being changed. I feel all this fiasko was made just for the sake of change and no other reason.Also the trust in the game devs is mostly lost I guess that was the plan?

siddique

This is week 4 of PTS. The devs have randomly tweaked things to "satisfy" some players, which isnt enough.

1 more week left, I can almost guarantee they cannot possibly fix this mess anymore in the available time.

The only viable solution is: revert combat changes. Release content. Rethink.

IZZEFlameLash

siddique wrote: »

This is week 4 of PTS. The devs have randomly tweaked things to "satisfy" some players, which isnt enough.

1 more week left, I can almost guarantee they cannot possibly fix this mess anymore in the available time.

The only viable solution is: revert combat changes. Release content. Rethink.

This. Completely. Release only dungeons and dungeon sets. Ditch changes literally no one asked for. These sorts of changes need more time testing to reach reasonable level.

PrincessOfThieves

siddique wrote: »

16. Why do you think it is okay to antagonize the community?

This is the root of the issue, I think. Sometimes it really feels like the combat team treats players as their opponents.
I think they should stop focusing so much on top 1000 players, even if they kill bosses a little bit faster than intended. Because every time they want to nerf these players, they make the game worse for the rest of us. An average ESO player is far from overpowered, so damage nerfs don't make sense. Don't forget that for every dd with 130k dps there's a lot of people that struggle in vBC2.

DairyCat

You are practically destroying the one thing, arguably, ESO has better than any other game, its combat.

100% not. ESO combat is interesting in that it's a little different because abilities are only gated by resources rather than cooldowns but I would definitely not say it's the best.

I'd easily wager it's the voiced quests, relatively good TES lore faithfulness and housing. In fact a lot of people play TES from Skyrim and their focus is something similar, i.e. casual open world questing based on within a faithful TES IP.

If someone asks me for an MMO with good combat I'd probably point them towards Lost Ark or BDO. Lore, world building and quests? ESO.

siddique

DairyCat wrote: »

You are practically destroying the one thing, arguably, ESO has better than any other game, its combat.

100% not. ESO combat is interesting in that it's a little different because abilities are only gated by resources rather than cooldowns but I would definitely not say it's the best.

I'd easily wager it's the voiced quests, relatively good TES lore faithfulness and housing. In fact a lot of people play TES from Skyrim and their focus is something similar, i.e. casual open world questing based on within a faithful TES IP.

If someone asks me for an MMO with good combat I'd probably point them towards Lost Ark or BDO. Lore, world building and quests? ESO.

I said, "arguably," you said "100% not" so I am inclined to say, incorrect. I come to ESO from Morrowind. I started playing this franchise in 2002. And while I agree ESO's lore is top notch, that is not what ESO itself is known for. Lost Ark and BDO? Please. There is no comparison. Well maybe after U35 lol.

Elsonso

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

siddique wrote: »

16. Why do you think it is okay to antagonize the community?

This is the root of the issue, I think. Sometimes it really feels like the combat team treats players as their opponents.
I think they should stop focusing so much on top 1000 players, even if they kill bosses a little bit faster than intended. Because every time they want to nerf these players, they make the game worse for the rest of us. An average ESO player is far from overpowered, so damage nerfs don't make sense. Don't forget that for every dd with 130k dps there's a lot of people that struggle in vBC2.

The thing is that this patch seems to be more of an inconvenience to the "Top Tier" than a nerf. Yeah, damage is probably down, but at that level, the damage is so high that it is more of a luxury than a necessity.

The problem is that it was a bigger hit on the people where damage is a necessity.

If they were trying to focus on the Top Tier, they seem to have failed magnificently.

francesinhalover

BuzzLightYear wrote: »

Issue is solo players and questers don't even know about the stuff being changed. I feel all this fiasko was made just for the sake of change and no other reason.Also the trust in the game devs is mostly lost I guess that was the plan?

yeah i noticed that on my guilds, people were complaining of the update and guys that knew zero of it went there to bash on the players complaining lol.
Like searching a bit and reading isn't that hard. I just know it will be interesting to see everyone that doesn't know anything cry over jabs the momment the update hits.

siddique

Elsonso wrote: »

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

siddique wrote: »

16. Why do you think it is okay to antagonize the community?

This is the root of the issue, I think. Sometimes it really feels like the combat team treats players as their opponents.
I think they should stop focusing so much on top 1000 players, even if they kill bosses a little bit faster than intended. Because every time they want to nerf these players, they make the game worse for the rest of us. An average ESO player is far from overpowered, so damage nerfs don't make sense. Don't forget that for every dd with 130k dps there's a lot of people that struggle in vBC2.

The thing is that this patch seems to be more of an inconvenience to the "Top Tier" than a nerf. Yeah, damage is probably down, but at that level, the damage is so high that it is more of a luxury than a necessity.

The problem is that it was a bigger hit on the people where damage is a necessity.

If they were trying to focus on the Top Tier, they seem to have failed magnificently.

Actually, the current dps on live is not a "luxury" for the latest endgame conent. With these pts nerfs, that content will become nearly impossible for endgame players, except maybe literally 3 or 4 teams that push world records.

But thats a different debate altogether at this point.

JustAGoodPlayer

Current feedbacks is only from players interested in LA+Skill game play.

Just as example LA+Bash+Skill was harder - but was nerfed. because LA+Skill players do not like to press 3 buttons per second. 2 is better for their wiwing.

The same other players ask - why it is much different from just spam skill ? And it is not much really different. If 3 buttons per second give only 2 k DPS more it is logickall that only 1 button (skill) - per second is not worse than 2 less DPS too.

The same HA players who press more than 1 button per second asks - why the hell? Why we press even more buttons but have so small DPS ?

And no one really liked DO spamming the same button all the time. But they feel some "weavingness" in it. Feeling of self "better than the others on empty space" effect. "Optimal, META ... "

I do not really care - I just want to have normal DPS as before and do not parroting a button.
And do not get nerfs on already not OP sets and skills whyle there are a lot of really OP sets and builds.

Nerf them first !!! They never nerf all OP builds - so in normal logick builds with not OP sets and DPS do not need to even care.

But for some reason - we are those who get nerfs !!!

pklemming

siddique wrote: »

This is week 4 of PTS. The devs have randomly tweaked things to "satisfy" some players, which isnt enough.

1 more week left, I can almost guarantee they cannot possibly fix this mess anymore in the available time.

The only viable solution is: revert combat changes. Release content. Rethink.

Unfortunately, this managed to implement a new meta in week 4, whilst fixing pretty much nothing. This actually made things a LOT worse, and I am guessing, like their usual changes, was completely unanticipated.

JustAGoodPlayer

Agree - nothing becomes better.

Not optimal builds - DAYLY BUILDS - do you understand the meaning of it ? Dayly builds - not optimal builds medium on all directions get nerfs !!! HA builds are daily builds - they are not better - not optimal - middle in everything possible to use everywhere.

Now it even was deleted from PVP by this changes.

How the hell do they balance this game ???

The sets (Undaunted infiltrator) - on current live is already worse than BUFF set !!! Set that buff other players + you give more DPS than our Ha sets ??? How is it even possible ???

And adding to all this they try to make it PVE only ?

The same rotation :
https://youtu.be/-8UzHNctEUs

The same time OP sets with 120 K dps no need nerfing at all ?

What real balance are you talking about with such changes ?

You put one sets and other sets and with same rotation and skills have different damage = much different.

OK ! But do not at least nerf already not top DPS sets. Where is any logick ? Logick goes away ... do not try to find it. It drunk to much and go to sleap 3 years ago.

p4l4mu7

We need answers to these question but sadly on next Q&A Gina will again answer to her own questions and ignore the chat again.

JustAGoodPlayer

p4l4mu7 wrote: »

We need answers to these question but sadly on next Q&A Gina will again answer to her own questions and ignore the chat again.

We talk to much and about different thingth - so it is hard to understand what we are talking about.

More simple just say what you think yourself ))) Even if the topic if about different )))

SeaUnicorn

What is the vision for Healer Role? If healer specific weapon does not heal as much as class / guild skills but does same amount of damage is the goal to eliminate healer role from organized team content all together?

JustAGoodPlayer

SeaUnicorn wrote: »

What is the vision for Healer Role? If healer specific weapon does not heal as much as class / guild skills but does same amount of damage is the goal to eliminate healer role from organized team content all together?

HA players can play with no healer in group. But what is the reason not to take healer or some one who want to learn ?
Any task can be devided between any players. All dd can spam vigor in rotation or you can have dedicated role to do all heals.

The same time you can have players who have heals but do not use it - only in moments party needs it.

The same time group can have 1-2-3 healers in it - some one limits you in this ?

siddique

SeaUnicorn wrote: »

What is the vision for Healer Role? If healer specific weapon does not heal as much as class / guild skills but does same amount of damage is the goal to eliminate healer role from organized team content all together?

There is such a huge disconnect between what the combat team is doing and what the game realities are. Heavy attack resto is doing 94k parse on pts. Like I am actually at a loss of words.

Pevey

siddique wrote: »

SeaUnicorn wrote: »

What is the vision for Healer Role? If healer specific weapon does not heal as much as class / guild skills but does same amount of damage is the goal to eliminate healer role from organized team content all together?

There is such a huge disconnect between what the combat team is doing and what the game realities are. Heavy attack resto is doing 94k parse on pts. Like I am actually at a loss of words.

When you balance with spreadsheets, you lose the ability to see the big picture. No spreadsheet can show the big picture or predict how humans will react to changes. That is an inherently human skill. Or perhaps within the capability of a good AI. But definitely not within the skill of someone focused on a spreadsheet.

SeaUnicorn

JustAGoodPlayer wrote: »

SeaUnicorn wrote: »

What is the vision for Healer Role? If healer specific weapon does not heal as much as class / guild skills but does same amount of damage is the goal to eliminate healer role from organized team content all together?

HA players can play with no healer in group. But what is the reason not to take healer or some one who want to learn ?
Any task can be devided between any players. All dd can spam vigor in rotation or you can have dedicated role to do all heals.

The same time you can have players who have heals but do not use it - only in moments party needs it.

The same time group can have 1-2-3 healers in it - some one limits you in this ?

No healers = more damage for the group = easier mechanic skips = better for both experienced and inexperienced teams. So if you want to clear even if you are new team you will be better off w/o a healer. Having healers is a dead weight in meta ZOS is about to introduce.
Same reason you do not bring 4 tanks into trials.