Should the combat changes for U35 be rolled back?

prof_doom

Should the combat changes all be rolled back, so that just the new Dungeons and sets are released in August, leaving combat changes for another patch?

PrincessOfThieves

Yes

Obviously.
After Gina's post, I thought they'd just reduce the nerfs, but with this weird resto medium attack meta emerging and not much time left to test the rest of the patch... It would be better to cut their losses and just release the dungeon pack.

Vahndamme

Yes

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

Obviously.
After Gina's post, I thought they'd just reduce the nerfs, but with this weird resto medium attack meta emerging and not much time left to test the rest of the patch... It would be better to cut their losses and just release the dungeon pack.

Agreed, retry at another time when the chicken has roasted a bit longer in the oven. Because now it's salmonella all over the place.

Elsonso

Yes

Yes, even if it means pushing back Update 35 until later. Team seems to be thrashing right now.

shadyjane62

Yes

Just yes, a million times over.

ThirdEye_PULSE

Yes

Im not okay with DoTs damage being nerfed. Thats my main issue. Its going to take a lot of skills off your bar for pvp. PvE... well, if your goal is to minimize the gap between the bottom and top you should be buffing DoTs not nerfing them.

Im not a proponent of buffing DoTs either. Theyre fine. However, as a skill type which only requires you to cast it once then it gives you passive damage, in a high DoT dmg meta lets say 70% dmg is from DoTs. That only leaves 30% for LA weaving and spammables. In that type of meta as long as you can keep DoTs up effectively your doing close damage to best parsers.

Just to be clear im not a proponent of that type of gameplay. However, its just an example to show that nerfing DoT damage is the exact opposite thing they should be doing if their stated goal is actually what all these changes are for.

Also, this patch is moving too quickly. As another example, if you want to change combat wherein 50% of gameplay is a spammable... each class should have at least 3 unique, viable spammables that are each worth using in every rotation. That would be interesting combat gameplay. If each spammable had a place in your rotation with one just for dmg, one for debuff, ect... that could be fun. The issue is that right now you should consider yourself lucky if your class has even ONE good spammable. Your even nerfing spammables with U35! Trying to achieve one thing and doing the exact opposite.

These types of changes require a lot of thought and testing. There isnt enough time to do this right. So please do the right thing and extend it.

GloatingSwine

Yes

Nerfs don't really help anyone, the only people that are happy with them are the spite crew who like it when other people lose out.

If you want to close the gap between players, make rotations easier to build by having recasts line up more frequently because timers synchronise on a common factor.

Make sure there is a capable alternative to LA weaving without actually changing it (like a skill which gets a stacking bonus if it is used consecutively with no attacks then cashes that in on a heavy attack to form a 1-2-3-Heavy rhythm).

Make LA sets easier to sustain bonuses from, include good HA sets to synergise with the alternative.

Communicate concepts like LA weaving better by eg. taking a little damage off the LA and returning it on the next skill used, having the skill light up on the bar to show this will happen (to poke Captain LA Spam at the back to actually use it).

Communicate concepts like DoT stacking better with a dungeon tutorial where you control a polymorph which has one short DoT, one long DoT, and one spammer and an explicit goal to maintain both DoTs and use the spammer for a rotation. (Use some Undaunted NPCs to guide the player through a special version of an early dungeon boss fight). Maybe also put ones in for healer and tank roles later.

Lalothen

Other - Comment

The DoT & HoT changes are a mess, and class ability changes need some re-evaluation. I'd rather this portion not go live and we get more time on the PTS to test, suggest and come up with a set of changes that aren't received so egregiously by players.

On the other hand the LA/HA scaling changes and the change to Empower this week are a solid step in the right direction; Empower just needs changing to impact only fully-charged attacks with a higher percentage modifier (and a couple of individual weapons changes that I'm not going to expound again here when the info is already in the feedback thread) so HA builds don't lose ground, and the pending MA meta doesn't make it to Live.

Concerns about class skills and sets offering Empower that would then be seen as "useless" (ymmv on that actually being the case) can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and WWs would obviously need a solution as well - but these are tweaks or buff replacements and far less impactive overall than finally getting HA-themed builds into an easy DPS mid-range with a reasonable top end without:

1) giving rise to overperforming HA builds in PvP again.
2) concurrently re-buffing LA builds and widening what is already an appreciable gap between the weave styles yet again.

MorganaBlue

Yes

Yes. I have no words for what is going on with this game. The proposed changes in every single posting of patch notes for Update 35 do NOT and will NOT solve the problem, raise the floor, and or lower the ceiling - they only serve to antagonize the playerbase. The meta will just shift to medium attakcs w/ resto staves, and the dps gap will be just as large, if not larger, given that medium attacks are more difficult to achieve than light attacks - leaving casuals in the dust regardless of the changes.

Is it so difficult for the combat team to understand? I mean, 20 minutes of checking out content creator videos and reading combat and pts sections of the forums is all it takes. Do they even go on PTS themselves to test their own changes? The 110K - 115K resto medium attack PTS parses already posted aren't clear enough?

What is the sense of all of this?

Cyber10

Yes

This entire patch is a mess! Any and all combat changes should be shelved until they have a detailed plan with a longer PTS phase.

SpacemanSpiff1

Other - Comment

roll out 8.1.1. it'll be great.

Sandman929

Yes

Maybe spend an update fixing actual existing problems rather than going out of the way to create new ones.

Anhedonie

Other - Comment

*** it, just let it go live. I want to see the fallout that will happen and the *** devs will have to clean up with patches for next like 3 years.

MudcrabAttack

Yes

There’s a strong chance that all the bugs haven’t been found. And adjusting medium weaves, if they’re even planning on doing that, would take additional testing, and we’re running out of time.

Otherwise I like where heavy attack builds appear to be there in relation to light attack builds. Reminds me of the time I beat Skyrim heavy attacking with a big axe the entire time. It would be nice if resto staff wasn’t the uber insane dps version of this, but rather melee weapons since they’re far more risky to be using when heavy attacking. Again I would assume this all takes time to figure out

CameraBeardThePirate

Yes

Look, I really don't want to put anyone down or insult any of the devs because despite what gets thrown around on here I do believe they genuinely care about this game - they wouldn't be continuing to release regular updates if they didn't.

However, it really feels like they only care about their vision of the game. This is the big problem. Yes, the dev's vision of a game is important, but the player's vision of the game should be equally as important. It's been painfully clear that the large majority of players vehemently oppose these changes and that needs to be recognized and acknowledged more than a simple "We'll dial the numbers back a little and add even more headscratching changes".

Cyber10

Yes

Sandman929 wrote: »

Maybe spend an update fixing actual existing problems rather than going out of the way to create new ones.

100% this!

PrincessOfThieves

Yes

Lalothen wrote: »

The DoT & HoT changes are a mess, and class ability changes need some re-evaluation. I'd rather this portion not go live and we get more time on the PTS to test, suggest and come up with a set of changes that aren't received so egregiously by players.

On the other hand the LA/HA scaling changes and the change to Empower this week are a solid step in the right direction; Empower just needs changing to impact only fully-charged attacks with a higher percentage modifier (and a couple of individual weapons changes that I'm not going to expound again here when the info is already in the feedback thread) so HA builds don't lose ground, and the pending MA meta doesn't make it to Live.

Concerns about class skills and sets offering Empower that would then be seen as "useless" (ymmv on that actually being the case) can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and WWs would obviously need a solution as well - but these are tweaks or buff replacements and far less impactive overall than finally getting HA-themed builds into an easy DPS mid-range with a reasonable top end without:

1) giving rise to overperforming HA builds in PvP again.
2) concurrently re-buffing LA builds and widening what is already an appreciable gap between the weave styles yet again.

I'm not sure about that.
Sure, it sounds like a good change on paper and heavy attack builds need some love. I also like how they made it a pve-only buff to avoid pvp cheesing. But unfortunately it wasn't very well thought-out. I don't blame them for it, it's hard to come up with something when you don't have much time and there's a lot of pressure.
People have already found ways to abuse this new buff, and that is not a good thing. Even if you're a heavy attack player, you shouldn't support it. Yes, you'd get to enjoy 3 months of being OP, but then you'd end up overnerfed in the next patch. Just like stamsorcs in this pts patch and many other builds that were OP for a bit and then nerfed into the ground. We, as players, should not support these insane balance swings.

Mr_Stach

Yes

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

Lalothen wrote: »

The DoT & HoT changes are a mess, and class ability changes need some re-evaluation. I'd rather this portion not go live and we get more time on the PTS to test, suggest and come up with a set of changes that aren't received so egregiously by players.

On the other hand the LA/HA scaling changes and the change to Empower this week are a solid step in the right direction; Empower just needs changing to impact only fully-charged attacks with a higher percentage modifier (and a couple of individual weapons changes that I'm not going to expound again here when the info is already in the feedback thread) so HA builds don't lose ground, and the pending MA meta doesn't make it to Live.

Concerns about class skills and sets offering Empower that would then be seen as "useless" (ymmv on that actually being the case) can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and WWs would obviously need a solution as well - but these are tweaks or buff replacements and far less impactive overall than finally getting HA-themed builds into an easy DPS mid-range with a reasonable top end without:

1) giving rise to overperforming HA builds in PvP again.
2) concurrently re-buffing LA builds and widening what is already an appreciable gap between the weave styles yet again.

I'm not sure about that.
Sure, it sounds like a good change on paper and heavy attack builds need some love. I also like how they made it a pve-only buff to avoid pvp cheesing. But unfortunately it wasn't very well thought-out. I don't blame them for it, it's hard to come up with something when you don't have much time and there's a lot of pressure.
People have already found ways to abuse this new buff, and that is not a good thing. Even if you're a heavy attack player, you shouldn't support it. Yes, you'd get to enjoy 3 months of being OP, but then you'd end up overnerfed in the next patch. Just like stamsorcs in this pts patch and many other builds that were OP for a bit and then nerfed into the ground. We, as players, should not support these insane balance swings.

I mean I don't think we should accept 189k Unarmed Heavies..... Just sayin'

Lalothen

Other - Comment

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

I'm not sure about that.
Sure, it sounds like a good change on paper and heavy attack builds need some love. I also like how they made it a pve-only buff to avoid pvp cheesing. But unfortunately it wasn't very well thought-out. I don't blame them for it, it's hard to come up with something when you don't have much time and there's a lot of pressure.
People have already found ways to abuse this new buff, and that is not a good thing. Even if you're a heavy attack player, you shouldn't support it. Yes, you'd get to enjoy 3 months of being OP, but then you'd end up overnerfed in the next patch. Just like stamsorcs in this pts patch and many other builds that were OP for a bit and then nerfed into the ground. We, as players, should not support these insane balance swings.

I've just spent the past 3 days actually testing and thinking about how it can be tweaked, and I'm supporting it in a tweaked format. If you want more details go check out page 35 of the feedback thread.

prof_doom

Yes

Lalothen wrote: »

I've just spent the past 3 days actually testing and thinking about how it can be tweaked, and I'm supporting it in a tweaked format. If you want more details go check out page 35 of the feedback thread.

I don't personally think the combat changes can't be fixed, we're moving (slowly) in the right direction.
The problem is it's going to take time they don't have. We technically have 1 patch left for combat changes in the PTS cycle, and odds are anything that's wrong this upcoming week is still going to be wrong come go-live.

So unless they want to delay the release of the new dungeons until they've finished working out the combat changes, the only other good choice is to remove all the combat changes, put out the new content, then start up a new, combat oriented PTS right afterward.

PrincessOfThieves

Yes

Mr_Stach wrote: »

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

Lalothen wrote: »

The DoT & HoT changes are a mess, and class ability changes need some re-evaluation. I'd rather this portion not go live and we get more time on the PTS to test, suggest and come up with a set of changes that aren't received so egregiously by players.

On the other hand the LA/HA scaling changes and the change to Empower this week are a solid step in the right direction; Empower just needs changing to impact only fully-charged attacks with a higher percentage modifier (and a couple of individual weapons changes that I'm not going to expound again here when the info is already in the feedback thread) so HA builds don't lose ground, and the pending MA meta doesn't make it to Live.

Concerns about class skills and sets offering Empower that would then be seen as "useless" (ymmv on that actually being the case) can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and WWs would obviously need a solution as well - but these are tweaks or buff replacements and far less impactive overall than finally getting HA-themed builds into an easy DPS mid-range with a reasonable top end without:

1) giving rise to overperforming HA builds in PvP again.
2) concurrently re-buffing LA builds and widening what is already an appreciable gap between the weave styles yet again.

I'm not sure about that.
Sure, it sounds like a good change on paper and heavy attack builds need some love. I also like how they made it a pve-only buff to avoid pvp cheesing. But unfortunately it wasn't very well thought-out. I don't blame them for it, it's hard to come up with something when you don't have much time and there's a lot of pressure.
People have already found ways to abuse this new buff, and that is not a good thing. Even if you're a heavy attack player, you shouldn't support it. Yes, you'd get to enjoy 3 months of being OP, but then you'd end up overnerfed in the next patch. Just like stamsorcs in this pts patch and many other builds that were OP for a bit and then nerfed into the ground. We, as players, should not support these insane balance swings.

I mean I don't think we should accept 189k Unarmed Heavies..... Just sayin'

Lol, it looks like we are going to get monk class after all!

Lalothen wrote: »

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

I'm not sure about that.
Sure, it sounds like a good change on paper and heavy attack builds need some love. I also like how they made it a pve-only buff to avoid pvp cheesing. But unfortunately it wasn't very well thought-out. I don't blame them for it, it's hard to come up with something when you don't have much time and there's a lot of pressure.
People have already found ways to abuse this new buff, and that is not a good thing. Even if you're a heavy attack player, you shouldn't support it. Yes, you'd get to enjoy 3 months of being OP, but then you'd end up overnerfed in the next patch. Just like stamsorcs in this pts patch and many other builds that were OP for a bit and then nerfed into the ground. We, as players, should not support these insane balance swings.

I've just spent the past 3 days actually testing and thinking about how it can be tweaked, and I'm supporting it in a tweaked format. If you want more details go check out page 35 of the feedback thread.

Thanks for testing, I will check it out. It does look like it needs major tweaks.
Still, I think it would be better to release the dungeons and to keep testing combat changes on pts. I'm afraid we don't have enough time in this pts cycle.

karthrag_inak

Yes

Combat should not be changed -at all- until a comprehensive, detailed plan for what the end goal/desired final state of combat in ESO is made public.

Rowjoh

Yes

yes. Obviously.

It's quite clear whoever proposes update changes, whether it be planners, devs or a commitee etc, doesn't have a good handle on cause, effect and consequence of their decisions on the live product.

It would make sense to create an in house think-tank that includes and taps into player knowledge to troubleshoot, verify and approve ideas BEFORE they make it to PTS.

xylena_lazarow

Yes

GloatingSwine wrote: »

Nerfs don't really help anyone, the only people that are happy with them are the spite crew who like it when other people lose out.

Yea not a good omen when the only thing anyone "likes" about the patch is that other players hate it.

Nerfing individuals does not close the gap. If you want to lower the ceiling, hit the exponential power increase that comes from group effect stacking. Things were fine when comp groups were 20% better than randoms, but now it's like 120% better, to where comp and buff/debuff management is more powerful than any of the buttons in your dps rotation, and these sort of groups are hard inaccessible to the vast majority of the player base.

GloatingSwine

Yes

I dunno, I think the fact that a good 50% of a top player's performance comes from co-operation with their team over and above the traditional DPS/Healer/Tank holy trinity is actually a really good outcome.

But make it easier to sustain buffs and debuffs so that more groups can reach that level, make their timers fit into rotations so that once people have investigated their options and actually chosen them they keep them up more naturally.

PrincessOfThieves

Yes

GloatingSwine wrote: »

But make it easier to sustain buffs and debuffs so that more groups can reach that level, make their timers fit into rotations so that once people have investigated their options and actually chosen them they keep them up more naturally.

I agree. Making buffs and buff sets easier to manage would really help mid-tier groups without affecting the top tier (they already have good uptimes).

colossalvoids

Yes

Yes but they won't, they're even unable to if even were decent enough to admit a failure instead of putting lipstick on a pig.

Lalothen

Other - Comment

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I mean I don't think we should accept 189k Unarmed Heavies..... Just sayin'

Lol, nicely exacerbated one-hit wonder there.

I decided to actually test it on the PTS by performing a full dummy parse with noble's silks & infiltrator on a magDK (I initially tried serg, but it was a pita to keep up with the clunky UA HAs) - because why the hell not right? - and it's not impressive. At all. UA heavies don't "roll over" in combat like they do with weapons - i.e. holding down the basic attack button after completing a UA heavy doesn't automatically start another UA heavy charging - so the weaving is incredibly clunky. It threw my cadence change between HA weaving and LA weaving to reapply stuff right off too, yuck.

So nice meme shot - but the resto parses are much more memeworthy tbh.

Arjuna1696

Yes

It's very obvious that there's not enough time to make this a value-added patch. It's very obvious that there hasn't been enough testing. It's very obvious that the community does not want these changes. It's very obvious that these changes aren't raising the floor or making the game more accessible.

Greeed2025

Yes

Well either they should extend the PTS by 5 weeks considering the huge amount of changes or just roll it all back. It is impossible to bring out a finished update or producz to live servers at this point without countless bugs/imbalances and exploits.

CameraBeardThePirate

Yes

In trying to appease some of the concerns in the feedback they've received, I'm of the opinion that things got even messier. They've implemented "fixes" to some of the issues (that haven't really fixed what most people were concerned about) and in doing so have introduced new headaches and balance issues that will likely go untouched for a while. There are now a plethora of skills that are useless with the change to Empower, and they've gutted entire playstyles with the change (like Werewolves for example). I commend them for trying a creative solution, but the length of the PTS cycle is far too short to try something like this change to Empower this late in the patch. I have no doubts that most of these Empower skills will go untouched and remain neglected and underused due to this change.

On top of it all, there are so many changes that have flown under the radar. Ninja nerfs to already underused skills like Skeletal Mage (on top of a written nerf), bad set designs that will cause just as much trouble as Nocturnal’s Ploy (looking at you Mara's Balm), and the fact that drastically nerfing nearly every class will have lasting consequences that will take ages to sort out and rebalance.

With how much will be turned on its head, the balance of the game will be in shambles for a while, and if (or rather, when) they decide to do even more sweeping changes for the sake of change, these imbalances will be exasperated. ZOS, if you're reading this (you probably aren't), please swallow your pride and just start from ground zero. It'll likely save you more developer hours in the long run than you'll waste by scratching these notes.