Should the combat changes for U35 be rolled back?

Elsonso

Yes

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

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.

Now, in addition to them touching combat, they have the encounter team changing things in veteran dungeons and trials. This thing is spinning out of control, and they will be spending the next several patches and updates 'fixing' things.

Sallymen

Yes

You know it is very bizarre to me that they would rather change up EVERY single boss health and champion encounter in the game so far rather than nuking the new combat changes.

Changing health values alone is sure to mess up mechanics and percentages on bosses that have different phases. Even changing stuff outside these dungeons tend to break them.

Bragerth

Yes

well I guess worse case i will cancel my sub and shelf the game till things are fixed, i mean ive done all the content and quests etc so no point in really worrying about it. I would say from a customer service standpoint if 85% percent of the people don't want this patch then id listen to the customer.

Besides if the game is bad one customer will tell one customer and that customer tells 10 others, it will hurt the game, least i have guild wars 2 to hang out in tillt hings are fixed.

karekiz

The game needs to be rolled back to Summerset Era with Sloads fixed.

Destyran

Yes

Yeah if they don’t the game will die so many players have left already

Elsonso

Yes

Destyran wrote: »

Yeah if they don’t the game will die so many players have left already

I doubt that it will die. Playing the game won't be as fun, but some people will stick around. It may take a while to rebuild the player base and community. That is assuming they don't come up with more ways to chase players away in the next year or so.

Ambrose_Malachai

Yes

I think the combat changes are in desperate need of long-term tweaking and testing, rather than a regular PTS cycle. Otherwise they need to change only a single part of combat at a time. They could have done Light/Heavy attack changes on PTS this cycle and that would've been reasonable, then done class changes next cycle, then done Dot changes the cycle after, and hot changes the cycle after. It might take several months to get through their "checklist" of things they want to do, but at least the data would be decoupled from the other changes somewhat.

As long as they listen to feedback and try to adjust their changes to mesh with what is fun, then the end result could be good. Trying to do everything in a single patch however was destined to cause mass-uproar and frustration for players, many of whom are still dealing with issues from the hybridization change. The backpedaling on some points while leaving in other points is clouding a lot of the understanding of the vision that the devs have. At this point, it's better to scrap the changes and work on something more consistent.

Urvoth

Yes

ZOS still doesn’t seem to understand that a lot of the power creep/gap comes from set utilization, not core combat abilities like LA weaving. An average progression group dps can weave probably 80-90% as well as a high end trifecta-level dps. There’s room for improvement, but nerfing things like LA weaving doesn’t decrease the gap whatsoever. If anything, it just makes it harder for average groups to clear content.

If ZOS truly wants to close the gap they should focus on nerfing/reworking these debuff/buff sets to make them more accessible to average groups, not reworking core combat 8 years into the game.

Vahndamme

Yes

Roll it back entirely. Disable Oakensoul until you know what to do with it. Because it seems a lot revolves around that damn ring for no reason.

Jaraal

Yes

Tired of all these major changes every three months. “The Vision” seems rather obtusely opaque.

xaraan

Yes

Yes. As I said from the beginning. Only some basic class skill balance changes should have been made where some classes might be a bit behind or ahead with certain things. That's it. No need to change the entire game.


Edit: let me add to that... they could have done something to raise the floor a bit without this mess they created:

1. Make (most common) buff skills last 60 seconds, this would mostly be a help to new players in pve and pvp and wouldn't effect end gamers as much since they already are expert at managing them and/or drinking pots on cooldown.

2. Could have extended DoTs (10s or less dots) (vs what they are on live) just a couple seconds, like to 12 - this would have nerfed them a little since you are spreading out their damage, without being a huge nerf hit and would have given a little breathing room for rotations without making combat more boring. Now dots are a mess and more confusing to new players and some barely worth using.

3. If you wanted to nerf light attacks, I think a flat rate like you had, but higher - would have raised the floor and capped the ceiling. But even if you want to just nerf it and let it scale, Empower should still be useful. You could have empower scale like the attack, so it only was like a 20% buff on a light attack, but scaled up to 40 or 50% for a fully charged heavy attack. (i.e. more time charging the attack, more of the buff applies) It would also prevent medium attacks from getting the full amount. Could be harder to code with it scaling, but even just creating two flat versions: Empower gives 20% to LA and 40% to heavy attacks without scaling.

Best thing about these changes, are they are minor (maybe all together add up to something, but apart, minor) which means you could easily tweak them in future patches as time goes on. Raise or lower the buff times next patch if 60s wasn't good, add a couple more seconds to dots or alter some of the longer duration ones to match next patch. Empower tuned wrong, just bring the % up on one or both of the buffs. None of those things create the mess we have now and all are more easily adjustable than what we've seen.

Tyrobag

Yes

Absolutely. If they want to improve accessibility, they can increase dot and buff durations without nerfing damage. Reducing the impact of weaving can be done by shaving down light attack damage (there's no reason to reduce heavy attack damage) but the lost damage needs to be made up for elsewhere. Most importantly Zos needs to not break their own promise of 'No more sweeping changes'. They said that, then went ahead and made the most over the top anti-player changes we've ever seen. Not okay.

Tannus15

No

I feel like we only have half the picture, which really sucks and it makes it hard to get behind whatever they are doing.

Step 1 : lower dps
Step 2 : balance content and classes that are under performing
Step 3 : ???
Step 4 : Profit

I think the plan was always to adjust the content to match the new dps, and they wanted live data for those adjustments. The PTS response was enough to force them into acting early once it became clear exactly what a disaster it was going to be.
Sure, some of the adjustments might be rushed and wrong, but it's better than no adjustments at all.

I don't know why the dps had to come down. I really don't. I mean, sure the top teams are amazing, blah blah blah. no one cares.
Why is that important to the dev team?
if that's important, why did they nerf everyone instead of targeting the top < 1%?

And it seems it's very important because instead of backing out or reverting the changes they are rushing into step 2. I want to know why this is so key to their future plans.

Is the goal to reduce the gap between vRG and vMoL and base game vet dungeons and dlc vet dungeons? if that's the goal then why nerf everyone across the board? how is that helpful?

M0ntie

Yes

Please scrap the combat changes. I can’t see that they do anything to raise the floor. Please DO NOT release half baked changes so that we have to respec, knowing that we’re going to have to respec again multiple times and for what reward? Doing less dps and healing??
When we see the leading lights in content creation (eg tank club) saying they are exhausted, discouraged and playing other games ZOS need to pay attention.

boi_anachronism_

Yes

Restoration staff does more damage then destruction. That's ridiculous. Enough said.

Amottica

Urvoth wrote: »

If ZOS truly wants to close the gap they should focus on nerfing/reworking these debuff/buff sets to make them more accessible to average groups, not reworking core combat 8 years into the game.

Buffs and debuffs are not the issue. Put them all together and they do not begin to bring a 20 DPS player to even an average DPS level. The problem is the ability to put together such a bad build and the frequency it occurs.

A guild mate in a social guild used my DPS dummy to test a new build. They pulled 25k. I asked if they wanted to talk to a friend in another guild who plays the same class to improve their build. They declined and indicated they were pleased with the 25k DPS.

That is where the real problem lies.

IZZEFlameLash

Yes

Completely rolled back. Rethink. PvP sets are just ill-thought out, the combat changes no one asked for while claiming it to be some sort of QoL one for lower skilled players despite hurting them the most. Just leave things be for a while. The dust from previous metashift haven't settled yet.

DarcyMardin

Yes

Yes, please. No disrespect meant, but this is clearly a situation that requires more thinking and less immediate action.

ApoAlaia

Yes

Yes please.

Release the new dungeons, leave the combat changes for U36 and the 'chapter DLC' later in the year, thus giving the combat team more time to think these through and liaise with the encounter team where appropriate.

AcadianPaladin

Yes

The status quo pre U35 doesn't hurt my play style at all and U35 hurts my playstyle. Easy call for me. I don't care about the floor and ceiling, I care about building a solid character. U35 is a dumpter fire of nerfs for me. If you want to lower the ceiling (for whatever reason) institute a damage cap. If you want to raise the floor, buff the basic skills, LA, HA. Simple.

Caribou77

Yes

Having done some time in the corporate world, I think the motive here is to Keep Busy and Pretend Like You have a Big Plan.

Many talented people who work in creative industries are driven by the desire to produce beautiful, dynamic, sometimes visionary products.

And yet those who vie for executive or administrative leadership (hello, Creative Director) tend to suck up to corporate leadership and espouse their values.

ZOS company culture is surely responsible for most of the disconnects between player/customer feedback and extremely unpopular updates that lack a clear rationale (reducing ALL PLAYERS’ dps by ~20% does not equal improved ACCESSIBILITY).

Someone pitched these updates to corporate as a way to attract new customers. Someone who doesn’t play the game or value the input of members on the development team who do.

That’s why U35 makes no sense to customers who play and love the game.

Aces-High-82

Other - Comment

Yes but resto HA all-day in any content will be hilarious fun.

Dawnblade

Yes

Changes of this magnitude should NOT occur in small quarterly updates, and certainly not with so many week-to-week changes and moving parts on PTS that cannot possibly be adequately tested in time.

UnassumingNoob

Yes

Yea - way too many unforeseen consequences that we shouldn’t have to deal with for three months. Sure you have a vision. Execution is lacking. Please postpone.

MidniteOwl1913

Yes

There has been so much tweaking this and modifying that. I'm not even really sure what it will all amount to when it goes live for everyone. Except chaos, I think there will be plenty of chaos.

Jaimeh

Yes

Yes, that's my wish, and that would be best for the state of the game right now. It won't happen though, they have to justify their work time, etc., so I can't see them scrapping it altogether, though it would honestly be the best decision from all angles.

Arwin

No

People will always vote for more power for themselves, even if it trivializes the game in the long run and will bore them eventually. It seems the main point of the forums these days is a secondary way of character progression by advocating for buffs to their specific playstyle. For that reason I believe polls like this have very little meaning.

If Empower is limited to fully charged heavy attacks only I think we're fine for this patch. Only other thing I have my doubts about is the guaranteed critical surprise attack, maybe someone else can weigh in whether or not it is as broken as it seems.

AzuraFan

Yes

They are clearly only looking at numbers, rather than at fun (you know, games. Fun. Remember?).

They also seem hyper-focused on:

(a) trying to close some mythical gap that doesn't really exist in the sense that players who are interested in end-game PvE will improve and players who aren't won't focus on that, so trying to pull the latter group up is a waste of time. Players like me will not play the way you want us to no matter what you do, which is fine, because I'd rather have hot irons shoved into my eyes than do trials and vet content (I've seen it on YouTube - zero appeal for me). Getting the latest shiny has zero appeal for me. So don't screw over players who are interested in that for me, okay?

(b) balancing around the top 1%.

And yeah, (a) and (b) are contradictory, hence the mess.

So yeah, roll them back. And stop the churn. If you're having to redo everything eight years in, you're in deep doggie doo doo.

francesinhalover

Yes

How many years will it take to fix all the glitches and to find all the glitches this update will bring?

Tbh i do like the dot 20 sec duration buffs, the issue is aoes that could be used with those dots are now 10 secs. idk i just like focusing more on combat, not a fan of constant barswaps.

the heavy attack changes help new players, but made medium weave strongest and heal staff the strongest for heavy attack..

outside that... i'm not a fan of this update.

duckdown

Yes

Roll back the change. But adjust oakensoul. Then we all good.