Veteran Hard-Mode is the problem.

Marto

Before I even start, I want to invite you to think about this topic from an outside perspective. Don't think about specifics. Don't argue about X class or Y item set. Don't even think about ESO. Pretend this is a game you've never even played, and you have only heard about.

You see people arguing about a 10% damage reduction. You see players pulling their hair out as a result of a 5% buff. You see players quitting thanks to a 2% nerf.

In most other games, changes like this are routine. A gun will deal 10% less damage at range, a sword will have an attack rating of 140 instead of 120, this unit costs 29 wood instead of 28, you can now hold 50 ammo instead of 60. But none of these changes would be considered to be "game breaking". Changes like this would rarely result in such strong emotions from the playerbase.

But in ESO, these seemingly small changes result in one of the most disliked patches in the game's history. Despite the fact that other patches years ago had much greater effects.

For many years you've seen players repeat a sentiment that goes along the lines of "I wish ZOS balanced the game with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer".

Most patches ESO receives attempt to reduce the damage of an ability or setup by 2-5%. The devs said Update 35 aimed for 10-15%, and in some testing, it had as much as 25% impact in some very specific cases. Despite all this, average DPS has only increased for past 3-5 years. All numbers go up and up. A mudcrab dies in two hits. A dungeon boss dies so quickly they never get to show their unique mechanic. Log into ESO and start playing, and it will be immediately apparent that the game has a huge power-creep issue.

Does this not seem ridiculous to you? Does this not look like a huge over-reaction? Why is the ESO community so upset over 2% changes?

Veteran Hard-Mode

And for some dungeons and trials, Veteran mode itself.

The only content in the game where a 2% change in DPS is the difference between success, and your team wiping over and over for hours.

Is this really fun? Is this right?

Is it right to have content so difficult and exclusive that only a small percentage of the community ever gets to experience it. Something that endgame PVE players see as an end goal to work towards. And something that they get very upset about when it's taken from them. And then, three months later, even harder content comes out, even less accessible, and players expect performance and DPS to go up and up. And the more damage and difficulty increases, the more strict players become, the more unwilling to accept even small changes.

I think this is a problem. I think this is the problem that has led to most of the frustration, fatigue, and anger the community is experiencing.

Players keep asking for ZOS to make less drastic, "sweeping" changes every 3 months. Yet the numbers and the results of each patch keep getting smaller and smaller over time. Can patches really get less drastic than they are right now? I think ZOS has turned ESO into a game that is practically un-patchable, where no change, no matter how minor, will make people extremely upset.

Is this really the sort of game ESO should be? Is it right for everything to always be on a knife's edge, where even a small change can be catastrophic?

Personally, I want ESO to be the type of game where a 10% damage reduction leads to reactions like "Now I'll need 25 minutes to finish this dungeon, instead of 20. No big deal" instead of "Thanks to this change my team wiped 10 times, we played for 4 hours without accomplishing anything, and half of us are quitting the game." I want ESO to be the type of game where a bad patch is called a "misstep" instead of a "catastrophe".

But I don't see how that can happen. Not when content is designed and played with such narrow margins and strict definitions.

Here are my questions for you, the community.

• Do you think Veteran Hard-Mode makes the game more enjoyable? How would you feel if non-HM was as hard as the game got?
• What is your definition of a "sledgehammer" change?
• What is your definition of a "scalpel" change?"
• Would you support a lowering of end-game difficulty to make the game easier to balance and patch?

WrathOfInnos

Veteran HM certainly has a place in the game. There is a large (shrinking, but still in the thousands) that desires a challenge. Working on something difficult, with a solid team, over the course of weeks or months makes the victory much sweeter.

Non-HM Veteran difficulty is much too easy, even if damage was nerfed 50% it would not be a challenge. The mechanics are greatly reduced, and DPS checks can be accomplished with a one-button rotation. Many players would be bored and end up quitting if this was the greatest challenge offered.

They could slightly lower the difficulty of the vet HM content to match the new player ceiling after the DPS and healing nerfs, but much more than that would be a bad move.

As for scalpel vs sledgehammer, I would define scalpel as changing the value of a set/skill's damage, healing or duration by <10%. The sledgehammer approach is when they do things like buff Crystal Weapon by 100% one patch, followed by nerfing by 35% the next patch. Maybe they'll eventually guess at the correct number for balance, but the months or years between would be a lot smoother if they had just started by increasing Crystal Weapon by 10%, then repeating that 10% buff 3 times if needed.

Jazraena

Tell me Vet HM Fungal Grotto is harder than normal Fang Lair.

I think before we question 'Vet HM' in principle we could do with some general rebalancing of content so there is some consistencies to the difficulty levels.

FrankonPC

Marto wrote: »

Before I even start, I want to invite you to think about this topic from an outside perspective. Don't think about specifics. Don't argue about X class or Y item set. Don't even think about ESO. Pretend this is a game you've never even played, and you have only heard about.

You see people arguing about a 10% damage reduction. You see players pulling their hair out as a result of a 5% buff. You see players quitting thanks to a 2% nerf.

In most other games, changes like this are routine. A gun will deal 10% less damage at range, a sword will have an attack rating of 140 instead of 120, this unit costs 29 wood instead of 28, you can now hold 50 ammo instead of 60. But none of these changes would be considered to be "game breaking". Changes like this would rarely result in such strong emotions from the playerbase.

But in ESO, these seemingly small changes result in one of the most disliked patches in the game's history. Despite the fact that other patches years ago had much greater effects.

For many years you've seen players repeat a sentiment that goes along the lines of "I wish ZOS balanced the game with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer".

Most patches ESO receives attempt to reduce the damage of an ability or setup by 2-5%. The devs said Update 35 aimed for 10-15%, and in some testing, it had as much as 25% impact in some very specific cases. Despite all this, average DPS has only increased for past 3-5 years. All numbers go up and up. A mudcrab dies in two hits. A dungeon boss dies so quickly they never get to show their unique mechanic. Log into ESO and start playing, and it will be immediately apparent that the game has a huge power-creep issue.

Does this not seem ridiculous to you? Does this not look like a huge over-reaction? Why is the ESO community so upset over 2% changes?

Veteran Hard-Mode

And for some dungeons and trials, Veteran mode itself.

The only content in the game where a 2% change in DPS is the difference between success, and your team wiping over and over for hours.

Is this really fun? Is this right?

The resto damage and heavy attack changes were not a small percent. The dot changes were not a small change per tick, just had similar effectiveness over a longer duration. Empower is not a small change. Dark cloak doing 150% more healing by doing less is not a small change. Jabs and sweeps have lost a substantial amount of dmg more than 2-5%, as well as having a staple animation changed. Flurry looks like you're spamming light attacks, crystal weapon was initially nerfed by 40%.

I'm not sure what patch notes you're referencing tbh

Arthtur

Lets start with the fact that not many ppl complain when the nerf to a skill is like 5% - 10%. But most of the time those nerfs are around 30% - 40% and thats a big diffrence. If 10% buff is enough to make skill good u can imagine what happens to a skill that gets 30%+ nerf. Like one patch 1 class is the strongest of all 6 and in the next patch is the worst and not worth playing. Balancing like that isnt fun. And there are always ppl who complain no matter what, in every game.

Mobs in Overland die rly fast because overland is just easy. There is a thread about that, many ppl want optional harder difficulty in overland to actually enjoy quests and bosses. Its not player fault, its just how that content is designed. U cant have enemies as strong as in vet dungeons in a place where new players start their game. Its not a good place to look at damage.


And about questions:

- Yes, HM content makes game more enjoyable. It provides challenge and many endgame players play for that reason. If Vet contet would be the hardest... well the game would be a lot easier then and i dont think it would be a game for me.

- I think buffs/nerfs with over 20%. Most of the time it makes skill OP/not worth using.

- Up to 10%. Where i can still use those same skills without losing 5k dps+ compared to other options...

- No. Every time when they make harder content "easier" they overnerft it soooooo much.... for example Laser Boss in Frostvault - from hard fight it become the most boring fight (in my opinion).... or Lurcher boss in Moon Hunter Keep where they removed entire mech from the boss. And there were more like that.
We have Normal, Vet and Vet HM. If somebody cant beat Vet HM he should stay at Vet, if somebody cant beat Vet then he should stay at Normal. There is a reason why endgame is endgame. It shouldnt be nerfed all the time because somebody cant beat it.
And i dont think that easier content will be easier to balance. There will be always someone who cant beat it and will want content to be berfed even further.
The only thing i would support right now is Story Mode where players could see the story in dungeons and learn mechs without using 3rd party videos.
I want to have a place for me in this game too.

EF321

These are not just number nerfs. I am too lazy to point out everything, here is one example:

Stacking bleed damage on bird during off balance -> Non-stacking bleed on bird during NON off balance, with bird applying off balance on first hit, no bleed for first 7 seconds at all. Literally inversed bleed condition... what for?



Patches we had earlier this/last year completely invalidated a couple of my builds and even entire characters. We are talking fully farmed, properly traited, golded out setups that are no longer usable at all, like, functionality changed. And this patch is going to invalidated a couple more. I wouldn't care if my existing build was doing 15% less damage and that is it, as long as it is the same build. They straight up change what sets/abilities do, or their proc conditions, or both at the same time.

Marto

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Non-HM Veteran difficulty is much too easy, even if damage was nerfed 50% it would not be a challenge. The mechanics are greatly reduced, and DPS checks can be accomplished with a one-button rotation. Many players would be bored and end up quitting if this was the greatest challenge offered.

Does that not make all of this anger and frustration the community is experiencing even more ridiculous?

If you're saying power could be nerfed by 50% and content would still be difficult, that makes every claim of "the game is broken", "X is unplayable" and "Y class is gutted" seem like a huge overreaction.

If a 50% damage reduction means "99.99% of content is still not a challenge", it doesn't make sense for a 20% reduction to mean "The game is ruined".

I understand wanting harder content to chase. But I don't think it's reasonable for 99.99% of the game to be remain un-patchable and un-balanceable for the sake of HM.

FrankonPC wrote: »

The resto damage and heavy attack changes were not a small percent. The dot changes were not a small change per tick, just had similar effectiveness over a longer duration. Empower is not a small change. Dark cloak doing 150% more healing by doing less is not a small change. Jabs and sweeps have lost a substantial amount of dmg more than 2-5%, as well as having a staple animation changed. Flurry looks like you're spamming light attacks, crystal weapon was initially nerfed by 40%.

I'm not sure what patch notes you're referencing tbh

And what is the result of these changes, when aggregated and looked at from afar?

Dark cloak heals for 13% less than live.
Jabs/Sweeps deal 1.3% less DPS than live (The ability is now 20% faster and deals 21% less damage)

Changes like Burning light are more substantial, true.

If using Jabs/Sweeps, burning light deals 50-66% less DPS than live. (It will proc on 50-75% of casts instead of 100%, and deal 33% less damage when it does proc).
But burning light makes for a relatively small component of your parse. Meaning the impact on overall DPS is far lesser than than any changes to Jabs/Sweeps.

And what do the parses and other data show? Fairly similar results. Perhaps a bit lower, but not so much. And they keep increasing with each week, meaning a lot of the loss is players needing to get used to the timings.

And Update 35 is a big patch. Update 34 was a lot smaller (which is surprising, given the number of calculation changes that happened), and so were updates 33, 32, etc.

And either way, my argument is not that these changes don't matter so much. My argument that these changes shouldn't matter so much.

My argument is that ZOS should not design ESO in such a way that this matters so much.

chessalavakia_ESO

1. I think some people enjoy Veteran Hard Modes but, it's not my cup of tea personally.
2. A sledge hammer change to me is the type of change that is abundantly obvious from non-numbers oriented game play to a regular player. For example, the Radiating Regeneration is a sledge hammer change pretty much anybody that uses the skill is going to see something changed without reading the patch notes.
3. A scapel change is something that an average player in the mode where the changes is relevant could miss the change if they didn't have their setup displaying the numbers for things and didn't read the patch notes.
4. Personally, I think it would be cleaner to move to more adaptive content rather than trying to balance everything completely. Have bosses get buffs/debuffs based on the amount of incoming and outgoing damage vs expected values. This would allow quest bosses to be more challenging for better players and allow players are more gradual process of having content increase in difficulty.

tmbrinks

Marto wrote: »

And what do the parses and other data show? Fairly similar results. Perhaps a bit lower, but not so much. And they keep increasing with each week, meaning a lot of the loss is players needing to get used to the timings.

Remember, they added a whole bunch of new buffs to the trial dummy this patch as well. So the loss of dps is obfuscated by those increased buffs for the testing environment.

They're estimated to be worth about a 20% increase in dps. So the fact that they are "similar" to live right now, means that the true loss is that 20%.

Marto

tmbrinks wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

And what do the parses and other data show? Fairly similar results. Perhaps a bit lower, but not so much. And they keep increasing with each week, meaning a lot of the loss is players needing to get used to the timings.

Remember, they added a whole bunch of new buffs to the trial dummy this patch as well. So the loss of dps is obfuscated by those increased buffs for the testing environment.

They're estimated to be worth about a 20% increase in dps. So the fact that they are "similar" to live right now, means that the true loss is that 20%.

Exactly. The LA changes account for >10% of that. The DoT timing changes account for <10%.
Other changes like Jabs/Sweeps make up even less of that change.

It's a scalpel change that most players have interpreted as a sledgehammer change.

I guess you could argue that's ZOS' fault for not wording things better.

And If you're still upset about a 20% DPS decrease... ask yourself this.

Is a 20% DPS reduction beneficial or harmful for...

• Overland content and delves
• Public dungeons
• World bosses
• Normal dungeons
• Veteran dungeons
• Veteran HM dungeons
• Arenas
• Trials
• Veteran trials
• Veteran HM trials

tmbrinks

Yes, it reduces accessibility across the board, while the stated goal of this PTS cycle was increased accessibility.

The goal was failed, spectacularly.

Look, I work in a job where I have to try new things regularly and often. But I also solicit feedback from those that experience those new things. And I use that feedback to inform my future practices. Sure, there are some who are never satisfied and you take that with a grain of salt.

But near universal feedback that this "won't work" would for sure cause me to scrap that idea.

wolfsilver00

I kept saying this over the patch cycle, end game players dont give a hot *** about the dps loss. None, At all. At the end of the day its HOW they nerfed us that ruffles our feathers, we spent so much time perfecting our rotation, becoming better players mechanically, for them to tell us "hey, we are nerfing YOU, the player, by making everything you have learnt over the last 8 years worthless".. And then they also tell us "hey, we are also making the game less dynamic..

All of this in the name of a mysterious accessibility that only the devs think will come after this patch, because very single frikking player that has spent more than 100 hours in this game knows perfectly that you cant just put a nerf to dps and make rotations more dynamic and then expect the new players to understand the combat system they havent put any effort into tutorializing (is this even a word?) correctly... So, when they come with a *** patch that nerfs damage but makes a heavy attack restoration staff build, we are just astounded by the incredible lack of.. sense. BUT THEN... OH THEN.. WE REALIZE THAT THEY JUST MADE A MED ATTACK WEAVE META. So what happens? Well, the top end players hit 110-115k damage (before the new buffs were added to the dummies) and now the new players have to learn a new and more difficult weave to compete.. Do I care? Well, been there.. done that.. Med weave is something I know and can do.. But I wont take to the face the *** excuse that this is done for accessibility, it actually made it harder for new players and Im *** tired of helping people in trials so that ZoS can come and tell me im an elitist and I dont want new people to have a nice place.. *** trials are run constantly by end game players trying to help new people, just running them, collecting some stickers some times, and thats it.. Taking 4 *** hours of my day teaching 5 new players how to do vSS so that ZoS can nerf MY FUN (again, I could care less about my damage, I do 50-50 dd tank) by messing up my rotation, making it more spammy, boring, DESTROYING HEALERS, then making healers almost WORTHLESS with the heavy resto thing, ALL IN THE NAME OF ACCESSIBILITY.

The problem is that we are *** tired of ZoS lying to us and not saying it how it is.. They know they done goofed with the damage with things like oakensoul for example, they keep doing it every. single. patch. Why? Because OP *** sells well, and they *** know it. I just want some honesty man, I want them to tell me "we are doing this because its healthier for the system, but we cant sell expansions if we dont put op stuff in it"

I WILL DISAGREE WITH THAT, but at least it will be an honest point and I will respect that, Im tired of game devs and companies just spitting in my mouth, asking me to say thank you and please, and then getting up on their high horses telling me "this is for morals, this is for the new guy, the underdog, lets help him"

MAKE A *** COMBAT TUTORIAL ZOS, THATS HOW YOU HELP NEW PLAYERS, A REAL ONE.

And then... OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH HELL THEN.. They just lower bosses HP, so the damage nerf doesnt matter anymore, and in the process they *** up healers, *** up a couple sets, *** up rotations, their dynamic.. introduced a very unfriendly mechanic again (talking about med weave here) all in the name of accessibility.. They literally left the game in a worst place than it was just to lower the dps skill ceiling by 15k...

Again, we dont care about 2% or 10%, we care that the way we got there, was completely detrimental to the game, to the new and old player, to their fun, the dynamic, to healers, to tanks, to dds... And you know what makes this all just tie in with a beautiful knot? The fact that WE KNOW, after YEARS OF THE SAME *** EVERY SINGLE YEAR, that next expansion they will put out OP *** again, and then rebalance the whole *** game around that, again.

We are tired of being beta testers, Q&A, living tutorials and then, on top of that, being called the bad batch of the game that we love and want to see grow.

The fact that the 2% dps change can be the difference between wiping or not in HM vet trials, honestly? I just dont give a ***,. Of course its annoying for the people that run HM, but come on dude, seriously, do you really believe that all of this pushback is because of that nonsense? So what a few more wipes, the problem is we dont want this game to turn into *** WoW.

FrankonPC

Marto wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Non-HM Veteran difficulty is much too easy, even if damage was nerfed 50% it would not be a challenge. The mechanics are greatly reduced, and DPS checks can be accomplished with a one-button rotation. Many players would be bored and end up quitting if this was the greatest challenge offered.

Does that not make all of this anger and frustration the community is experiencing even more ridiculous?

If you're saying power could be nerfed by 50% and content would still be difficult, that makes every claim of "the game is broken", "X is unplayable" and "Y class is gutted" seem like a huge overreaction.

If a 50% damage reduction means "99.99% of content is still not a challenge", it doesn't make sense for a 20% reduction to mean "The game is ruined".

I understand wanting harder content to chase. But I don't think it's reasonable for 99.99% of the game to be remain un-patchable and un-balanceable for the sake of HM.

FrankonPC wrote: »

The resto damage and heavy attack changes were not a small percent. The dot changes were not a small change per tick, just had similar effectiveness over a longer duration. Empower is not a small change. Dark cloak doing 150% more healing by doing less is not a small change. Jabs and sweeps have lost a substantial amount of dmg more than 2-5%, as well as having a staple animation changed. Flurry looks like you're spamming light attacks, crystal weapon was initially nerfed by 40%.

I'm not sure what patch notes you're referencing tbh

And what is the result of these changes, when aggregated and looked at from afar?

Dark cloak heals for 13% less than live.
Jabs/Sweeps deal 1.3% less DPS than live (The ability is now 20% faster and deals 21% less damage)

Changes like Burning light are more substantial, true.

If using Jabs/Sweeps, burning light deals 50-66% less DPS than live. (It will proc on 50-75% of casts instead of 100%, and deal 33% less damage when it does proc).
But burning light makes for a relatively small component of your parse. Meaning the impact on overall DPS is far lesser than than any changes to Jabs/Sweeps.

And what do the parses and other data show? Fairly similar results. Perhaps a bit lower, but not so much. And they keep increasing with each week, meaning a lot of the loss is players needing to get used to the timings.

And Update 35 is a big patch. Update 34 was a lot smaller (which is surprising, given the number of calculation changes that happened), and so were updates 33, 32, etc.

And either way, my argument is not that these changes don't matter so much. My argument that these changes shouldn't matter so much.

My argument is that ZOS should not design ESO in such a way that this matters so much.

We now have resto heavy parses because heavy attacks were buffed like crazy after they were gutted and empower was changed.

Burning light is a part of jab/sweep dmg. I could go on but my point is you're arguing from a pov that doesn't currently exist for these patch notes. They're not small changes, they're sweeping changes

karekiz

I wouldn't argue Vet HM is the issue. You could say maybe some fights are overtuned sure, but that is no different in other MMOS. Plenty of fights release overtuned. However ZoS doesn't really balance post patch if a fight is overtuned all that much <Minus a couple dungeons>, part in fact community reaction wasn't positive, I am sure.

Trifecta's and the like would be closer to an issue as it is inherently required you go X fast to get. Lower DPS means harder. That means every single patch has to balance around every single trifecta. Which isn't the case in other MMO's. You simply either out level or you auto scale TO the dungeon stats. Either of those are MUCH better ways of dealing with the issue. Who cares if you out level if you can downscale yourself to that raids gear level? The devs don't need to go back and worry about lose progression of teams etc.

Klingenlied

Seems we are talking dungeon hardmodes? Those are fine. Easy enough in some way.

The greatest challenge: party finder. If you queue up with randoms, chances are high you will never manage a hardmode. You either need 4 good players or 3 exceptional ones carrying one useless player. But if you do not have friends or a premade group to run this kind of content, you simply are out of luck.

The story is different with trials. Here I would actually overall agree that we got an accessibility issue. You need to find partys yourself. For Veteran content, generally, you need to be in a raiding guild. And for Vet Harmodes, especially DLC stuff, you absolutely have to proof that you yourself have a right to belong there. You won't play VDSR with 50k dps unless you bought a carry. Depending on how people know you - or not - you might even have to send a full video of you parsing for whatever is the set requirement. If you don't manage - you stay out. As a tank, bring the right sets. If you can't - stay out. Same for healers. High end DLC progression raiding is exclusive to a tiny portion of the playerbase.

In regards to 12 man content overall, yea, I think it is relatively sad that only such a small portion of the playerbase actually does encounter it "to its fullest". Because outside of hardmode, you always play the light version only. Not that its much players going for 12 man content anyway.

Pelanora

We talk about guides for new players, but it's hard even finding in the chat a consensus on what the results of this patch will be. What should the ordinary player do AFTER this patch goes live?

MindOfTheSwarm

The best content in my opinion is the hard mode arena stuff, especially the solo stuff. I find it more fun then the trial stuff and if I fail I only have myself to blame. I feel we need more arena stuff, maybe a 2 man or 6 man arena.

GloatingSwine

Marto wrote: »

Veteran Hard-Mode

And for some dungeons and trials, Veteran mode itself.

The only content in the game where a 2% change in DPS is the difference between success, and your team wiping over and over for hours.

Is this really fun? Is this right?

For some people, yeah, it is. They want to have a narrow margin of success that can only be reached by thorough understanding of how everything fits together and co-operation as a team.

And having optional VHMs that provide nothing but bragging rights for the people who enjoy them is absolutely fine.

So no, VHM is not a problem, and it is especially not *the* problem.

*The* problem is that ESO is absolutely abysmal at teaching you how to get from solo questing into veteran dungeons. It doesn't teach you how to build rotations (and it isn't designed with good executable-from-muscle-memory rotations in mind either), what it even means within its system to have a rotation, what the functions of the roles in role finder are (Like you'd *think* tank and healer are obvious, but they're actually support buffers/debuffers who also tank and heal respectively, but it's the support part of the roles that are the ones that make a really big difference if you're doing them well or not)

Some people might cite how easy overworld and non-vet content is as a reason, but if you just made that harder without tutorialising all you'd do is drive people away not teach them to play.

The secondary problem is that a lot of the buffs and debuffs that make the difference for a team are annoying to sustain in a rotation because their durations are all over the place.

And sure, PUG groups will never organise them as well as organised sweaty ones but that's fine, if PUG groups could do VHM content it wouldn't really live up to the "hard mode" moniker in the first place.

DairyCat

DPS isn't the main factor for a lot of Vet Hard Modes. It's usually just increased mechanics meaning more coordination. Only a few of them have DPS checks as a mechanic.

Klingenlied

Pelanora wrote: »

We talk about guides for new players, but it's hard even finding in the chat a consensus on what the results of this patch will be. What should the ordinary player do AFTER this patch goes live?

That's easy. Nothing. This patch will be part of something way bigger. They just did not yet have the time to "deliver a complete package". Until it is complete, people won't really be happy and things might be constantly changing. Temporary into a meta, that might not be attractive for many. So .. just wait it out?

M0ntie

Do you think Veteran Hard-Mode makes the game more enjoyable? How would you feel if non-HM was as hard as the game got?
A: Vet HM is great as something to aspire to for those who are really committed. There would be no sense of achievement if nonHM was as hard as it got.

What is your definition of a "sledgehammer" change?
A: I cannot achieve the same level of play without changes that take a huge amount of time to overcome such as running a different class and farming more sets and skills.
U35 is beyond sledgehammer, it’s bulldozer.

What is your definition of a "scalpel" change?"
A: Reducing an OP skill or set to an in balance but still useable level.

Would you support a lowering of end-game difficulty to make the game easier to balance and patch?
A: NO. Effectively giving away the achievement removes the sense of achievement.

Ghaleb

Klingenlied wrote: »

This patch will be part of something way bigger. They just did not yet have the time to "deliver a complete package".

You are saying that with confidence. What are you basing that on? I am asking seriously. If you have the article, site, page, etc where ZoS has outlined their vision in a multi-release approach, painting the big picture and this release is only a first, necessary step, I would be more than happy to read about it.

But with the publication of 8.1.0 and their stated vision, I saw a multitude of players asking for the vision to be shared / published / explained to better be able to navigate in the changes. But there was silence.

So again, please share what you are basing your statement on as I would like to go through it as well.

Rimskjegg

SkinnyCheeks raised concerns about Hardmodes and even ZoS listens to him, that's why it looks like trial HMs are the problem. But I assure you, when you've been progging vCR +0, not +3, +0, for months, but the group needs damage to clear the portals while also keeping down upstairs adds, Creepers, etc, fast enough - a 20% DoT nerf and completely broken rotations is not scalpel balancing. So yes it makes me worried. And more so because are Creepers and crystals nerfed in health? They didn't even say. So I may suck but I don't particularly like being called ridiculous when I suggest this patch could be tested or at least *properly documented* before treating my live team as guinea pigs.

BronzeCaiman

I think Veteran Trials should be more accessible, I think all the HMs are fine where they are. For me its a matter of getting what you pay for, I have have seen people say Perfected Gear and Trifecta is a status symbol. They are lying to themselves because you can sell crowns and buy a trifecta from top players that are probably also gold sellers. Real status symbols are things you can´t get anymore in my opinion, the beta monkey, the 2014 Sub Ice Wraith, Dwarven Sphere, Jester Outfit and Senche, the 2014 Pax Prime Bristlegut Piglet, Twitch Noweyr Horse & Pet, Rufous Mudcrab, and the many other discontinued items.

If you cannot preform your rotation as good as a qualified endgame raider, what is 1 stat line from perfected gear really going to do for you? For me its about getting what you pay for. You can argue that Trifectas are something you pay for, but the difference here is actual tangible stats that affect your gameplay, a title does not effect your gameplay.

Could you imagine if a lead only dropped in a Veteran Trial? Or if a crafted set got a bonus if you cleared a specific vTrial? Non-perfected gear shouldn´t even exist. All and all I really do like the changes, combat has gotten tedious so the longer DoTs have actually brought me and my wife back to the game. That and Tales of Tributes, we have been playing since beta together so we have seen nearly every stage the game has gone through. We don´t do endgame raiding anymore, we don´t treat the game like a job, we treat it like a game.

I became an adult with this game, I was 17 when started playing. Hell we even share a birthday. But I think the game needs to become more accessible to have any future, and more mini-games since previous gen consoles are holding us back on new animations for skills. Average players cannot do mechanics, especially when the game is terrible at explaining almost anything ever. Add-ons that explain mechanics are a major crutch for a lot of players and content seems balanced around that. And then if you actually play on the largest server in the game which is PC EU, you would also take note that there is like 7 languages which makes it hard to even explain things sometimes.

If you actually read all this, hail Sithis and I´ll see you in the void when the endgame players banish me to the shadow realm.

Lucozade85

OP - Your post makes is sound as though you don't fully understand what's happening.

JanTanhide

[Quoted post removed]

Agree. OP, do you realize that of the last 12 updates or patches 10 of them have been radical combat changes? With update 35 that will make 11 of the last 13 updates with radical yo-yo changes to the combat system. That includes general nerfs, skill nerfs for classes and racial nerfs. And all the changes and nerfs to gear sets and mythic items. It never ends. Every three months we have to go through our characters and rebuild them or start over. People are burned out over these radical changes every update.

With update 35 it's not a 2% nerf. We are looking at nerfs of 20% and more in specific areas and some skills have had their animations changed to be clunky and not fun to play. ZOS has gone back and forth week to week on the PTS making knee jerk changes trying to smooth over this mess they made. The only viable solution is to NOT release update 35 with any combat changes.

As for Vet HM I'm not even going to address that. Seems like everyone else already has. The game has been nerfed into Oblivion. The player base is being decimated. This update will go down in history as the largest PRP update ever.

Raammzzaa

Do you think Veteran Hard-Mode makes the game more enjoyable? How would you feel if non-HM was as hard as the game got?

---

> Yes, I think vetHM is fun, and I enjoy going for the HM whenever my team feels up to it.

What is your definition of a "sledgehammer" change? ----> A significant change that changes how I approach playing the game. E.g. Sustain nerf with Morrowind, or the light attack changes with U35

What is your definition of a "scalpel" change?" ----> An adjustment that doesn't necessarily cause me or my team to do much of anything different overall.

Would you support a lowering of end-game difficulty to make the game easier to balance and patch? ----> No, absolutely not. It is totally optional. If you don't want to do HM, then don't.

WrathOfInnos

Marto wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

Non-HM Veteran difficulty is much too easy, even if damage was nerfed 50% it would not be a challenge. The mechanics are greatly reduced, and DPS checks can be accomplished with a one-button rotation. Many players would be bored and end up quitting if this was the greatest challenge offered.

Does that not make all of this anger and frustration the community is experiencing even more ridiculous?

If you're saying power could be nerfed by 50% and content would still be difficult, that makes every claim of "the game is broken", "X is unplayable" and "Y class is gutted" seem like a huge overreaction.

If a 50% damage reduction means "99.99% of content is still not a challenge", it doesn't make sense for a 20% reduction to mean "The game is ruined".

I understand wanting harder content to chase. But I don't think it's reasonable for 99.99% of the game to be remain un-patchable and un-balanceable for the sake of HM.

That's not what I was saying. To clarify, I'm saying there are effectively 3 difficulty settings in ESO:
1. "Normal" - Basically easy or story mode, the most popular.
2. "Veteran" - The middle of the 3 options, a slight challenge, but too easy for anyone that takes the time to optimize gear and skills. Few people run veteran trials long term, it is either a temporary gear farm, training run, or stepping stone to the HM difficulty. For dungeons these can typically be completed with a random group and no coordination, trials can be completed with players from zone chat, and coordinated groups can go in blind and clear new content within a few hours. It's good this exists, but cannot be the pinnacle of difficulty in ESO.
3. "Veteran Hard Mode" - This is the hard difficulty for those that want a challenge. There is generally no gear incentive, so this is just for achievements, score and fun (vAS and vCR are the exceptions where HM does affect gear drops). I would say this is the 2nd largest group of players, very few groups stay in non-HM vet content perpetually.

I was saying that 2 is much easier than 3, with reduced mechanics and health. For example in vSS last boss, veteran does not have the living statues, and the eternal servant has 1/3 the health. DPS checks like this are why I said vet content would be doable with half the DPS, but hard modes would not (I think this is your original point, but I believe they are necessary). Both are necessary to keep players engaged and happy.

Mobed

Great post deserves a read by everyone.

thorwyn

If veteran hardmode trials did not exist, I would have stopped playing 2 years after I started ESO because there would not have been anything left to do. That kind of challenge is what's keeping me interested.

Ph1p

Your arguments boils down to three points:

• The changes only amount to a small difference of 2% compared to the status quo
• The only place where this makes a difference are veteran trial hard modes
• So let's get rid of that aspect of the game altogether

None of these points make any sense, however:

Marto wrote: »

Why is the ESO community so upset over 2% changes?

Nobody would be upset over such a small change. For example, we just recently had CP nerfs that were in that order of magnitude and nobody complained. It actually made sense to rein in some overperforming CPs, in line with ZOS' vision of CP 2.0 to introduce more horizontal progression and choice.

But just look around the PTS forum to see how big current changes can be. Wardens and sorcerers were hit massively, to the tune of 20-25%, especially in the initial PTS version. Entire builds around heavy attacks were rendered useless, even though a stated goal of these changes was to improve accessibility. That's were a lot of the uproar came from. I don't care about losing 5-10% DPS if it is part of a clear vision to improve the game long-term. But right now, it feels like everybody will suffer across multiple update cycles because ZOS is pushing out a patchwork of unaligned changes that do nothing to lift up the floor as originally intended.

Marto wrote: »

Veteran Hard-Mode [...] The only content in the game where a 2% change in DPS is the difference between success, and your team wiping over and over for hours.

Veteran (trial) hard modes are not the only content where such massive changes will have a negative impact. Yes, some of the initial complaints, especially around the changes to healing DoTs, were that the nerfs practically made some hard modes mathematically impossible. I already argued that it's not a 2% nerf, but often significantly higher. And depending on where your damage and skill level is, a 15% nerf for example can affect you in a lot of content:

• World bosses, especially in DLC areas, might require 1-2 more players to kill than before
• DLC dungeons can be a challenge for inexperienced players even on normal and regular veteran. If you struggle with Dro'zakar (vMGF) now, how will you fare during the shield phase with 15% less DPS? Did they adjust the shield down along with boss health?
• Same with arenas, both solo and group ones. vBRP is one of the hardest 4-player group content and arena health has not been adjusted, so you just made that content more difficult and less accessible to newer players.
• I remember when I started doing veteran trials and struggled with the mechanics in vKA and vHOF, let alone hard mode. How is this patch going to help bring more people to a level where they can clear those?

Marto wrote: »

How would you feel if non-HM was as hard as the game got?

The problem isn't that everything is at a knife's edge, which makes the game unpatchable. The problem is that this particular patch has too many flaws, unintended side effects, and sometimes build-breaking knock-on effects that apparently were not considered before unloading it onto the PTS. Add to that some unfortunate communication missteps from ZOS and you have a perfect storm of discontent and frustration.

I cannot fathom how deleting game content could be considered as a viable solution to address these issues. If your patch does not work for some aspect of the game, you need to improve the patch, not delete that aspect. Should we also make Cyrodiil a PVE zone because we can't get PVP balancing perfect?

Finally, you can probably guess my answers to your concrete questions, but for the sake of completeness:

1. Do you think Veteran Hard-Mode makes the game more enjoyable? How would you feel if non-HM was as hard as the game got? I think it adds an additional challenge to the game. I am by no means someone who has cleared all of them, but it's nice to progress towards an achievement, especially together with a group.
2. What is your definition of a "sledgehammer" change? It's a change that has both a large intended impact as well as massive side effects that do not relate to the stated objective of the change. For example, a "sledgehammer" change is the current rework of the Empower buff, which gives a massive boost to heavy attack builds, but (perhaps unintentionally) made medium attack builds a thing.
3. What is your definition of a "scalpel" change? This is a specific change that achieves it's original goal. I would actually not even relate it to the size of the change. For example, nerfing Bahsei from 15% to 12% is mathematically a change of up to 20%, but it was a narrow nerf that brought the set more in line with others. Now you could of course discuss the practice of releasing overpowered sets to sell a DLC, only to nerf them later in the name of rebalancing...
4. Would you support a lowering of end-game difficulty to make the game easier to balance and patch? They are already lowering the difficulty by decreasing enemy health. This and other kinds of balancing I support. As stated above, I don't see the point of removing a game difficulty altogether.