So who here actually defends update 35?

geekboy09

Curious to hear opinions. Thanks

kargen27

I like the new jabs animation. Took a couple of days to get used to it but it is much easier to see in trials when the group is stacked.

Majkiy

Everything was fine, damage wise, heal wise, etc.

Until the dungeons started to bug out as hell. No deaths not working, doors in dungeons not opening.

whitecrow

It seems fine to me but I don't get caught up in all the numbers.

DocFrost72

I haven't noticed any combat difficulty change, higher or lower. My guild and I are largely solo players of all stripes, from those that toggle walk through the overworld to those that are scoring top 15 weeklies in vateshran and maelstrom.

The people who are irritated about this patch are, from my personal experience, those who dislike mara's balm in pvp (no comment, I'm not in there often enough and only ever on no cp) and endgame trials raiders who push score. Both groups have legitimate concerns about many aspects of the game that changed for them, but as I don't belong to either group, I'm afraid I can't do those arguments justice.

What update 35 did that I enjoy?

-Longer dot options.
-Empower change.
-Heavy attack builds got a huge power boost.
-Better Oakensoul ring (buff for me, not for all admittedly).
-New jabs animation (not a fan of the damage change but willing to work woth it for a fluid weave).

So, responding to your request for someone to defend the update? I got a bunch of cool stuff to toy around with and theorycraft with, and have yet to experience any negatives for my playstyle (largely solo and vet dungeons with good friends).

merpins

Not an advocate of U35, in fact I'm firmly against the changes. Just had to mention this.

kargen27 wrote: »

I like the new jabs animation. Took a couple of days to get used to it but it is much easier to see in trials when the group is stacked.

Could've done it with a well made animation, though. Increasing visibility in content where visibility can be poor is a good thing. But not at the expense of good animation. It was obviously made in a rush, hence reused assets (the particle effect at the end is also a reused asset, not just the spear). The animation itself is just keyframes without any cleanup. It ignores all the principles of animation, but that's not surprising when it's only keys...

It doesn't look good is the main point here. Sure, it does less damage than just spamming shards or using flurry now. But I'd still use it if it was the old animation. The new animation just doesn't look good, objectively. If I was still in college, and I turned in that animation for a project, I'd get a failing grade on that project because the animation reuses old assets, is only keys with no other work put in, and just looks bad (due to not using the principles of animation). Oh, I'm a professional animator by the way.

MasterSpatula

Is it the end-of-the-world, CU/NGE-level disaster I was afraid of? No.

Is it anything any rational person could possibly consider a positive change and one that had any business getting anywhere near the live game? Also, no.

DocFrost72

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Is it the end-of-the-world, CU/NGE-level disaster I was afraid of? No.

Is it anything any rational person could possibly consider a positive change and one that had any business getting anywhere near the live game? Also, no.

What stuff in particular did you not like?

Azyle1

I won't - but hey - here is a dev that doesn't understand how his own game works. Check out his post and the comments. This is why I can't understand how anyone can defend this patch.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1565322693511110660

stevenyaub16_ESO

I'm not for or against it. Older content even easier with the 10% hp nerf and the two new trial Hardmodes still overtuned as before.

Standard ESO balancing fare since launch. This is more of the same.

Things could only get better if we had a better combat lead Dev, until then it's just wishful thinking.

Artim_X

PvE: I'm fine, just annoying to grind a new set to get damage back up. I'm also leveling up a Templar for some one bar PvE shenanigans.

PvP: A bit annoyed at the nerf to sticky DoTs. I've always preferred a battle of attrition over building for burst. This makes my preferred style of play even weaker.

dmnqwk

Azyle1 wrote: »

I won't - but hey - here is a dev that doesn't understand how his own game works. Check out his post and the comments. This is why I can't understand how anyone can defend this patch.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1565322693511110660

I think if Major Slayer was stripped from the trial dummy, people would be in a better position to see the chanrges. We can comment on the other things, but this is the one which is not easy to replicate in a trial situation (especially not with any significant uptime for everyone).

But, with U35 I went from a Stamden on 104k and a Stamblade on 85k to both being just over 100k. Understanding how it translates to a loss is fine, but I am definitely more concerned that U35 could benefit from adjustment to the floor because, again, the issue was 'let's lower the ceiling and raise the floor' but all U35 really did was 'lower the ceiling and the floor' because, right now, weaving is of such importance for certain classes (stamblade lives or dies by weaving, stamden just kinda goes... eh to it)

And as for the dev not understanding their game... perhaps they do understand and they simply chose to ignore the irrelevence of the situation.

Also a bit disappointing that sticky dots do about 20k every 20 seconds while Rapid Strikes is 3100 per swing (meaning 3100*4.3 or about 13k. This means a sticky dot is a meagre gain of 7k damage if the combat lasts exactly 20 seconds.

Spammable 13k vs Dot 20k/seconds:
Seconds 1-12 = Spammable
13 = Tied
14-20 = Dot
21-25 = Spammable
26 = Tied
27+ = Dot

Spammable 13k vs DoT 16k/12 seconds
1-9 = Spammable
10-12 = Dot
13-20 = Spammable
21-24 = Dot
Eventually, after 5 rotations (aka 1 minute) this kind of ground dot becomes ahead in combat.

We can complain about U35, but overall is irrelevent. I think the dot changes alone have weakened dots sufficiently that your spammable and execute strength matter a whole lot more than they used to (which doesn't actually help the floor since the people on the floor are more likely not to adapt rotations depending on fight length).

AcadianPaladin

I've been through every update since 2016 and have learned to dread any update involving combat. U35 takes the cake for being a dumpster fire though. I watched the massive amount of solid constructive feedback during the PTS cycle go largely ignored (again). My reasonable but not impressive 25k dps (vs actual bosses, not target dummy parsing) is now 15k and combat is much less enjoyable.

I keep hoping against hope that the devs will break their silence and explain what the heck they are thinking because, despite all the benefit of the doubt I can muster, I can't fathom why rational game-loving people would do this to us.

SeaGtGruff

whitecrow wrote: »

It seems fine to me but I don't get caught up in all the numbers.

Ditto on both counts. If I hadn't been aware beforehand that there was going to be a major change to combat, I don't think I'd have even known that anything was different when I logged in after the update, because for my main characters there was no discernible change. But since I don't pay attention to numbers, I can't say whether their maximum potential DPS has gone up or down. All I know is that it takes them the same amount of time as before to solo specific world bosses and dungeons.

In contrast, a couple of the updates during previous years impacted my mains' performances in negative ways which were immediately obvious, because they were suddenly no longer able to solo specific world bosses, and soloing resources in Cyrodiil became much more difficult. It took me a long time to adjust to those changes.

alanmatillab16_ESO

There is no need to defend it here on the forums. If a player does not like U35 it is not up to other players to change their mind.

MEBengalsFan2001

I think this update is part of a their larger plan to remove weaving from the game. It also seems to focus more on having groups adjust their team makeup to ensure content gets completed. Basically if healing is down and damage is down there is more opportunities for healers to actually heal and use more healing skills. Making them more heal bots than 1/2 dps and 1/2 healer with buffing sets.

joseayalac

I like the new update, I get that losing dps feels bad, but in the end, the game is more balanced and enjoyable now. PVE is more of a challenge and PVP feels more balanced and more fun, they nerfed most of the nonsense builds out there. Oakensoul is still good. I've been enjoying my stamden and surprisingly my stamsorc is still usable in Battlegrounds.

I like to have a bit of a challenge, not be handled completions and achievements just for running through a dungeon without much thought. I like the Tales of Tribute changes as well, balanced things out a bit.

And finally, not entirely U35 related, but the world building teams have been knocking it out of the park with the settings and the quests and all that stuff, I love High Isle much more than I thought I would.

Tandor

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

There is no need to defend it here on the forums. If a player does not like U35 it is not up to other players to change their mind.

I wasn't aware anyone was trying to do so. The OP simply wanted some different opinions from those able and willing to defend the update.

Razorback174

Bad balancing, destruction of class identity, abominable animations, questionable design decisions, the list goes on. Add to that zero communication, no plan ahead, and the insane amount of thrashing every PTS update and you've got a case where even the devs have proven they have no idea what they're doing at this point.

I never played WoW, but I always wondered why its players got so frustrated with the devs. After update 35 here, I can start to understand why.

WinterHeart626

Azyle1 wrote: »

I won't - but hey - here is a dev that doesn't understand how his own game works. Check out his post and the comments. This is why I can't understand how anyone can defend this patch.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1565322693511110660

Special Dev is Special. I’d be curious to see what moderations he had running in the background, as apparently his skills don’t add up (according to 100k+ parsers in my guild), if anyones got insight, might help here.


In relation to the original posters question, I’m nonplussed and rather annoyed to see the update go live as it currently is. Maybe they’ll revert it in 3 months time, I won’t hold my breath.
I’m just going to do what I normally do in these situations. Brew a build that uses hexos ward, use werewolf, and furball world bosses.

SeaGtGruff

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

There is no need to defend it here on the forums. If a player does not like U35 it is not up to other players to change their mind.

The opposite is also true:

There is no need to attack it here on the forums. If a player does not dislike U35 it is not up to other players to change their mind.

Wolfshade

Sounds like the question behind this question is "who actually defends zos". I didnt noticed anything why i should write such a question in titel and let nothing follow in first post. Why is that the cause? "Curious to hear about that. Thanks"!

dmnqwk

WinterHeart626 wrote: »

Azyle1 wrote: »

I won't - but hey - here is a dev that doesn't understand how his own game works. Check out his post and the comments. This is why I can't understand how anyone can defend this patch.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1565322693511110660

Special Dev is Special. I’d be curious to see what moderations he had running in the background, as apparently his skills don’t add up (according to 100k+ parsers in my guild), if anyones got insight, might help here.


In relation to the original posters question, I’m nonplussed and rather annoyed to see the update go live as it currently is. Maybe they’ll revert it in 3 months time, I won’t hold my breath.
I’m just going to do what I normally do in these situations. Brew a build that uses hexos ward, use werewolf, and furball world bosses.

Crit damage sitting on 124.1% average does a lot. How are they getting 124.1% average with nothing towards it?
Base 50%
Templar 10%
Medium Armor 10% (epaulets and guise are both light armor)
Major Force 20%
Barbed Trap 10% (minor force)
Minor Brittle 10%
Total: 110%

Somehow the dev got a max of 125% and, essentially, a free 15% crit damage from somewhere. (If it was a 20%, the max would've been shown as 130%).

So this means the parse has gained 15% crit damage for nothing... Unless it can be explained why this parse has the crit damage it does, it's gained around 5k free damage (the approximate parse becomes like 95k give or take what the actual crit damage % would be versus the maximum of 110%).

However, since the weaving was around 1.2 and a top parser is 1.05 (I only get about 1.1 myself) then the 95k (once we removed the bonus crit damage that never made it to the real game) we'll get 108.5k for a 1.05 and 103.6k for a 1.1 weave speed, which means they're still doing very well.

WinterHeart626

dmnqwk wrote: »

WinterHeart626 wrote: »

Azyle1 wrote: »

I won't - but hey - here is a dev that doesn't understand how his own game works. Check out his post and the comments. This is why I can't understand how anyone can defend this patch.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1565322693511110660

Special Dev is Special. I’d be curious to see what moderations he had running in the background, as apparently his skills don’t add up (according to 100k+ parsers in my guild), if anyones got insight, might help here.


In relation to the original posters question, I’m nonplussed and rather annoyed to see the update go live as it currently is. Maybe they’ll revert it in 3 months time, I won’t hold my breath.
I’m just going to do what I normally do in these situations. Brew a build that uses hexos ward, use werewolf, and furball world bosses.

Crit damage sitting on 124.1% average does a lot. How are they getting 124.1% average with nothing towards it?
Base 50%
Templar 10%
Medium Armor 10% (epaulets and guise are both light armor)
Major Force 20%
Barbed Trap 10% (minor force)
Minor Brittle 10%
Total: 110%

Somehow the dev got a max of 125% and, essentially, a free 15% crit damage from somewhere. (If it was a 20%, the max would've been shown as 130%).

So this means the parse has gained 15% crit damage for nothing... Unless it can be explained why this parse has the crit damage it does, it's gained around 5k free damage (the approximate parse becomes like 95k give or take what the actual crit damage % would be versus the maximum of 110%).

However, since the weaving was around 1.2 and a top parser is 1.05 (I only get about 1.1 myself) then the 95k (once we removed the bonus crit damage that never made it to the real game) we'll get 108.5k for a 1.05 and 103.6k for a 1.1 weave speed, which means they're still doing very well.

Cheers for that, as you can probably tell, I’m not one for parsing often.
I do know it’s not worthwhile wasting stats though, I’m at 92% crit passive (nightblade, khajit, orders wrath etc) before minor force, major force, brittle…. If all three are up, that’s waste, still, trying to find that middle ground 🤷🏻‍♂️

TaSheen

There's a - major - disconnect. There are a fair amount of people seriously devoted to - um - pushing the limits (kindest way I can put it). And many of them are - antagonistic to put it mildly.

And there are a lot of people just wanting to play the game, have fun no matter what that entails (and that's.... not exactly the same for anyone - "fun" has so many definitions it's just not funny). I've parsed once - to find out my damage was marginal. Because actually I don't really care about combat in games, and I certainly don't care to "optimize" it. I play for fun, period.

The forum is.... an interesting animal. I'm here because in every game I've ever played (since forums for particular games were born, beginning for me with Bioware's BG1 forum- and "a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" I've never since experienced) I've wanted to help where I could, as long as a game was FUN. And when a game wasn't fun any more, I quit posting on that game's forum.

ESO is still (even after U35) fun for me. So I'm still here. And the bottom line is - I'm here until it's not fun any more. I've made some adjustments to my wardens and sorcs. And they are even now fun to play. But then, I don't do group content at all or pvp. So - y'all can disregard me I guess.

WinterHeart626

TaSheen wrote: »

There's a - major - disconnect. There are a fair amount of people seriously devoted to - um - pushing the limits (kindest way I can put it). And many of them are - antagonistic to put it mildly.

And there are a lot of people just wanting to play the game, have fun no matter what that entails (and that's.... not exactly the same for anyone - "fun" has so many definitions it's just not funny). I've parsed once - to find out my damage was marginal. Because actually I don't really care about combat in games, and I certainly don't care to "optimize" it. I play for fun, period.

The forum is.... an interesting animal. I'm here because in every game I've ever played (since forums for particular games were born, beginning for me with Bioware's BG1 forum- and "a more wretched hive of scum and villainy" I've never since experienced) I've wanted to help where I could, as long as a game was FUN. And when a game wasn't fun any more, I quit posting on that game's forum.

ESO is still (even after U35) fun for me. So I'm still here. And the bottom line is - I'm here until it's not fun any more. I've made some adjustments to my wardens and sorcs. And they are even now fun to play. But then, I don't do group content at all or pvp. So - y'all can disregard me I guess.

No disregarding anyone, the moment we disregard people, then we become what we vehemently try to not be. Like you said, there’s many forms of fun. What’s fun for me, might not be fun for others (I still think hexos ward werewolves are hilariously good fun, despite copping trash talk from some guildies for it).

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to a category we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding

spartaxoxo

Azyle1 wrote: »

I won't - but hey - here is a dev that doesn't understand how his own game works. Check out his post and the comments. This is why I can't understand how anyone can defend this patch.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1565322693511110660

Why is he acting like the Trial Dummy wasn't buffed. That's pretty concerning.

Agenericname

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Azyle1 wrote: »

I won't - but hey - here is a dev that doesn't understand how his own game works. Check out his post and the comments. This is why I can't understand how anyone can defend this patch.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1565322693511110660

Why is he acting like the Trial Dummy wasn't buffed. That's pretty concerning.

Its pretty misleading and a hard comment to take seriously.

BahometZ

dmnqwk wrote: »

WinterHeart626 wrote: »

Azyle1 wrote: »

I won't - but hey - here is a dev that doesn't understand how his own game works. Check out his post and the comments. This is why I can't understand how anyone can defend this patch.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1565322693511110660

Special Dev is Special. I’d be curious to see what moderations he had running in the background, as apparently his skills don’t add up (according to 100k+ parsers in my guild), if anyones got insight, might help here.


In relation to the original posters question, I’m nonplussed and rather annoyed to see the update go live as it currently is. Maybe they’ll revert it in 3 months time, I won’t hold my breath.
I’m just going to do what I normally do in these situations. Brew a build that uses hexos ward, use werewolf, and furball world bosses.

Crit damage sitting on 124.1% average does a lot. How are they getting 124.1% average with nothing towards it?
Base 50%
Templar 10%
Medium Armor 10% (epaulets and guise are both light armor)
Major Force 20%
Barbed Trap 10% (minor force)
Minor Brittle 10%
Total: 110%

Somehow the dev got a max of 125% and, essentially, a free 15% crit damage from somewhere. (If it was a 20%, the max would've been shown as 130%).

So this means the parse has gained 15% crit damage for nothing... Unless it can be explained why this parse has the crit damage it does, it's gained around 5k free damage (the approximate parse becomes like 95k give or take what the actual crit damage % would be versus the maximum of 110%).

However, since the weaving was around 1.2 and a top parser is 1.05 (I only get about 1.1 myself) then the 95k (once we removed the bonus crit damage that never made it to the real game) we'll get 108.5k for a 1.05 and 103.6k for a 1.1 weave speed, which means they're still doing very well.

The dummy now gives elemental catalyst buff, which is 15%.

dmnqwk

BahometZ wrote: »

The dummy now gives elemental catalyst buff, which is 15%.

Well I think this goes quite far in showing just how silly the trial dummy is getting.

Crit Damage baseline 50%
Elemental Catalyst 15%
Major Force 20%
Minor Brittle 10%
Total: 95% (Meaning you only need to find 30% for the parse)

Major Slayer 10% damage done
Minor Berserk 5% damage done
Total 15% damage done

Major Vulnerability 10% damage taken
Minor Vulnerability 5% damage taken
Total 15% damage taken

Major Breech 5948 penetration
Minor Brech 2974 penetration
Infused Crusher 2108 penetration
Roar of Alkosh 6000 penetration
Total: 17'030 (towards the goal of 18'000)

I think the training dummy now highlights where there is a flaw in the current system:
1. Wardens getting free penetration in a system where the dummy provides a requirement of only 1130 penetration required (700 of which is usually covered by the cp)
2. Crit Damage being so high that you cannot parse with 7 pieces of medium armor or the Mythic Kilt

I think this alone is where U35 itself might not be a direct issue, but it's certainly helping to shine a spotlight on the way buff stacking is an issue.
With U35 making empower worthless for most, right after everybody got better support for gaining empower... it really helps to show that ZOS is struggling to create a fair system for buffs and debuffs (Mara's Balm set is definitely highlighting those issues in PVP right now)

Granting 93.57% of penetration requirements with 3.84% held cheaply in CP really doesn't seem a good idea when:
1. Light armor provides this as a bonus over medium armor
2. A single class has just been given stacking penetration as their passive
3. At least two other classes already had passives for more penetration than is now necessary
4. Medium Armor wearers, who cannot wear 7 pieces to parse because of this, cannot wear 2 pieces of light armor either because it's more pen than they need.

U35 isn't necessarily the issue in it's own right... but the way in which the game has ridiculous buffs that can theoretically grant 100% uptime if you micromanage everything as well as setting things up so that a lot of classes lose benefit from their passives is something the other major MMOs would've fixed. (And those either used to or still do require you to reach hit cap, which ESO does not but replaces that essentially with penetration while pretending it's unique in how it does things )