ESO Developer Deep Dive - Core Combat Values

dwolfgheist

Slash8915 wrote: »

Combat in ESO is by far the number one complaint I see people make online when talking about this game. It's why a lot of people stopped playing, it's why a lot of people refuse to start playing, and it honestly needs to be addressed.

The floaty, unimpactful combat just doesn't feel good. That coupled with all of the weaving and animation canceling makes it just not fun or engaging.

Also, you've added multiple new classes but no new weapons. I think adding a few new weapons to the mix with new skill lines could make a huge difference in how people play their characters and roles in general. Why this game has been out for 11 years and not a single new weapon has been added is beyond me.

Cause they can't balance the current ones, even before multi classing due to us swapping between 2 of them. They tried to address it in the passives but it didn't really solve anything, having 2 different types of weapons specially one of them being the frost staff will be better in 90% of the cases. Going dual bow/melee is always going to be subpar, unless you use arena weapons maybe.

NxJoeyD

Core combat and is definitely one of the pain points with ESO.

IMO, ESO brings a lot in terms of immersion, lore, and narrative, however, when it comes to combat I really can’t always understand what the Devs perspective is. It’s not a surprise to anyone that a game is this size is going to have certain mechanical limitations, that’s understandable, but it seems like that is forgotten when content is, creatively, developed and then fails to deliver on the intended experience.

If we separate the game into PvE & PvP we see different examples of where the game seemingly trips over its one two feet. And whether it was fully intended or if it was because there were time constraints that caused things to just be “thrown together” I can’t honestly tell.

In the realm of PvE combat is more straight forward and more rewarding. That’s because we’re talking about a more consistent scope when it comes to mechanics. But, that’s not to say we don’t reach a point when things go off the rails. Take instances such as Vet Scrivners Hall … why are we interacting with mechanics that have zero visual cue (the trip wire)? One of the elements that makes combat in ESO both interesting and aggravating is the heavy use of RNG. I know that the game is leaning on “randomness” to try and deliver a different gameplay experience but that also can have very real drawbacks. If a game is going to rely heavily on RNG then there’s a higher requirement to actually polish the other combat mechanics that are being used. Otherwise what you run into is failure to accomplish despite doing everything (knowingly) right. That doesn’t provide a rewarding experience that provides aggravation and a lack of consistency. .. it’s less about “mastering the mechanics” and more about “did we have a good luck run”. … and it’s not just Scrivners, we see similar mistakes out of other advanced DLC content … V Graven Deep is another example. One can appreciate the coordination needed to manage mechanics, however, there are no teaching elements throughout the course of the content that set you up to properly address the high level of nuance here. Further, some mechanics (Soul Harvest) feel a bit out of place and more “copy & pasted” just to try and provide an additional element rather than something that was well thought out. … V Black Gem Foundry is another. .. the entirety of the instance has a consistent feel until the final boss which seems like just another example of “mechanic stuffing” in an unrelated way, solely for the purpose of trying to create the illusion of challenge. … Throwing the mechanical “kitchen sink” at players just for the sake of doing so doesn’t make for compelling content and if you’re seeing your player base run to Google because the mechanics aren’t clear then you made a real mistake. Even when mechanics are going to be a challenge or difficult to master they should always be intuitive and recognizable by the player. … many of the issues in PvE combat are overly minor and truly detail related but they can have big impacts and can see players being driven away from wanting to engage in the content; especially if we’re talking about a random group, even one that’s trying to work together. … All in all, PvE is the better combat experience IMO that really just needs a tad bit more polish and thoughtfulness.

That brings us to PvP … this is one of those areas where you’ll never make everyone happy, and that’s ok.

PvP has had its share of long term criticisms but I’ll keep my feedback to the present because that’s what’s relevant.

Subclassing did a lot to give us additional build and theory crafting as well as power creep to deal with more of the questionable mechanical instances in PvE .. but .. it ruined PvP. .. many players (myself included) saw this coming and made it clear why we thought so on the forms but the decision was made to do it anyway. … ok, we can really live with that if the Devs so a quality job with these class refreshes and from what we’ve seen with DK, well, it doesn’t look like the developers have a real broad sense of critical thinking?

Here’s an example: part of the scope of class refreshes are to bring base classes (non subclassed builds) up in power and competitive with subclassed builds. Ok, that’s perfectly sensible. But looking at the Lava Whip skill, the first one on the list. The Devs did a good job of reworking the animation and overall environmental feel and did a good job of raising the power. But where they made a massive mistake was that they didn’t confine the conversion of the skill to base DK class only! So this means that the stack conversion of Lava Whip, and more popular Flame Lash, can be subclassed by anyone and they too can have the same power elevation (and healing) that DK received. … well, then how was DK elevated if their own skills can be used against them? … We’re seeing lots of Flame Lash now slotted on subclassed builds, including subclassed DKs. This almost defeats the purpose because DK hasn’t been elevated, some DK skills have been elevated, and that’s not the same thing.

What should have happened was that subclassed builds would have access to the base mechanics only (either the base damage output or base damage + healing component); but what subclasses would
NOT have had access to was the stacks that generate and bonus damage / healing scaling; that specifically should have been reserved for non-subclassed DK only. .. this would have allowed someone to subclass the baseline skill and morphs if they wanted to, but it would have kept the real power elevation within the DK class; which was kind of the point.

This seems like a very big oversight. As if nobody got together to discuss how this skill would align in the broader scope of the game? That seems like a pretty 101 question to ask amongst themselves.

Not only did this oversight hand one of DKs most high performing skills to everyone but it actually rewarded subclass builds more because there’s a slew of subclassed skills which provide a guaranteed “off balance” status effect; essentially seeing subclassed builds being able to more readily synergize the bonus conversion of this skill better than a DK can.

It’s seemingly mistakes like this, which are oversights in creative and thought, which have a big in-game impact that hurt combat. Yes, we can also talk about server latency and QoL bugs like crowd control break free bugs, skills that don’t register, and other known technical issues. Those very much play a role in ESO combat. But when the underlying creative or logic is really short sighted or perhaps doesn’t get the priority that it should then combat quality slides down far more than most technical bugs.

Game developers need to have both a “micro” and “macro” perspective. It doesn’t work to develop in a box and then deploy and let your customers, essentially, be your quality control; you have to have some semblance of big picture perspective before deploying updates and content. Further, you can’t just rush content that’s more of a secondary thought or a reskin of previous content and throw it out and expect that it’s going to get well received. (Not saying that’s exactly what’s happening here but it does feel that way).

In my opinion Subclassing created a very clear and defined “line in the sand” for us all when it comes to combat. Most of what we knew as a standard is out the window and when we talk about combat and potential changes to said combat I believe we need to do so with a post-subclassing perspective. Not how ESO used to be 3, 6, or even 8+ years ago.

Taking subclassing into account means that it’s definitely worthwhile to re-work classes and skills but it’s also worthwhile to take a look at gear and weapon sets. Most all of those asset attributes were created before subclassing and a lot require relevancy adjustments. Subclassing gave us more skill & mechanical combinations with which to counter various combat tactics but at the same time many of them contribute toward a lack of any real counter play and that’s also going to erode combat (i.e. now having a lack of critical resistance).

My suggestions for combat:

Think both inside and outside the box. Don’t just put something into the game hastily; think about the total way in which it can be used. Make sure it delivers on the scope. If it’s supposed to enhance a class then make sure it enhances the class and not everyone else.

Acknowledge that the fundamental game environment has limitations and when you’re developing assets, skills, or executables make sure that performance is the priority. There are lots of creative ways to make something look lore-centric but looks only get you so far. Assets should perform with similar reliability. We don’t need skills that have similar tool tips but one performs well and another lags just because we wanted to make it look a certain way.

Think about what you want combat to look like. In the case of PvE most all of the environments do a good job on delivering visuals, scenery and objects that support combat. In the case of PvP that’s not always the case. Cyrodill is fairly good but the IC & BGs tend to see maps that are overly confined and feature excessive dynamic scenery. Is peek-a-boo combat what we’re going for in PvP? It’s one thing to have strategic line of sight breaks it’s another to have combat revolve around them.

Lastly, make QoL a recurring priority. We see complaints regarding some of the more impactful combat bugs still existing some years after they were discovered. Subclassing made a good number of them more exploitable because now anyone could choose to lean on them. Good combat requires mechanics that are reliable, not ones that are reliably exploitable. Bugs should be sporadic occurrences, not a part of a players build strategy.

Jabbs_Giggity

This is a makes sense, to the point and highly accurate take. It is so suddenly unfortunate that it will literally fall on deaf ears....

Crow_IX

Is there a way to see how many sets there are in the game and how many are used?

CatalinaWineMixer2

The game would be better off if Subclassing were removed. I sincerely wish you would consider this. It is a no rules cherry picking system. And its already abusing the brand new DK. Everyone spoke of power creep before the fact. Look at what transpired after the fact. How many thousands of players have we sacrificed in the name of destroying our characters. Characters we purchased the game to play and have had for years. Everyone is running the same 3 skill lines and gear for everything. They are cherry picking with a calculator. The dps is so overpowered, people cant even loot a treasure chest or hand a quest in in dungeons. People wearing 3k crit resistance in PvP are getting 1 shotted. Anyone who isn't running the current blender build is kept out of content or removed from rosters.

Everyone who has ever purchased this game has done so understanding there is a Class System. It is the very first thing we must do when we play the game for the first time, choose a Class. It has always been this way with Eso. Eso is not Skyrim or any other game.

I am a very concerned 10 year player who has lost countless friends and guild members over the fallout from this terrible system. I have lost entire Guilds over it. Nearly every prog group we had have broken up over the tensions and many other things it is still causing. Its very existence makes the game more toxic and less fun.

There are people in our Guilds who wont run content anymore because its not their characters out there. Or if it is, they're less than inferior. They only go to auctions and Casinos. Everyone we have has quit PvP since Subclassing. Vengeance is a good start and they have come around with that being available, but the numbers are smaller because so many others have quit outright.

Please remove this broken, unbalanced and unbalancable system. The character refreshes are a good thing. We needed those even before Subclassing. The new DK is very beautiful and fun to play, just like all of the beautiful Classes you have designed. Balance everything to the new DK through the reworks and begin making more Classes. Then balance the new ones through the Class Passives. Please start instituting rules and boundaries for combat. Set by you, the developers. Establish a target average dps and a dps cap and enforce it. I feel very strongly about this and I am forced to deal with players questioning staying on a daily basis.