Stealth change to class ability for overland play, a slippery slope

fireshine6623

I have run wardens for a long time, so I'm familiar with their skills. I was leveling one during the witches festival that started on 10/26/23 and all was fine, and specifically referring to frost cloak and its morphs. Then patch 9.2.5 came out on 10/29/23 and I thought there was a bug in that skill due to the patch. The animation did not show on other players at a dolmen as it always did (since its release long ago), only on my character. I tried different locations, same result, so I checked the 9.2.5 patch notes and nothing was mentioned about the skill at (I even did a ctrl+F and searched related terms). I was ready to report a bug then saw in the skill description that now it only applies to group members. Keep in mind that in the past many sets like winter's respite, coldharbor's favorite, and others were all changed in this way to require grouping, even for overland play. You can no longer show up and help another player with them getting the benefit of one of your sets. The reason given for this change was that these sets were “too intensive” for the servers, but considering at least 4 zones and now the new Endless Archive arena have been added to the servers since, that excuse simply doesn't hold water.

The change to frost cloak, a class ability now applying to only grouped members now, is a further attack on overland cooperative play with random players. I've been playing eso for more than 6 years, I came in when Morrowind was the new chapter, so I am one of those long term players that loves eso and I freely help new players (and there are many of us). When they need help with a world boss, harrowstorm, or other harder event I am happy to jump in. Yet 99% of the time we are NOT grouped, and there is no need to. Changing the sets in the past removed valuable skills that let us loyal long-term players help new players. To my knowledge ZOS takes pride in a very helpful PC/NA community since we have been the “good stewards” in the game. But changes to sets, and now skills, works against this ethos in both PvE and PvP

Frost cloak is the first class ability or weapon skill that I recall that requires grouping. This is a very slippery slope. So what's next? Will resto staff skills require grouping? Will we need to be grouped to apply a DK's obsidian shield to others? Will players have to be grouped to be healed from Vigor? The grouping requirement for the sets in the past remain unnecessary, there is no reason at all to require group with fellow players to share set heals, buffs, etc.. And deciding to apply this rule to class or weapon abilities is a very slippery slope. It makes having certain skills pointless especially for healers, tanks, and those who legitimately want to help out others in eso. In essence, it is a step toward making some skills sterile and useless for general play.

Please reverse this grouping requirement ZOS, from both the warden class ability and the sets previously changed. It holds back the great community you are so proud from optimally help out others, and sets a unnecessary requirement of grouping for no legitimate reason at all. @Gina_Bruno @Staff

To verify this change for my fellow adventurers, screen shots are attached, one from my character on 11/2/23 (after the cited patched dropped), and the other from a skill calculator that has not yet caught up with that recent change.

Players, please chime in on this, I hope you see my concern. And I would check your own skill descriptions too.

Araneae6537

I’m sorry to see this! I hope that it is reverted and that other healing an buffing abilities are not changed this way as well! I enjoy participating in world boss fights on support characters, often ungrouped.

fireshine6623

I'm hoping that my point came across, I'm not complaining about a specific class or skill, it's the fact that stipulating that certain class or weapon abilities only apply to group members is a dangerous new precedent. This could apply to skills for any or all classes, and any or all weapon types going forward. I think players overall need to be concerned about this, it opened a bad door for anyone who plays eso.

AcadianPaladin

I agree. And most of my play as a healer is also ungrouped coop overland. I hate the trend toward changing skills/sets from helping nearby allies to only helping group members. Skill and equipment slots are too few to waste any on things that won't help all nearby random allies.

I quit using the ultimate skill Barrier because of this.

I ground up all my Earthgore and Winter's Respite because of this.

Please stop, and reverse, this trend. I REALLY don't want to grind up all my Spell Power Cure gear.

TybaltKaine

This is being done to discourage solo play and encourage group play. That's been the trend for the last several months. You see it in everything from Endeavors to stealth ability changes.

Necrotech_Master

i thought pretty much all of these buffs were only limited to groups as most of them have been that way for many years now

magma shell on a DK for example will only give the dmg shield to grouped members, barrier only affects group members, in fact pretty much all buff ultimates do not affect ungrouped members

it wouldnt surprise me if they were trying to make buff skills more consistent

TybaltKaine

I think it's also worth considering how this impacts PVP. Cross healing and buffing can be a real problem there, so making skills and sets only work in groups works to combat what has long been complained about in those circles.

Tyrant_Tim

This is definitely an unfortunate change. It’s hard enough to run a tank in Cyrodiil, now you can’t even support nearby players?

Hopefully this gets reversed.

SlippyCheeze

fireshine6623 wrote: »

The reason given for this change was that these sets were “too intensive” for the servers, but considering at least 4 zones and now the new Endless Archive arena have been added to the servers since, that excuse simply doesn't hold water.

I don't have a strong opinion about the rest of your post, though I generally agree that it'd be nice for these effects to work on "close" players.

What I can say is that this argument is comparing apples to fruitflies: they are not just different things, they are radically different things. The cost of adding a zone and the cost of placing spell effects on ungrouped characters have very little to do with each other.

Each zone is self-contained, so adding new ones with the same number of players is some approximation of free: they simply don't interact between each other. Players in different zones don't interact...

fireshine6623

TybaltKaine wrote: »

I think it's also worth considering how this impacts PVP. Cross healing and buffing can be a real problem there, so making skills and sets only work in groups works to combat what has long been complained about in those circles.

That's a great point about PvP, and I thought of that too. But that's also penalizing the PvE players for what happens in PvP. Fromsoft did that in Elden Ring, and the PvE crowd went ballistic. The answer is simple, have a differential effect of a skill or set in PvP vs PvE, those already exist with some buffs etc. Grouping can be fun, but forced grouping just to be able to use your skills is a bad move imho. As one player said here, they deconned their excellent sets because they became worthless due to the needless grouping requirement.

fireshine6623

TybaltKaine wrote: »

This is being done to discourage solo play and encourage group play. That's been the trend for the last several months. You see it in everything from Endeavors to stealth ability changes.

I honestly encourage group play for some things, like world bosses and harrowstorms. I'll grab the quests and offer to share them, and it can be a lot of fun. But encouraging vs requiring are two different things, it's the requiring I'm against. it makes some skills useless for general group play. The reality is that when someone calls out in zone chat that they need help with a wb etc, no one groups 99% of the time. Of course the exception is the dolmen groups in Alik'r....

YandereGirlfriend

I think that this is a welcome change to the actual skill but I do agree that stealth-changes like that should NEVER happen.

chessalavakia_ESO

TybaltKaine wrote: »

I think it's also worth considering how this impacts PVP. Cross healing and buffing can be a real problem there, so making skills and sets only work in groups works to combat what has long been complained about in those circles.

The thing is, this isn't going to impact the ball group that is grouped.

It's going to impact the random players that aren't.

It also messes up the balance between the two skills as part of Expansive's value was it could hit a boatload of people.

SeaGtGruff

I'm going to hypothesize a different reasoning.

Some people have complained about players running around towns spamming their AOE abilities, resulting in people around them being affected by effects which some people find annoying. If those AOE abilities get restricted to affecting only other people who are grouped with the spamming players, it removes those players' ability to deliberately troll everyone around them by repeatedly hitting them with unwanted AOE effects.

I would imagine that the number of players who like to run around towns spamming their AOEs at everyone around them far outnumbers the number of players who want to use their AOE abilities to genuinely assist other players they aren't grouped with in overland PvE fights. And I would imagine that the number of players in towns who are getting hit with unwanted AOEs that are being spammed by other players far outnumbers the number of ungrouped players who are being assisted by AOEs in overland PvE fights. In other words, I imagine that the players who spam their AOEs in towns are putting much more extra load on the servers than the players who use their AOEs in ungrouped overland PvE fights.

But I'm just hypothesizing.

fireshine6623

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

TybaltKaine wrote: »

I think it's also worth considering how this impacts PVP. Cross healing and buffing can be a real problem there, so making skills and sets only work in groups works to combat what has long been complained about in those circles.

The thing is, this isn't going to impact the ball group that is grouped.

It's going to impact the random players that aren't.

It also messes up the balance between the two skills as part of Expansive's value was it could hit a boatload of people.

At harrowstorms, dragon fights, and in other situations expansive was needed to definitely hit a boatload of people. But then again so does blood altar, some resto staff skills, warden's healing ultimate, templar's healing ultimate, etc yet those remain unchanged. As I said in my original post, I can see (what is essentially a nerf) to a overland group skill setting a dangerous precedent for other nerfs to similar skills, because those exist.

Foxtrot39

Typical result of nerf targeting spontaneaous ball group in cyro worsening overland experience

NeuroticPixels

TybaltKaine wrote: »

I think it's also worth considering how this impacts PVP. Cross healing and buffing can be a real problem there, so making skills and sets only work in groups works to combat what has long been complained about in those circles.

Add yet another reason to the long, long list of why PvP and PvE should be balanced separately.

LunaFlora

i am actually kinda happy about this as i do not want frost cloak on my character from other people and i already get its effects from Oakensoul.
so not getting it anymore when ungrouped is awesome.

edited to add: SeaGtGruff i think you're right.
i've definitely seen way more people use it in towns than in combat and it's so annoying.

Mesite

It doesn't bother me in Towns. Sometimes seeing skills used in towns reminds me of other classes I could be, and it's like an advert for that class so I go play that class.

Mesite

If they change the healing from pets so the twilight only heals people in your group it'll be inconvenient at dolmens but then I won't feel so selfish playing sorc with a clannfear. At the moment my clannfear only heals me, so I feel like I should use the Twilight so others benefit, but I don't because I think Clanfear looks cooler.

CameraBeardThePirate

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Typical result of nerf targeting spontaneaous ball group in cyro worsening overland experience

This nerf has nothing to do with ball groups though? How would making an ability only function on groupmates be a targeted nerf at groups?

Foxtrot39

Because group limit prevent you to have virtually unlimited target and buff lets say 40 player rushing through a door at once

YandereGirlfriend

NeuroticPixels wrote: »

TybaltKaine wrote: »

I think it's also worth considering how this impacts PVP. Cross healing and buffing can be a real problem there, so making skills and sets only work in groups works to combat what has long been complained about in those circles.

Add yet another reason to the long, long list of why PvP and PvE should be balanced separately.

Some PvE and casual players are actually happy because they don't like getting the ugly Frost Armor animation forced onto their character.

fireshine6623

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

NeuroticPixels wrote: »

TybaltKaine wrote: »

I think it's also worth considering how this impacts PVP. Cross healing and buffing can be a real problem there, so making skills and sets only work in groups works to combat what has long been complained about in those circles.

Add yet another reason to the long, long list of why PvP and PvE should be balanced separately.

Some PvE and casual players are actually happy because they don't like getting the ugly Frost Armor animation forced onto their character.

Remember the whole "warden bear butt" issue? That was changed so players didn't see it. But the animation is so minuscule compared to others. I'd rather have the frost one than the bodily fluids green one of the alchemist on/around me.

fireshine6623

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Because group limit prevent you to have virtually unlimited target and buff lets say 40 player rushing through a door at once

This doesn't happen in overland play, it's an example of pvp affecting pve players and should not happen. They simply could build in a skill differential for cyrodill vs tamriel like they do with other skills. No reason why this skill needs to be grouped now, and as I said it opens a door for other more common skills to require grouping. That's the real danger here.

Foxtrot39

fireshine6623 wrote: »

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Because group limit prevent you to have virtually unlimited target and buff lets say 40 player rushing through a door at once

This doesn't happen in overland play, it's an example of pvp affecting pve players and should not happen. They simply could build in a skill differential for cyrodill vs tamriel like they do with other skills. No reason why this skill needs to be grouped now, and as I said it opens a door for other more common skills to require grouping. That's the real danger here.

lazyness or optmisation for not having to track what become essentialy a cloned skill