Intriguingly complex ideas: Dedicated healing and armor set revamps.

Skullstachio

Edit: had to fix the title, my bad.
Disclaimer: if there is a better way to describe some of that which is already written, hit it up in the comments, one can only try.

Alright. First idea that comes to mind that also serves as an answer to the thread linked below: Unique heals for sticky heal over time effects.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/651075/cross-healing-just-solved-so-easy

Here is How it would work with an example (which may not reflect actual healing in gameplay:

1 player heals a teammate with echoing vigor which heals at 500 per tick every 2 seconds, another player with that exact ability comes along and heals the teammate already affected by an instance of echoing vigor, it will do one of the following:

• if the heal is weaker than the current active HoT: only the duration of the current echoing vigor instance is refreshed.
• If the heal is stronger than the current HoT: the current echoing vigor instance is overridden with the stronger HoT alongside the duration refresh.

This particular formula will only affect Heal over Time effects that stick to players, ground targeted AoE heals that heal over time without sticking to players do not follow this rule. There is also the case of if a different morph of the same ability is used (i.e. resolving vigor) it will stack with echoing vigor, moreover, players will only be able to stack the same ability on teammates if they have a different morph of that sticky heal over time. (I.e. Rapid Regeneration can be stacked with radiating regeneration.) and conversely, armor sets that apply a sticky heal over time may be a tricky one and may have to remain an ability based thing.

And while this may have some impact on healing in Endgame and PvP in the short term, the long term is also partly aimed at having Dedicated Healers return to greater prominence which leads me to an issue that has a bit of commonsense logic to it:
if 4 player group dungeons require one tank, one healer and two damage dealers, wouldn't that conversely tell some that 12 player trials would, by commonsense logic, require 6 damage dealers, 3 tanks and 3 healers? You know, 3 teams of 1T, 2Dd and 1H? because in a way, true hardcore endgamers "usually" skip out on mechanics by trying to damage the enemies past their thresholds to the point of skipping the mechanics entirely, especially in the hard mode trifecta versions with the whole 8dd, 2h, 2t compositions or more, but may not always be the case when/unless scoreboard pushing. I currently find this to be quite the enigma when thought about on a deeper level...

Second Idea: Armor set revamps.
As an example of what I want to see on the table but shall be told, The 5th piece bonuses of most armor sets already in the game, moved down to just a 1 item bonus, in the case of damaging sets like Unleased terror or sets with greater damage output, and stay with me on this, the damaging effects would have to be reduced by 50% to compensate for what comes next.
Each additional piece for that set, increases the damage and effectiveness of the 1 piece bonus by 25%, scaling up to 100% when wearing 5 pieces.

Example: Unleashed Terror (in the spoiler box)

1 Item: When you deal direct damage with a Blink, Charge, Leap, Teleport, or Pull ability, you cut your enemy, causing them to bleed for 10 seconds, dealing 997 Bleed damage over the duration and applying the Hemorrhaging status effect every tick. This ability can occur once every 10 seconds per target and scales off the higher of your Weapon and Spell Damage. The damage dealt by this* increases by 25% for each additional gear piece of unleashed terror equipped.
(*This particular part differs depending on what each set does and may do more than just increase the sets damage, explained in another unique example further down.)
2 items: Adds 3-129 Weapon and Spell Damage
3 items: Adds 25-1096 Maximum Stamina
4 items: Adds 25-1096 Maximum Stamina
5 items: Placeholder stat bonus, each additional piece of unleashed terror beyond 5 items increases the damage of this set by 20%*
(*the cap is increased from 100% to 200% which can be reached by wearing 10 items but at a reduced value of 20% per piece beyond the 5th rather than 25%.
6 items: Placeholder stat bonus
7 items: Placeholder stat bonus
8 items: Placeholder stat bonus
9 items: Placeholder stat bonus
10 items: Unique Placeholder stat bonus.

Note how the damage is halved on the 1 item piece and also note how that damage is increased with each additional piece worn as explained in the 1 piece slot.
The aim here, from perspective, Is Not just to have multiple different set effects (albeit with lower effectiveness across the board for the more powerful current sets in the game) but to reward players dedicated to that one particular set they may favor above others alongside giving those sets more uniqueness in the field of playstyle fulfillment.

Another example but for a fairly underwhelming set: Salvation (also in a spoiler box.)

1 item: Reduces the cost of your Werewolf Transformation ability by 33%. While in Werewolf form, your Weapon and Spell Damage is increased by 5-150. Each additional gear piece of salvation increases the weapon and spell damage bonus by 25% to a max of 100% and the ultimate cost reduction of werewolf transformation by an additional base 8.25% to a max of 66%
2 items: Adds 25-1096 Maximum Stamina
3 items: Adds 3-129 Stamina Recovery
4 items: Adds 25-1096 Maximum Stamina
5 items: Placeholder stat bonus, increases the weapon and spell damage bonus cap to 200%, additional gear pieces of salvation beyond 5 items increases the bonus weapon and spell damage bonus by 20% instead of 25%, reduces the ultimate cost of werewolf transformation by an additional 6.8% to a maximum cap of 100%
6 items: Placeholder stat bonus
7 items: Placeholder stat bonus
8 items: Placeholder stat bonus
9 items: Placeholder stat bonus
10 items: Unique Placeholder stat bonus, completely eliminates the cost of werewolf transformation.
12 items (passive): Grants the unique "Man Beast" Passive.
"The Man Beast passive grants the benefits of Pursuit and Savage Strength and allows the use of active werewolf abilities outside of werewolf form*. additionally, while in werewolf form, gain the werewolf lord buff which increases your damage done by 8.4%, healing done by 8.4% and you take 4.16% less damage for each group member afflicted with lycanthropy that is transformed including yourself, up to a maximum of 100% damage and healing done and 50% reduced damage taken."
(*be mindful where you use your werewolf abilities outside the transformation, they are considered a criminal act.).

In the Salvation example, not only does it get a much needed touchup, but an overhaul that rewards players that prefer to engage in activities as a werewolf, even in an endgame situation, to a point where in this case, pushing for all of its pieces can reward a very unique bonus that is not too overpowered but, when completely built on that one set rather than multiple different sets, more than enough to be true endgame material for more activities beyond the norm.

Case and point: Instead of adding new armor sets each DLC/Chapter drop, old sets should be looked at and completely overhauled in the fashion mentioned above, especially the base game sets, so not only do old sets become more viable and especially (if done correctly) rewarding to a particular playstyle based on what the set offers, but ends up being used equally in all activities and endgame content where they normally would not shine in their current present day iteration where they are powercrept out by newer sets with each content drop. Even in HM Trifecta/leaderboard content.

Your thoughts on this as I feel as though this should be delegated on in a deep context.
P.S. I do have an idea involving the beekeeper armor set, but it needs time to cook. (If I come up with anything, I may list them below, but I make no promises. ESO is mostly on thin ice as it is when there are games like baldurs gate 3 and palworld showing game developers how its done.)

Soarora

Skullstachio wrote: »

Edit: had to fix the title, my bad.
Disclaimer: if there is a better way to describe some of that which is already written, hit it up in the comments, one can only try.

And while this may have some impact on healing in Endgame and PvP in the short term, the long term is also partly aimed at having Dedicated Healers return to greater prominence which leads me to an issue that has a bit of commonsense logic to it:
if 4 player group dungeons require one tank, one healer and two damage dealers, wouldn't that conversely tell some that 12 player trials would, by commonsense logic, require 6 damage dealers, 3 tanks and 3 healers? You know, 3 teams of 1T, 2Dd and 1H? because in a way, true hardcore endgamers "usually" skip out on mechanics by trying to damage the enemies past their thresholds to the point of skipping the mechanics entirely, especially in the hard mode trifecta versions with the whole 8dd, 2h, 2t compositions or more, but may not always be the case when/unless scoreboard pushing. I currently find this to be quite the enigma when thought about on a deeper level...

12 player trials do not need 3 tanks and 3 healers. Skipping mechanics comes with 2T,2H,8D groups with high DPS while scorepushing levels of skipping mechanics may have 2T 1H or even 1T 1H. Functionally, a third tank is only ever needed in Cloudrest. Any other trial there is simply not enough to tank to warrant a third one. Decreasing healing could warrant a third healer but as I have seen with SE, that third healer may come as a support DPS. Either way, decreasing sticky HoTs to 1 per stack wouldn't generally be enough to give us a third healer and instead make healing harder (though I cannot say I am opposed to that, I tend to find healing boring... coming from an ex-healer main... ex in part because it was boring).

Skullstachio wrote: »

Second Idea: Armor set revamps.

Case and point: Instead of adding new armor sets each DLC/Chapter drop, old sets should be looked at and completely overhauled in the fashion mentioned above, especially the base game sets, so not only do old sets become more viable and especially (if done correctly) rewarding to a particular playstyle based on what the set offers, but ends up being used equally in all activities and endgame content where they normally would not shine in their current present day iteration where they are powercrept out by newer sets with each content drop. Even in HM Trifecta/leaderboard content.

Your thoughts on this as I feel as though this should be delegated on in a deep context.
P.S. I do have an idea involving the beekeeper armor set, but it needs time to cook. (If I come up with anything, I may list them below, but I make no promises. ESO is mostly on thin ice as it is when there are games like baldurs gate 3 and palworld showing game developers how its done.)

I do think old sets should be looked at but putting procs as the 1st set bonus could make powercreep go out of control for sure. A more realistic way of dealing with old sets I think is to use currently usable sets as a baseline. For instance, changing Netch's Touch to be more like Frostbite and balance Auroran's Thunder off of other relevant proc sets (such as doing a little less damage than Pillar of Nirn since it is a proc set but is a cone from your chest).