The Real Reason PvP and End Game PvE are so Niche

Galeriano2

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Hasenpfote wrote: »

ESO has a gamedesign issue, light attack weaving is mandatory to do a meaningful dps, this can by bypasses if you do heavy attack build.

Light attack weave is not mandatory to do meaningfull DPS.

I swear I remember it being counted on for a lot more than you get out of it today. Did they change it while I was away.

Case in point: The build I'm trying to emulate only gets 7% of it's total damage from LA's. At 135K, 9.5K isn't going to be missed if you swap in Velothi. Hmmm....

Yes in the past light attacks were responsible for more of the DPS than they're right now especially on magicka based characters where it could be even somwhere around 20-25% of overall DPS for people who were weaving perfectly. ZoS made plenty of changes targeted directly at lowering DPS coming from good weaving.

Things that impacted light attack DPS the most were :
- changing empower from 40% buff to light and heavy attacks into 70% buff to just heavy attacks
- putting a damage cap on light attacks so You cannot go above certain value
- changing maelstrom destro from buffing light and heavy attacks into buffing blockade itself

There are also things like velothi and oakensoul mythics and arcanist class which all reduce the need of good light attack weaving from the user.

Theist_VII

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Telos_Tim wrote: »

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Hasenpfote wrote: »

ESO has a gamedesign issue, light attack weaving is mandatory to do a meaningful dps, this can by bypasses if you do heavy attack build.

Light attack weave is not mandatory to do meaningfull DPS.

I swear I remember it being counted on for a lot more than you get out of it today. Did they change it while I was away.

Case in point: The build I'm trying to emulate only gets 7% of it's total damage from LA's. At 135K, 9.5K isn't going to be missed if you swap in Velothi. Hmmm....

You light attack weave for the increased chance to proc glyphs and for the chance to cause a status effect from the weapon itself.

Light attacks do not proc status effects. Atleast not until U42 where ZoS adds a new set that will enable that option.

That’s kind of the point.

Threads of War is going to be extremely strong next patch, especially on a MagDen.

JustLovely

Stamicka wrote: »

I've seen a few posts recently about why PvP is niche as well as posts about why trials are unwelcoming to new players. I think both of these things are related and I wanted to make a post about my thoughts on the situation.The thing that PvP and end game PvE have in common is that they are both combat oriented competitive activities. I also see a big divide within ESO's playerbase between casual and competitive players. While such a divide is hard for a game developer to deal with, I think ZOS' current approach is the worst of both worlds and in the end, players near both ends of the spectrum are unhappy with the game.

The words casual and competitive don't come close to describing the broad range of players that play ESO, so I'll do my best to make some distinctions. I acknowledge that there are players who aren't competitive at all and no matter what, PvP and end game PvE will not appeal to them. However, there are also casual players who are willing to try PvP and end game PvE and are discouraged or are otherwise unable to get into them for various reasons. At the other end of the spectrum, there are players who treat ESO as a competitive game and those that come from other competitive games and realize ESO isn't cut out for competitive gameplay. ZOS' current approach simultaneously keeps casual players from entering more competitive play, discourages current competitive players from continuing to play, and keeps existing competitive players from playing ESO to begin with. Let's look at how.

I think that there are 4 main things that competitive players look for in a game and all successful competitive games have these things. These are:

1. Community
Community has many aspects, but it mainly involves having other people near the same skill level to play with and against. In other words, are there enough players playing and engaging with the game? Is there a healthy stream of new players? Is there discussion and ways for players to get involved outside of the game (this would include Twitch and Youtube communities).

2. Skill Expression
Skill expression is about whether or not the players actions and time spent on the game change the outcome of the game. Does playing the game more allow a player to improve? Can players feel or see their skills improve? Is whether or not a player succeeds a matter of skill?

3. Low Barriers to Entry
Low barriers to entry is about whether or not new or returning players can get back into the game or an activity within the game with relative ease. Is there a lot of knowledge needed before a player is able to play effectively? Are there many hurdles or grinds that a player must overcome before they can get their foot in the door?

4. Reward
Reward is about what the player gets for playing and doing well at the game. Reward can be in the form of in game exclusive items, but it can also be in the form of recognition. This aspect is tied to skill expression as well because players should feel rewarded for building their skills, whether its beating a score or another player.

By looking at competitive games in this way, we see that ESO's competitive activities are not very competitive at all. In every single listed aspect, ESO fails.

Community in ESO
The end game community in ESO has drastically dwindled and this is evident wherever you look. There's less PvP and PvE activity for ESO on Twitch and Youtube. PvP campaigns hold less people than they ever have and on many servers, they do not fill up for most of the day if they fill at all. Competitive players who group queue in Battlegrounds will have to wait for long periods of time just to find a match (evidence for bad skill distribution among players in PvP). There's less activity on PvE trial leaderboards and only one or two teams completely dominates every single trial in most cases. For those apart of large ESO discord servers, those are much quieter now as well.

Out of the 4 aspects listed, Community is one of the most dangerous ones to lack. When community declines, competitive players lose friends and people to compete against. This causes a cyclical mass exodus of players. Eventually, a mass exodus of players makes it harder for new players to get their foot in the door. There will be fewer experienced players to teach the new ones and cliques will form in the more experienced players that are left which can create a very exclusive and unwelcoming environment for new players.

Skill Expression in ESO
Skill plays a minor role in ESO and ZOS has explicitly stated that it wants to close the skill gap. There have been constant changes to the core mechanics that many players have become familiar with. Light attack weaving, animation canceling, how blocking and barswapping function, projectile travel times, and many more aspects of the game have been changed in an attempt to shrink the skill gap. Additionally, the addition of unbalanced sets and mythics decreases the role of skill by making builds more important. In ESO, it is not always true that the more skilled player wins nor is it even true that a player can always see their skills improve. In many cases, players don't know whether their build or their skill is the issue.

ESO's skill expression issue also affects all of the types of players I listed above. Newer and more casual players will have a hard time identifying areas of improvement or even seeing their improvement since the build they are in plays a bigger role than the skill that they have. Existing competitive players don't like feeling like their time spent building skills was a waste. This is especially true if they learned to master something like bash or light attack weaving only to see it nerfed. Other players from competitive games won't even be interested in trying ESO because they will see that it is not an environment that rewards skill and time spent.

Barriers to Entry in ESO
The ideal competitive game would have low barriers to entry. The barriers to entry in ESO are very high. There are a lot of moving parts to ESO's barrier to entry issue. One barrier to entry is of course is level/CP. I think level differences are to be expected in MMORPGs and ESO at least provides a No CP option for PvP. Low level in PvE is also an issue for the highest end of PvE content, but there is still veteran content that can be completed by lower CP players. The level barrier is more minor compared to ESO's other big barriers. Perhaps ESO's biggest barrier to entry is the knowledge required to even get your foot in the door in PvP and in PvE trials. This is mainly in the form of knowing how to build a character. There are 100s of sets in ESO. Many of the sets are completely useless and they even gimp and trap inexperienced players without them even knowing. Some choice is a good thing, too much choice is a bad thing. A lot of knowledge is needed to make an effective build on your own and sort through the useless sets. The game also does not do a good job of teaching the important core mechanics such as blocking, breaking free, light weaving, and rolling at the right time. One big reason for this is that the difficulty difference between Normal vs Veteran and Veteran vs Veteran HM is far too vast. In normal and overland content players will not understand the importance of block, roll, and break free because there is no reason to do so. While information about these mechanics can be found within the game, I still don't think the information is easy to come across nor is the importance emphasized. Lastly, once a player figures out how to build a character, there are often many things that must be completed to obtain the sets. I think ZOS has done a good job with making sets easier to obtain for PvE, but many good PvP sets require a PvE grind. There's also the problem of mythics which sometimes requires tedious and time consuming lead grinding.

All and all, once again, all types of potential players are negatively affected by ESO's high barrier to entry. The grind may discourage potential first time players as well as returning players from even trying PvP or PvE to see if they like it. This keeps the communities small.

Reward in ESO
This post is already becoming quite long so I will keep this part short. Reward in ESO has been discussed many times on this forum. The game simply isn't very rewarding and rewards definitely don't seem to scale with the difficulty of an achievement. In PvP, AP isn't all that useful, many of the sets from rewards of the worthy aren't all that useful, and other reward types have lost their value (such as Alliance Rank) due to ZOS' actions. In PvE, leaderboards are often broken, there's not much built in recognition for high achieving players within the game, and the in game rewards for difficult achievements can also be lackluster.

If the rewards aren't good, fewer people will be interested in even getting their foot in the door (there's no reason to). Competitive players won't feel like difficult achievements are worth achieving. In many cases, the exclusivity of a difficult achievement is a reward, but this loses value with power creeps and content nerfs. In the end, bad reward structure leads to less participation and activity from all types of players.

ZOS' Approach
ESO is lacking in all 4 of the outlined areas, and each area impacts most types of existing players and all types of potential players. I think ESO realizes some of these issues within the game and they have made efforts to address it. Unfortunately, I think the developers attempts to fix these issues end up worsening each outlined aspect in every way, further making every type of player unhappy. There are many examples of ZOS using the approach I am about to discuss, but I want to focus on 2 of the most notorious examples: procs and Oakensoul.

Procs
Proc sets have been an issue in ESO for many years now. Since PvP is an environment where lining up burst is essential to being successful, I think the introduction of proc sets was a way to shrink the gap between experienced players and newer players. Using sets, items, or nerfing mechanics is a consistent theme in ZOS' approach to fix ESO's issues, but every time this sort of approach only ends up upsetting every type of player. While it is true that proc sets can allow less experienced players to kill more experienced players, the end result is that every player will still be unhappy. At the start of the first procalypse, the sets were hard to obtain (barrier to entry issue). Viper was the most effective proc and it could only be obtained through trials or by paying millions of gold. Eventually proc sets could be obtained through dungeons or arenas, but this can still be a barrier for new players. Proc sets also negatively impact both skill expression and reward since using these sets can overshadow skill differences and getting kills may feel less rewarding. Lastly, community is negatively impacted since many players become frustrated with proc metas and quit the game. If we look at procs by types of players, newer players may be unable to even obtain these sets. Newer players that can obtain these sets may have trouble identifying areas where they need to improve since proc sets do some of the work for the player. Additionally, competitive players using proc sets can more effectively use them, creating a very poor experience for the newer players. Competitive players who don't use proc sets will be at a disadvantage against those that do and may either quit or adapt to the meta. In the end everyone is wearing proc sets, new players either can't obtain these sets or die more easily than ever. Competitive players get upset with the lack of skill expression or feeling of reward for getting kills. Potential players will see that ESO does not have a healthy PvP environment. the end result is that everybody lost and PvP is worse for it. This is the type of approach that ZOS should absolutely AVOID for addressing these issues.

Oakensoul
Oakensoul is a more recent attempt to fix some of ESO's issues, but in many ways it suffered from a few of the same issues as procs. Oakensoul itself had a barrier to entry issue since it is a mythic that required annoying leads and it was locked behind a chapter's paywall. While it made PvE easier for some, it was eventually nerfed, leaving some of those players alienated and discouraged from PvEing again because the mythic didn't do anything to help those players build needed skills. In PvP, Oakensoul had a similar effect to procs, where it helped some players get kills more easily, but ultimately more experienced players utilized the mythic better. In the end, all types of players were left unhappy. Once again, the approach used was to introduce a skill gap shrinking item to fix issues which never works.

Conclusion/Solution
In order for both PvP and end game PvE to grow and succeed, Community, Skill Expression, Barriers to Entry, and Reward need to be kept in mind. It is time to stop introducing new item sets or nerfing core mechanics since this approach ends up upsetting every type of player as outlined. Instead, Skill Expression should be embraced, barriers to entry need to be lowered, rewards need to be increased, and communities should be free to grow and not alienated. Additionally, the knowledge gap should be addressed by either reducing the number of sets, or adding more opportunities for players to learn core mechanics throughout their time playing. With the current approach of introducing item set bandaids or nerfing players to be on the same level, the number of players engaging in these activities will continue to decline. A more involved and complete approach is needed, otherwise these activities will remain niche or die out.

I prefer Nefas' explanation regarding U35. (google it. it has adult language in the video and will result in censor action if posted, even though ESO is rated M for mature)




And how can we say Cyrodiil is a niche activity when the reason more people don't participate are population caps so low nobody can get into the zone between 15:00-24:00 EST ?

Galeriano2

Telos_Tim wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Telos_Tim wrote: »

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Hasenpfote wrote: »

ESO has a gamedesign issue, light attack weaving is mandatory to do a meaningful dps, this can by bypasses if you do heavy attack build.

Light attack weave is not mandatory to do meaningfull DPS.

I swear I remember it being counted on for a lot more than you get out of it today. Did they change it while I was away.

Case in point: The build I'm trying to emulate only gets 7% of it's total damage from LA's. At 135K, 9.5K isn't going to be missed if you swap in Velothi. Hmmm....

You light attack weave for the increased chance to proc glyphs and for the chance to cause a status effect from the weapon itself.

Light attacks do not proc status effects. Atleast not until U42 where ZoS adds a new set that will enable that option.

That’s kind of the point.

Threads of War is going to be extremely strong next patch, especially on a MagDen.

I wouldn't go as far as calling it extremly strong. It will be kind of weaker version of relequen. Right now top wardens during their parses deal around 10-11k dmg on average with their chilled status effect so threads of war would add around 10-11k DPS in best case scenario which is what relequen adds when relequen requires less perfect light attack weaving and have better stat bonuses.

Stamicka

JustLovely wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

I've seen a few posts recently about why PvP is niche as well as posts about why trials are unwelcoming to new players. I think both of these things are related and I wanted to make a post about my thoughts on the situation.The thing that PvP and end game PvE have in common is that they are both combat oriented competitive activities. I also see a big divide within ESO's playerbase between casual and competitive players. While such a divide is hard for a game developer to deal with, I think ZOS' current approach is the worst of both worlds and in the end, players near both ends of the spectrum are unhappy with the game.

The words casual and competitive don't come close to describing the broad range of players that play ESO, so I'll do my best to make some distinctions. I acknowledge that there are players who aren't competitive at all and no matter what, PvP and end game PvE will not appeal to them. However, there are also casual players who are willing to try PvP and end game PvE and are discouraged or are otherwise unable to get into them for various reasons. At the other end of the spectrum, there are players who treat ESO as a competitive game and those that come from other competitive games and realize ESO isn't cut out for competitive gameplay. ZOS' current approach simultaneously keeps casual players from entering more competitive play, discourages current competitive players from continuing to play, and keeps existing competitive players from playing ESO to begin with. Let's look at how.

I think that there are 4 main things that competitive players look for in a game and all successful competitive games have these things. These are:

1. Community
Community has many aspects, but it mainly involves having other people near the same skill level to play with and against. In other words, are there enough players playing and engaging with the game? Is there a healthy stream of new players? Is there discussion and ways for players to get involved outside of the game (this would include Twitch and Youtube communities).

2. Skill Expression
Skill expression is about whether or not the players actions and time spent on the game change the outcome of the game. Does playing the game more allow a player to improve? Can players feel or see their skills improve? Is whether or not a player succeeds a matter of skill?

3. Low Barriers to Entry
Low barriers to entry is about whether or not new or returning players can get back into the game or an activity within the game with relative ease. Is there a lot of knowledge needed before a player is able to play effectively? Are there many hurdles or grinds that a player must overcome before they can get their foot in the door?

4. Reward
Reward is about what the player gets for playing and doing well at the game. Reward can be in the form of in game exclusive items, but it can also be in the form of recognition. This aspect is tied to skill expression as well because players should feel rewarded for building their skills, whether its beating a score or another player.

By looking at competitive games in this way, we see that ESO's competitive activities are not very competitive at all. In every single listed aspect, ESO fails.

Community in ESO
The end game community in ESO has drastically dwindled and this is evident wherever you look. There's less PvP and PvE activity for ESO on Twitch and Youtube. PvP campaigns hold less people than they ever have and on many servers, they do not fill up for most of the day if they fill at all. Competitive players who group queue in Battlegrounds will have to wait for long periods of time just to find a match (evidence for bad skill distribution among players in PvP). There's less activity on PvE trial leaderboards and only one or two teams completely dominates every single trial in most cases. For those apart of large ESO discord servers, those are much quieter now as well.

Out of the 4 aspects listed, Community is one of the most dangerous ones to lack. When community declines, competitive players lose friends and people to compete against. This causes a cyclical mass exodus of players. Eventually, a mass exodus of players makes it harder for new players to get their foot in the door. There will be fewer experienced players to teach the new ones and cliques will form in the more experienced players that are left which can create a very exclusive and unwelcoming environment for new players.

Skill Expression in ESO
Skill plays a minor role in ESO and ZOS has explicitly stated that it wants to close the skill gap. There have been constant changes to the core mechanics that many players have become familiar with. Light attack weaving, animation canceling, how blocking and barswapping function, projectile travel times, and many more aspects of the game have been changed in an attempt to shrink the skill gap. Additionally, the addition of unbalanced sets and mythics decreases the role of skill by making builds more important. In ESO, it is not always true that the more skilled player wins nor is it even true that a player can always see their skills improve. In many cases, players don't know whether their build or their skill is the issue.

ESO's skill expression issue also affects all of the types of players I listed above. Newer and more casual players will have a hard time identifying areas of improvement or even seeing their improvement since the build they are in plays a bigger role than the skill that they have. Existing competitive players don't like feeling like their time spent building skills was a waste. This is especially true if they learned to master something like bash or light attack weaving only to see it nerfed. Other players from competitive games won't even be interested in trying ESO because they will see that it is not an environment that rewards skill and time spent.

Barriers to Entry in ESO
The ideal competitive game would have low barriers to entry. The barriers to entry in ESO are very high. There are a lot of moving parts to ESO's barrier to entry issue. One barrier to entry is of course is level/CP. I think level differences are to be expected in MMORPGs and ESO at least provides a No CP option for PvP. Low level in PvE is also an issue for the highest end of PvE content, but there is still veteran content that can be completed by lower CP players. The level barrier is more minor compared to ESO's other big barriers. Perhaps ESO's biggest barrier to entry is the knowledge required to even get your foot in the door in PvP and in PvE trials. This is mainly in the form of knowing how to build a character. There are 100s of sets in ESO. Many of the sets are completely useless and they even gimp and trap inexperienced players without them even knowing. Some choice is a good thing, too much choice is a bad thing. A lot of knowledge is needed to make an effective build on your own and sort through the useless sets. The game also does not do a good job of teaching the important core mechanics such as blocking, breaking free, light weaving, and rolling at the right time. One big reason for this is that the difficulty difference between Normal vs Veteran and Veteran vs Veteran HM is far too vast. In normal and overland content players will not understand the importance of block, roll, and break free because there is no reason to do so. While information about these mechanics can be found within the game, I still don't think the information is easy to come across nor is the importance emphasized. Lastly, once a player figures out how to build a character, there are often many things that must be completed to obtain the sets. I think ZOS has done a good job with making sets easier to obtain for PvE, but many good PvP sets require a PvE grind. There's also the problem of mythics which sometimes requires tedious and time consuming lead grinding.

All and all, once again, all types of potential players are negatively affected by ESO's high barrier to entry. The grind may discourage potential first time players as well as returning players from even trying PvP or PvE to see if they like it. This keeps the communities small.

Reward in ESO
This post is already becoming quite long so I will keep this part short. Reward in ESO has been discussed many times on this forum. The game simply isn't very rewarding and rewards definitely don't seem to scale with the difficulty of an achievement. In PvP, AP isn't all that useful, many of the sets from rewards of the worthy aren't all that useful, and other reward types have lost their value (such as Alliance Rank) due to ZOS' actions. In PvE, leaderboards are often broken, there's not much built in recognition for high achieving players within the game, and the in game rewards for difficult achievements can also be lackluster.

If the rewards aren't good, fewer people will be interested in even getting their foot in the door (there's no reason to). Competitive players won't feel like difficult achievements are worth achieving. In many cases, the exclusivity of a difficult achievement is a reward, but this loses value with power creeps and content nerfs. In the end, bad reward structure leads to less participation and activity from all types of players.

ZOS' Approach
ESO is lacking in all 4 of the outlined areas, and each area impacts most types of existing players and all types of potential players. I think ESO realizes some of these issues within the game and they have made efforts to address it. Unfortunately, I think the developers attempts to fix these issues end up worsening each outlined aspect in every way, further making every type of player unhappy. There are many examples of ZOS using the approach I am about to discuss, but I want to focus on 2 of the most notorious examples: procs and Oakensoul.

Procs
Proc sets have been an issue in ESO for many years now. Since PvP is an environment where lining up burst is essential to being successful, I think the introduction of proc sets was a way to shrink the gap between experienced players and newer players. Using sets, items, or nerfing mechanics is a consistent theme in ZOS' approach to fix ESO's issues, but every time this sort of approach only ends up upsetting every type of player. While it is true that proc sets can allow less experienced players to kill more experienced players, the end result is that every player will still be unhappy. At the start of the first procalypse, the sets were hard to obtain (barrier to entry issue). Viper was the most effective proc and it could only be obtained through trials or by paying millions of gold. Eventually proc sets could be obtained through dungeons or arenas, but this can still be a barrier for new players. Proc sets also negatively impact both skill expression and reward since using these sets can overshadow skill differences and getting kills may feel less rewarding. Lastly, community is negatively impacted since many players become frustrated with proc metas and quit the game. If we look at procs by types of players, newer players may be unable to even obtain these sets. Newer players that can obtain these sets may have trouble identifying areas where they need to improve since proc sets do some of the work for the player. Additionally, competitive players using proc sets can more effectively use them, creating a very poor experience for the newer players. Competitive players who don't use proc sets will be at a disadvantage against those that do and may either quit or adapt to the meta. In the end everyone is wearing proc sets, new players either can't obtain these sets or die more easily than ever. Competitive players get upset with the lack of skill expression or feeling of reward for getting kills. Potential players will see that ESO does not have a healthy PvP environment. the end result is that everybody lost and PvP is worse for it. This is the type of approach that ZOS should absolutely AVOID for addressing these issues.

Oakensoul
Oakensoul is a more recent attempt to fix some of ESO's issues, but in many ways it suffered from a few of the same issues as procs. Oakensoul itself had a barrier to entry issue since it is a mythic that required annoying leads and it was locked behind a chapter's paywall. While it made PvE easier for some, it was eventually nerfed, leaving some of those players alienated and discouraged from PvEing again because the mythic didn't do anything to help those players build needed skills. In PvP, Oakensoul had a similar effect to procs, where it helped some players get kills more easily, but ultimately more experienced players utilized the mythic better. In the end, all types of players were left unhappy. Once again, the approach used was to introduce a skill gap shrinking item to fix issues which never works.

Conclusion/Solution
In order for both PvP and end game PvE to grow and succeed, Community, Skill Expression, Barriers to Entry, and Reward need to be kept in mind. It is time to stop introducing new item sets or nerfing core mechanics since this approach ends up upsetting every type of player as outlined. Instead, Skill Expression should be embraced, barriers to entry need to be lowered, rewards need to be increased, and communities should be free to grow and not alienated. Additionally, the knowledge gap should be addressed by either reducing the number of sets, or adding more opportunities for players to learn core mechanics throughout their time playing. With the current approach of introducing item set bandaids or nerfing players to be on the same level, the number of players engaging in these activities will continue to decline. A more involved and complete approach is needed, otherwise these activities will remain niche or die out.

I prefer Nefas' explanation regarding U35. (google it. it has adult language in the video and will result in censor action if posted, even though ESO is rated M for mature)




And how can we say Cyrodiil is a niche activity when the reason more people don't participate are population caps so low nobody can get into the zone between 15:00-24:00 EST ?

Cyrodiil, especially now holds very few people. The exact numbers aren’t known, but it may even be less than 300 people total. The main campaign isn’t full for the majority of the day on most servers. That’s pretty niche for a game with as many daily players as ESO. Outside of Cyrodiil, PvP activities have very low activity as well. Look at IC’s population throughout the day or try to get a group BG queue.

BlueRaven

JustLovely wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

I've seen a few posts recently about why PvP is niche as well as posts about why trials are unwelcoming to new players. I think both of these things are related and I wanted to make a post about my thoughts on the situation.The thing that PvP and end game PvE have in common is that they are both combat oriented competitive activities. I also see a big divide within ESO's playerbase between casual and competitive players. While such a divide is hard for a game developer to deal with, I think ZOS' current approach is the worst of both worlds and in the end, players near both ends of the spectrum are unhappy with the game.

The words casual and competitive don't come close to describing the broad range of players that play ESO, so I'll do my best to make some distinctions. I acknowledge that there are players who aren't competitive at all and no matter what, PvP and end game PvE will not appeal to them. However, there are also casual players who are willing to try PvP and end game PvE and are discouraged or are otherwise unable to get into them for various reasons. At the other end of the spectrum, there are players who treat ESO as a competitive game and those that come from other competitive games and realize ESO isn't cut out for competitive gameplay. ZOS' current approach simultaneously keeps casual players from entering more competitive play, discourages current competitive players from continuing to play, and keeps existing competitive players from playing ESO to begin with. Let's look at how.

I think that there are 4 main things that competitive players look for in a game and all successful competitive games have these things. These are:

1. Community
Community has many aspects, but it mainly involves having other people near the same skill level to play with and against. In other words, are there enough players playing and engaging with the game? Is there a healthy stream of new players? Is there discussion and ways for players to get involved outside of the game (this would include Twitch and Youtube communities).

2. Skill Expression
Skill expression is about whether or not the players actions and time spent on the game change the outcome of the game. Does playing the game more allow a player to improve? Can players feel or see their skills improve? Is whether or not a player succeeds a matter of skill?

3. Low Barriers to Entry
Low barriers to entry is about whether or not new or returning players can get back into the game or an activity within the game with relative ease. Is there a lot of knowledge needed before a player is able to play effectively? Are there many hurdles or grinds that a player must overcome before they can get their foot in the door?

4. Reward
Reward is about what the player gets for playing and doing well at the game. Reward can be in the form of in game exclusive items, but it can also be in the form of recognition. This aspect is tied to skill expression as well because players should feel rewarded for building their skills, whether its beating a score or another player.

By looking at competitive games in this way, we see that ESO's competitive activities are not very competitive at all. In every single listed aspect, ESO fails.

Community in ESO
The end game community in ESO has drastically dwindled and this is evident wherever you look. There's less PvP and PvE activity for ESO on Twitch and Youtube. PvP campaigns hold less people than they ever have and on many servers, they do not fill up for most of the day if they fill at all. Competitive players who group queue in Battlegrounds will have to wait for long periods of time just to find a match (evidence for bad skill distribution among players in PvP). There's less activity on PvE trial leaderboards and only one or two teams completely dominates every single trial in most cases. For those apart of large ESO discord servers, those are much quieter now as well.

Out of the 4 aspects listed, Community is one of the most dangerous ones to lack. When community declines, competitive players lose friends and people to compete against. This causes a cyclical mass exodus of players. Eventually, a mass exodus of players makes it harder for new players to get their foot in the door. There will be fewer experienced players to teach the new ones and cliques will form in the more experienced players that are left which can create a very exclusive and unwelcoming environment for new players.

Skill Expression in ESO
Skill plays a minor role in ESO and ZOS has explicitly stated that it wants to close the skill gap. There have been constant changes to the core mechanics that many players have become familiar with. Light attack weaving, animation canceling, how blocking and barswapping function, projectile travel times, and many more aspects of the game have been changed in an attempt to shrink the skill gap. Additionally, the addition of unbalanced sets and mythics decreases the role of skill by making builds more important. In ESO, it is not always true that the more skilled player wins nor is it even true that a player can always see their skills improve. In many cases, players don't know whether their build or their skill is the issue.

ESO's skill expression issue also affects all of the types of players I listed above. Newer and more casual players will have a hard time identifying areas of improvement or even seeing their improvement since the build they are in plays a bigger role than the skill that they have. Existing competitive players don't like feeling like their time spent building skills was a waste. This is especially true if they learned to master something like bash or light attack weaving only to see it nerfed. Other players from competitive games won't even be interested in trying ESO because they will see that it is not an environment that rewards skill and time spent.

Barriers to Entry in ESO
The ideal competitive game would have low barriers to entry. The barriers to entry in ESO are very high. There are a lot of moving parts to ESO's barrier to entry issue. One barrier to entry is of course is level/CP. I think level differences are to be expected in MMORPGs and ESO at least provides a No CP option for PvP. Low level in PvE is also an issue for the highest end of PvE content, but there is still veteran content that can be completed by lower CP players. The level barrier is more minor compared to ESO's other big barriers. Perhaps ESO's biggest barrier to entry is the knowledge required to even get your foot in the door in PvP and in PvE trials. This is mainly in the form of knowing how to build a character. There are 100s of sets in ESO. Many of the sets are completely useless and they even gimp and trap inexperienced players without them even knowing. Some choice is a good thing, too much choice is a bad thing. A lot of knowledge is needed to make an effective build on your own and sort through the useless sets. The game also does not do a good job of teaching the important core mechanics such as blocking, breaking free, light weaving, and rolling at the right time. One big reason for this is that the difficulty difference between Normal vs Veteran and Veteran vs Veteran HM is far too vast. In normal and overland content players will not understand the importance of block, roll, and break free because there is no reason to do so. While information about these mechanics can be found within the game, I still don't think the information is easy to come across nor is the importance emphasized. Lastly, once a player figures out how to build a character, there are often many things that must be completed to obtain the sets. I think ZOS has done a good job with making sets easier to obtain for PvE, but many good PvP sets require a PvE grind. There's also the problem of mythics which sometimes requires tedious and time consuming lead grinding.

All and all, once again, all types of potential players are negatively affected by ESO's high barrier to entry. The grind may discourage potential first time players as well as returning players from even trying PvP or PvE to see if they like it. This keeps the communities small.

Reward in ESO
This post is already becoming quite long so I will keep this part short. Reward in ESO has been discussed many times on this forum. The game simply isn't very rewarding and rewards definitely don't seem to scale with the difficulty of an achievement. In PvP, AP isn't all that useful, many of the sets from rewards of the worthy aren't all that useful, and other reward types have lost their value (such as Alliance Rank) due to ZOS' actions. In PvE, leaderboards are often broken, there's not much built in recognition for high achieving players within the game, and the in game rewards for difficult achievements can also be lackluster.

If the rewards aren't good, fewer people will be interested in even getting their foot in the door (there's no reason to). Competitive players won't feel like difficult achievements are worth achieving. In many cases, the exclusivity of a difficult achievement is a reward, but this loses value with power creeps and content nerfs. In the end, bad reward structure leads to less participation and activity from all types of players.

ZOS' Approach
ESO is lacking in all 4 of the outlined areas, and each area impacts most types of existing players and all types of potential players. I think ESO realizes some of these issues within the game and they have made efforts to address it. Unfortunately, I think the developers attempts to fix these issues end up worsening each outlined aspect in every way, further making every type of player unhappy. There are many examples of ZOS using the approach I am about to discuss, but I want to focus on 2 of the most notorious examples: procs and Oakensoul.

Procs
Proc sets have been an issue in ESO for many years now. Since PvP is an environment where lining up burst is essential to being successful, I think the introduction of proc sets was a way to shrink the gap between experienced players and newer players. Using sets, items, or nerfing mechanics is a consistent theme in ZOS' approach to fix ESO's issues, but every time this sort of approach only ends up upsetting every type of player. While it is true that proc sets can allow less experienced players to kill more experienced players, the end result is that every player will still be unhappy. At the start of the first procalypse, the sets were hard to obtain (barrier to entry issue). Viper was the most effective proc and it could only be obtained through trials or by paying millions of gold. Eventually proc sets could be obtained through dungeons or arenas, but this can still be a barrier for new players. Proc sets also negatively impact both skill expression and reward since using these sets can overshadow skill differences and getting kills may feel less rewarding. Lastly, community is negatively impacted since many players become frustrated with proc metas and quit the game. If we look at procs by types of players, newer players may be unable to even obtain these sets. Newer players that can obtain these sets may have trouble identifying areas where they need to improve since proc sets do some of the work for the player. Additionally, competitive players using proc sets can more effectively use them, creating a very poor experience for the newer players. Competitive players who don't use proc sets will be at a disadvantage against those that do and may either quit or adapt to the meta. In the end everyone is wearing proc sets, new players either can't obtain these sets or die more easily than ever. Competitive players get upset with the lack of skill expression or feeling of reward for getting kills. Potential players will see that ESO does not have a healthy PvP environment. the end result is that everybody lost and PvP is worse for it. This is the type of approach that ZOS should absolutely AVOID for addressing these issues.

Oakensoul
Oakensoul is a more recent attempt to fix some of ESO's issues, but in many ways it suffered from a few of the same issues as procs. Oakensoul itself had a barrier to entry issue since it is a mythic that required annoying leads and it was locked behind a chapter's paywall. While it made PvE easier for some, it was eventually nerfed, leaving some of those players alienated and discouraged from PvEing again because the mythic didn't do anything to help those players build needed skills. In PvP, Oakensoul had a similar effect to procs, where it helped some players get kills more easily, but ultimately more experienced players utilized the mythic better. In the end, all types of players were left unhappy. Once again, the approach used was to introduce a skill gap shrinking item to fix issues which never works.

Conclusion/Solution
In order for both PvP and end game PvE to grow and succeed, Community, Skill Expression, Barriers to Entry, and Reward need to be kept in mind. It is time to stop introducing new item sets or nerfing core mechanics since this approach ends up upsetting every type of player as outlined. Instead, Skill Expression should be embraced, barriers to entry need to be lowered, rewards need to be increased, and communities should be free to grow and not alienated. Additionally, the knowledge gap should be addressed by either reducing the number of sets, or adding more opportunities for players to learn core mechanics throughout their time playing. With the current approach of introducing item set bandaids or nerfing players to be on the same level, the number of players engaging in these activities will continue to decline. A more involved and complete approach is needed, otherwise these activities will remain niche or die out.

I prefer Nefas' explanation regarding U35. (google it. it has adult language in the video and will result in censor action if posted, even though ESO is rated M for mature)




And how can we say Cyrodiil is a niche activity when the reason more people don't participate are population caps so low nobody can get into the zone between 15:00-24:00 EST ?

I don’t personally put a lot of stock in Nefas or other content creators who were railing against the U35 changes. Those changes were done for a very specific reason, to decrease the delta between top end and common players. But the result still left a distance between the two as wide as the Grand Canyon and zos actions against lower end builds (such as HA builds) since U35 have only increased the difference once again, not lessened it.

The chief reason why PvP and trials are losing players is simple player churn with few new players stepping up to replace the old. This is due to the difficulty and just opaque nature of the combat in eso.

And zos is left in a bind…

They have a huge gap in the player combat abilities. And;

Any attempts to lessen that gap is railed against by the upper end player base. Zos cannot lower the ceiling nor raise the floor without significant pushback by content creators and upper tier player forum posters.

And all of this was foreseen.

When they nerfed tank damage, some forum members pointed out that this would mean less tanks in pve. But the forum majority scoffed at it. Result: Tank shortages.

When they nerfed lower end builds like HA oak builds it was said you will lose pve trial members. The forum majority scoffed at it. Result: Less trial players.

PvP has its own issues, such as too many untouchable “god level” players, insta-kill burst damage, impenetrable bubble groups, and general loss of “epic” fights due to population caps.
This all results in what feels like small scale skirmishes against unkillable players, like I said in another post, this gets old fast.

colossalvoids

BlueRaven wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

I've seen a few posts recently about why PvP is niche as well as posts about why trials are unwelcoming to new players. I think both of these things are related and I wanted to make a post about my thoughts on the situation.The thing that PvP and end game PvE have in common is that they are both combat oriented competitive activities. I also see a big divide within ESO's playerbase between casual and competitive players. While such a divide is hard for a game developer to deal with, I think ZOS' current approach is the worst of both worlds and in the end, players near both ends of the spectrum are unhappy with the game.

The words casual and competitive don't come close to describing the broad range of players that play ESO, so I'll do my best to make some distinctions. I acknowledge that there are players who aren't competitive at all and no matter what, PvP and end game PvE will not appeal to them. However, there are also casual players who are willing to try PvP and end game PvE and are discouraged or are otherwise unable to get into them for various reasons. At the other end of the spectrum, there are players who treat ESO as a competitive game and those that come from other competitive games and realize ESO isn't cut out for competitive gameplay. ZOS' current approach simultaneously keeps casual players from entering more competitive play, discourages current competitive players from continuing to play, and keeps existing competitive players from playing ESO to begin with. Let's look at how.

I think that there are 4 main things that competitive players look for in a game and all successful competitive games have these things. These are:

1. Community
Community has many aspects, but it mainly involves having other people near the same skill level to play with and against. In other words, are there enough players playing and engaging with the game? Is there a healthy stream of new players? Is there discussion and ways for players to get involved outside of the game (this would include Twitch and Youtube communities).

2. Skill Expression
Skill expression is about whether or not the players actions and time spent on the game change the outcome of the game. Does playing the game more allow a player to improve? Can players feel or see their skills improve? Is whether or not a player succeeds a matter of skill?

3. Low Barriers to Entry
Low barriers to entry is about whether or not new or returning players can get back into the game or an activity within the game with relative ease. Is there a lot of knowledge needed before a player is able to play effectively? Are there many hurdles or grinds that a player must overcome before they can get their foot in the door?

4. Reward
Reward is about what the player gets for playing and doing well at the game. Reward can be in the form of in game exclusive items, but it can also be in the form of recognition. This aspect is tied to skill expression as well because players should feel rewarded for building their skills, whether its beating a score or another player.

By looking at competitive games in this way, we see that ESO's competitive activities are not very competitive at all. In every single listed aspect, ESO fails.

Community in ESO
The end game community in ESO has drastically dwindled and this is evident wherever you look. There's less PvP and PvE activity for ESO on Twitch and Youtube. PvP campaigns hold less people than they ever have and on many servers, they do not fill up for most of the day if they fill at all. Competitive players who group queue in Battlegrounds will have to wait for long periods of time just to find a match (evidence for bad skill distribution among players in PvP). There's less activity on PvE trial leaderboards and only one or two teams completely dominates every single trial in most cases. For those apart of large ESO discord servers, those are much quieter now as well.

Out of the 4 aspects listed, Community is one of the most dangerous ones to lack. When community declines, competitive players lose friends and people to compete against. This causes a cyclical mass exodus of players. Eventually, a mass exodus of players makes it harder for new players to get their foot in the door. There will be fewer experienced players to teach the new ones and cliques will form in the more experienced players that are left which can create a very exclusive and unwelcoming environment for new players.

Skill Expression in ESO
Skill plays a minor role in ESO and ZOS has explicitly stated that it wants to close the skill gap. There have been constant changes to the core mechanics that many players have become familiar with. Light attack weaving, animation canceling, how blocking and barswapping function, projectile travel times, and many more aspects of the game have been changed in an attempt to shrink the skill gap. Additionally, the addition of unbalanced sets and mythics decreases the role of skill by making builds more important. In ESO, it is not always true that the more skilled player wins nor is it even true that a player can always see their skills improve. In many cases, players don't know whether their build or their skill is the issue.

ESO's skill expression issue also affects all of the types of players I listed above. Newer and more casual players will have a hard time identifying areas of improvement or even seeing their improvement since the build they are in plays a bigger role than the skill that they have. Existing competitive players don't like feeling like their time spent building skills was a waste. This is especially true if they learned to master something like bash or light attack weaving only to see it nerfed. Other players from competitive games won't even be interested in trying ESO because they will see that it is not an environment that rewards skill and time spent.

Barriers to Entry in ESO
The ideal competitive game would have low barriers to entry. The barriers to entry in ESO are very high. There are a lot of moving parts to ESO's barrier to entry issue. One barrier to entry is of course is level/CP. I think level differences are to be expected in MMORPGs and ESO at least provides a No CP option for PvP. Low level in PvE is also an issue for the highest end of PvE content, but there is still veteran content that can be completed by lower CP players. The level barrier is more minor compared to ESO's other big barriers. Perhaps ESO's biggest barrier to entry is the knowledge required to even get your foot in the door in PvP and in PvE trials. This is mainly in the form of knowing how to build a character. There are 100s of sets in ESO. Many of the sets are completely useless and they even gimp and trap inexperienced players without them even knowing. Some choice is a good thing, too much choice is a bad thing. A lot of knowledge is needed to make an effective build on your own and sort through the useless sets. The game also does not do a good job of teaching the important core mechanics such as blocking, breaking free, light weaving, and rolling at the right time. One big reason for this is that the difficulty difference between Normal vs Veteran and Veteran vs Veteran HM is far too vast. In normal and overland content players will not understand the importance of block, roll, and break free because there is no reason to do so. While information about these mechanics can be found within the game, I still don't think the information is easy to come across nor is the importance emphasized. Lastly, once a player figures out how to build a character, there are often many things that must be completed to obtain the sets. I think ZOS has done a good job with making sets easier to obtain for PvE, but many good PvP sets require a PvE grind. There's also the problem of mythics which sometimes requires tedious and time consuming lead grinding.

All and all, once again, all types of potential players are negatively affected by ESO's high barrier to entry. The grind may discourage potential first time players as well as returning players from even trying PvP or PvE to see if they like it. This keeps the communities small.

Reward in ESO
This post is already becoming quite long so I will keep this part short. Reward in ESO has been discussed many times on this forum. The game simply isn't very rewarding and rewards definitely don't seem to scale with the difficulty of an achievement. In PvP, AP isn't all that useful, many of the sets from rewards of the worthy aren't all that useful, and other reward types have lost their value (such as Alliance Rank) due to ZOS' actions. In PvE, leaderboards are often broken, there's not much built in recognition for high achieving players within the game, and the in game rewards for difficult achievements can also be lackluster.

If the rewards aren't good, fewer people will be interested in even getting their foot in the door (there's no reason to). Competitive players won't feel like difficult achievements are worth achieving. In many cases, the exclusivity of a difficult achievement is a reward, but this loses value with power creeps and content nerfs. In the end, bad reward structure leads to less participation and activity from all types of players.

ZOS' Approach
ESO is lacking in all 4 of the outlined areas, and each area impacts most types of existing players and all types of potential players. I think ESO realizes some of these issues within the game and they have made efforts to address it. Unfortunately, I think the developers attempts to fix these issues end up worsening each outlined aspect in every way, further making every type of player unhappy. There are many examples of ZOS using the approach I am about to discuss, but I want to focus on 2 of the most notorious examples: procs and Oakensoul.

Procs
Proc sets have been an issue in ESO for many years now. Since PvP is an environment where lining up burst is essential to being successful, I think the introduction of proc sets was a way to shrink the gap between experienced players and newer players. Using sets, items, or nerfing mechanics is a consistent theme in ZOS' approach to fix ESO's issues, but every time this sort of approach only ends up upsetting every type of player. While it is true that proc sets can allow less experienced players to kill more experienced players, the end result is that every player will still be unhappy. At the start of the first procalypse, the sets were hard to obtain (barrier to entry issue). Viper was the most effective proc and it could only be obtained through trials or by paying millions of gold. Eventually proc sets could be obtained through dungeons or arenas, but this can still be a barrier for new players. Proc sets also negatively impact both skill expression and reward since using these sets can overshadow skill differences and getting kills may feel less rewarding. Lastly, community is negatively impacted since many players become frustrated with proc metas and quit the game. If we look at procs by types of players, newer players may be unable to even obtain these sets. Newer players that can obtain these sets may have trouble identifying areas where they need to improve since proc sets do some of the work for the player. Additionally, competitive players using proc sets can more effectively use them, creating a very poor experience for the newer players. Competitive players who don't use proc sets will be at a disadvantage against those that do and may either quit or adapt to the meta. In the end everyone is wearing proc sets, new players either can't obtain these sets or die more easily than ever. Competitive players get upset with the lack of skill expression or feeling of reward for getting kills. Potential players will see that ESO does not have a healthy PvP environment. the end result is that everybody lost and PvP is worse for it. This is the type of approach that ZOS should absolutely AVOID for addressing these issues.

Oakensoul
Oakensoul is a more recent attempt to fix some of ESO's issues, but in many ways it suffered from a few of the same issues as procs. Oakensoul itself had a barrier to entry issue since it is a mythic that required annoying leads and it was locked behind a chapter's paywall. While it made PvE easier for some, it was eventually nerfed, leaving some of those players alienated and discouraged from PvEing again because the mythic didn't do anything to help those players build needed skills. In PvP, Oakensoul had a similar effect to procs, where it helped some players get kills more easily, but ultimately more experienced players utilized the mythic better. In the end, all types of players were left unhappy. Once again, the approach used was to introduce a skill gap shrinking item to fix issues which never works.

Conclusion/Solution
In order for both PvP and end game PvE to grow and succeed, Community, Skill Expression, Barriers to Entry, and Reward need to be kept in mind. It is time to stop introducing new item sets or nerfing core mechanics since this approach ends up upsetting every type of player as outlined. Instead, Skill Expression should be embraced, barriers to entry need to be lowered, rewards need to be increased, and communities should be free to grow and not alienated. Additionally, the knowledge gap should be addressed by either reducing the number of sets, or adding more opportunities for players to learn core mechanics throughout their time playing. With the current approach of introducing item set bandaids or nerfing players to be on the same level, the number of players engaging in these activities will continue to decline. A more involved and complete approach is needed, otherwise these activities will remain niche or die out.

I prefer Nefas' explanation regarding U35. (google it. it has adult language in the video and will result in censor action if posted, even though ESO is rated M for mature)




And how can we say Cyrodiil is a niche activity when the reason more people don't participate are population caps so low nobody can get into the zone between 15:00-24:00 EST ?

Any attempts to lessen that gap is railed against by the upper end player base. Zos cannot lower the ceiling nor raise the floor without significant pushback by content creators and upper tier player forum posters.

It bothers me greatly when presented like that. It's not about saving some status quo as folks tend to say, or to gate anyone - this "upper echelon" of players just understands the game way deeper than developing team would in a sense, as experienced players tend to see the issues momentarily when patch notes are up and can foresee the long term results it would have on everyone and different aspects of the game. When you're a developer a lot of stuff can be a blind spot during the process, only experienced seasoned veterans who don't have a leg in a development process would actually have a good chance of spotting those, that's how most online games feedback operate. Even with testing, experienced players would spot the issue way sooner than an average player would. They'll just stumble at that exact point later: in months or years in their journey, even when an issue was already apparent at the very start.

The game in it's current state isn't a surprise, we've seen it going in this direction at the very least since around Elsweyr (maybe Dragonhold) expansion to some extent and it went exactly as expected since, every patch being just further cementation of it.

alpha_synuclein

BlueRaven wrote: »

Any attempts to lessen that gap is railed against by the upper end player base. Zos cannot lower the ceiling nor raise the floor without significant pushback by content creators and upper tier player forum posters.

Bad attempts are. You cannot close a skill gap with piece of gear. Introducing mythics, builds or classess so powerful that players grow dependent on them to a point where they cannot clear content without them is not closing any gaps. It's just covering them up, so they are less obvious.

If ZOS truly belives that not enough of their players can handle ESOs harder content, then they should start providing tools to learn combat better, instead of introducing psedosolutions that conveniently always require you to buy the latest expansion.

Anifaas

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

then they should start providing tools to learn combat better

That will not work because the combat standard in ESO is the problem. The varying skill level is a symptom. For many, it is hard to become good with a combat system that you don't enjoy. Anywhere you read about ESO on the intertnet, that isn't a fan site, frequently describe ESO combat as the greatest barrier to enjoying this game. It is not easy to jump into ESO coming from other games because its combat system is so "unique" and awkward. It is unrelatable coming from WoW, STO, New World, ESO, GW2, etc... It also still suffers from frequent technical problems at the server level.

I believe the developers are sympathetic to this situation which is why they introduced new ways to play via Oakensoul, Velothi Amulet and even the Arcanist play-style. I hope the developers continue to provide alternate play-styles than the antiquated system of last decade because that is necessary if they want to grow the user-base from 2024 onward.

alpha_synuclein

Anifaas wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

then they should start providing tools to learn combat better

That will not work because the combat standard in ESO is the problem. The varying skill level is a symptom. For many, it is hard to become good with a combat system that you don't enjoy. Anywhere you read about ESO on the intertnet, that isn't a fan site, frequently describe ESO combat as the greatest barrier to enjoying this game. It is not easy to jump into ESO coming from other games because its combat system is so "unique" and awkward. It is unrelatable coming from WoW, STO, New World, ESO, GW2, etc... It also still suffers from frequent technical problems at the server level.

I believe the developers are sympathetic to this situation which is why they introduced new ways to play via Oakensoul, Velothi Amulet and even the Arcanist play-style. I hope the developers continue to provide alternate play-styles than the antiquated system of last decade because that is necessary if they want to grow the user-base from 2024 onward.

I don't disagree, but it really feels like an expectations vs reality kind of problem. Technical difficulties aside, ESO has a complex and fast paced combat that would probably be most enjoyed by more action games oriented players. But it is advertised like a perfect game for very casual rpg fans that miss the old Elder Scrolls games. Which is how I got here in the first place, but not why I stayed. The combat and PVE is what's keeping me (and lots of others) here, not the stories. And I have a feeling that there is a lot of players like me out there, mostly populating trial guilds
The tricky part is to make space for very diffetent customers within one game. And imo providing a real means to progress from very basic overland combat to more advanced group content would be a good way to keep more people in. Those who like it on an easier side might choose to not go there, but those who want to dip in might get hooked.

BahometZ

sarahthes wrote: »

Lance_Caugheyb14_ESO wrote: »

While this post is insightful and well written, I'd like to come to defense of Oakensoul from the perspective of a returning player with really bad hands.

When I played years ago I actually left the game as I began to get into end game content because I could not light attack weave comfortably. Oakensoul low button builds allow me to engage with end game content without being a burden to my team. While I'm sure some experienced players do use it to be "lazy", it's kind of an accessibility feature for some players.

Light attack weaving is completely irrelevant in endgame, as everyone now uses the Velothi mythic due to its ease of use. I'd like to encourage you to explore other builds - as long as Velothi is relevant, you can get away with only light attacking once every 9 seconds (for ultimate generation).

Took the words outta my mouth.
End game dps never been more accessible.

Support is punishing tho, I'd say.
Seeing the same tank/healers in demand everywhere tells you something.

ToRelax

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Any attempts to lessen that gap is railed against by the upper end player base. Zos cannot lower the ceiling nor raise the floor without significant pushback by content creators and upper tier player forum posters.

Bad attempts are. You cannot close a skill gap with piece of gear. Introducing mythics, builds or classess so powerful that players grow dependent on them to a point where they cannot clear content without them is not closing any gaps. It's just covering them up, so they are less obvious.

You can reduce a performance gap that way, which is the entire point. No matter anyone's opinion, most players are never going to learn to play at the highest level. Those interested in doing so are free to move on to more powerful but demanding options. Idk how well this ideal fits the current PvE landscape in ESO, but it is hardly unique to this game.

Better information about the combat system being presented to players in game would be great. But it wouldn't invalidate the attempts to bridge the performance gap through gear or abilities which are easy to use at an adequate level.

alpha_synuclein

ToRelax wrote: »

You can reduce a performance gap that way, which is the entire point. No matter anyone's opinion, most players are never going to learn to play at the highest level. Those interested in doing so are free to move on to more powerful but demanding options. Idk how well this ideal fits the current PvE landscape in ESO, but it is hardly unique to this game.

The only thing this improves are the completion rates. Which is probably the point and I get why it makes people happy, but it will be an double edged sword in the long therm.

ToRelax wrote: »

But it wouldn't invalidate the attempts to bridge the performance gap through gear or abilities which are easy to use at an adequate level.

Well, it kinda does. Sure, you still can go the hard way, but if the easy way is so powerful that it gets you through everything, why bother? Right now being able to beat harder content is the only incentive to improve. Take that out of the equasion and you have no incentive at all.
That reduces the potential number of players that could reach the hardest content to those that are sweaty from the start. And that group ain't big in this game.

Also, I'm not trying to say that ESO's approach is bad or won't work, it is a matter of choice. But choices have consequences. And the choices that ESO is making right now will change highly skill oriented game in much less skill oriented game. Again, not a bad thing per se, but it will drove away players that enjoy challenge. And say what you want about endgame players, but we are not bad customers

Ultimately I think there could be space here for all of us, but it would require zos to start making much smarter balance decisions.

liliub17_ESO

fizzylu wrote: »

In terms of PvE, the only thing that keeps me away from it are the community and rewards.

I've been in one guild where I actually did vet dungeons regularly. It was fun, but that's because you weren't told how to build nor asked questions about how much DPS you can do to a target dummy. Lots of times, the most enjoyable dungeon runs in this guild were done without a true healer as well. Sadly when browsing guilds, I see basically no PvE focused ones that have this kind of chill approach to the game; instead swearing by the holy trinity, parsing like lives depend on it, and expecting people to play what's "meta". It's extra sad to say, but I truly find playing with PUGs more fun (although long queue times, especially for vet, can be a bad time). But extra extra sadly.... there's really no point in me doing a dungeon more than the one time to complete the quest when they first release. Which brings me to the second issue.
...snip...

Adding my irrelevant two cents.

Back in the day, well before the Warden was added, I wanted to play a ranger sort. It's always been my favorite class in games to play - regardless of difficulty or lack of development by the game devs. So my first girl was a Sorc who concentrated on storm damage and wielded a bow. She wasn't the highest DPS ever seen, but she held her own and was actually effective, a delight to play. I could romp solo (before companions, remember) or go with guild members into dungeons and feel I was definitely doing my part.

Then "skill balances" began. I noticed slight lessening of effectiveness, adjusted things, kept going. Absolutely adored playing this character, knew the skills inside out. Went into a vet dungeon with a guild group, one of the few dungeons I hadn't completed on HM. Several attempts at the boss ended with party wipes - and my character was blamed when it was discovered I was running a "non-optimized build" even though I was often the last man standing. We got through the dungeon successfully, but I retired that character for a while. That experience had broken the enjoyment. Soon, I brought her out of retirement, jiggered her skills to be more meta, and hated it - absolutely hated running a cookie cutter build. It felt clunky, it was boring. She's now back to a hybrid build which mostly works for overland even though it's nowhere nearly as effective after all the "balancing" and, because most of the achievements were gained by her, she goes out for new ones, too. Note: those guildmates did not realize how hard their criticism hit; they even later crafted a complete hybrid set of armor and weapons for her. Nor did I as a player benefit from the criticism in a positive fashion since it was based on superficial bs.

If ZOS wants to improve the game, I would suggest dropping the "play how you want" if the game doesn't actually support the concept, if the intent is to continue adding skills and sets which trigger particular effects rather than relying on skills. Decide if the game is geared to the new player who's expected to slowly(ish) gain the know-how and gear to go into harder and harder content - or is the game geared toward HM players who require a hand full of top gear sets and skills to race through content. I am not saying everything should be stupid-easy. There should be challenge, there should be content which requires a skilled party, there should be temporary failure which requires forethought and planning in order to succeed. But having gameplay which is best achievable by a few cookie cutter builds run in a particular manner is not success- it is laziness. And that goes for players, too. If you can only succeed by running a build someone else optimized, you aren't succeeding as a player, you're simply riding on the shirttails of another. Unless, of course, that's your thing.

(More equally nonsensical insights later after caffeine kicks in .)

Sakiri

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Any attempts to lessen that gap is railed against by the upper end player base. Zos cannot lower the ceiling nor raise the floor without significant pushback by content creators and upper tier player forum posters.

Bad attempts are. You cannot close a skill gap with piece of gear. Introducing mythics, builds or classess so powerful that players grow dependent on them to a point where they cannot clear content without them is not closing any gaps. It's just covering them up, so they are less obvious.

If ZOS truly belives that not enough of their players can handle ESOs harder content, then they should start providing tools to learn combat better, instead of introducing psedosolutions that conveniently always require you to buy the latest expansion.

Most of the "bad players", folks that don't know their class or abilities or anything, don't *want* to learn. Teaching them better won't change the fact they'll still press 1 to win.

alpha_synuclein

Sakiri wrote: »

Most of the "bad players", folks that don't know their class or abilities or anything, don't *want* to learn. Teaching them better won't change the fact they'll still press 1 to win.

Providing more "1 to win" options won't help either

There is fair enough share of people that do want to learn. Supporting them would make their life easier. Hence why we need tools (role tutorials, training zones, dummies for testing, good and structured entry level group content etc. ) ingame.

And those "bad players" that you're describing might not stay that way if they have some reason to go different route. Hence why we need incentives.

Sakiri

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

Most of the "bad players", folks that don't know their class or abilities or anything, don't *want* to learn. Teaching them better won't change the fact they'll still press 1 to win.

Providing more "1 to win" options won't help either

There is fair enough share of people that do want to learn. Supporting them would make their life easier. Hence why we need tools (role tutorials, training zones, dummies for testing, good and structured entry level group content etc. ) ingame.

And those "bad players" that you're describing might not stay that way if they have some reason to go different route. Hence why we need incentives.

Never said providing them would help. And the phrase is in quotations as a blanket term using wording people would understand, not necessarily calling folks bad.

I've seen tutorials that are both better and worse. Too much complicated info in the beginning, such as how to light attack weave, is just going to turn off casual, non competitive players. The kind here for story.

Problem isn't that the game was advertised play how you want, it's that it's aimed at elder scrolls fans, not mmorpg fans.

There's no incentive to do trials after your stickerbook is complete. The satisfaction of helping others get gear isn't enough for many people. Hence my mount/skin idea. Adding a chance at a rare drop keeps people going in.

This game is literally not aimed at competitive endgame, be it pvp or trial raiding. That's the problem. And until they find a way to incentivise it without making it feel like "raid/pvp or die" like say, world of warcraft, it's going to continue to have low participation rates.

CrazyKitty

Stamicka wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

I've seen a few posts recently about why PvP is niche as well as posts about why trials are unwelcoming to new players. I think both of these things are related and I wanted to make a post about my thoughts on the situation.The thing that PvP and end game PvE have in common is that they are both combat oriented competitive activities. I also see a big divide within ESO's playerbase between casual and competitive players. While such a divide is hard for a game developer to deal with, I think ZOS' current approach is the worst of both worlds and in the end, players near both ends of the spectrum are unhappy with the game.

The words casual and competitive don't come close to describing the broad range of players that play ESO, so I'll do my best to make some distinctions. I acknowledge that there are players who aren't competitive at all and no matter what, PvP and end game PvE will not appeal to them. However, there are also casual players who are willing to try PvP and end game PvE and are discouraged or are otherwise unable to get into them for various reasons. At the other end of the spectrum, there are players who treat ESO as a competitive game and those that come from other competitive games and realize ESO isn't cut out for competitive gameplay. ZOS' current approach simultaneously keeps casual players from entering more competitive play, discourages current competitive players from continuing to play, and keeps existing competitive players from playing ESO to begin with. Let's look at how.

I think that there are 4 main things that competitive players look for in a game and all successful competitive games have these things. These are:

1. Community
Community has many aspects, but it mainly involves having other people near the same skill level to play with and against. In other words, are there enough players playing and engaging with the game? Is there a healthy stream of new players? Is there discussion and ways for players to get involved outside of the game (this would include Twitch and Youtube communities).

2. Skill Expression
Skill expression is about whether or not the players actions and time spent on the game change the outcome of the game. Does playing the game more allow a player to improve? Can players feel or see their skills improve? Is whether or not a player succeeds a matter of skill?

3. Low Barriers to Entry
Low barriers to entry is about whether or not new or returning players can get back into the game or an activity within the game with relative ease. Is there a lot of knowledge needed before a player is able to play effectively? Are there many hurdles or grinds that a player must overcome before they can get their foot in the door?

4. Reward
Reward is about what the player gets for playing and doing well at the game. Reward can be in the form of in game exclusive items, but it can also be in the form of recognition. This aspect is tied to skill expression as well because players should feel rewarded for building their skills, whether its beating a score or another player.

By looking at competitive games in this way, we see that ESO's competitive activities are not very competitive at all. In every single listed aspect, ESO fails.

Community in ESO
The end game community in ESO has drastically dwindled and this is evident wherever you look. There's less PvP and PvE activity for ESO on Twitch and Youtube. PvP campaigns hold less people than they ever have and on many servers, they do not fill up for most of the day if they fill at all. Competitive players who group queue in Battlegrounds will have to wait for long periods of time just to find a match (evidence for bad skill distribution among players in PvP). There's less activity on PvE trial leaderboards and only one or two teams completely dominates every single trial in most cases. For those apart of large ESO discord servers, those are much quieter now as well.

Out of the 4 aspects listed, Community is one of the most dangerous ones to lack. When community declines, competitive players lose friends and people to compete against. This causes a cyclical mass exodus of players. Eventually, a mass exodus of players makes it harder for new players to get their foot in the door. There will be fewer experienced players to teach the new ones and cliques will form in the more experienced players that are left which can create a very exclusive and unwelcoming environment for new players.

Skill Expression in ESO
Skill plays a minor role in ESO and ZOS has explicitly stated that it wants to close the skill gap. There have been constant changes to the core mechanics that many players have become familiar with. Light attack weaving, animation canceling, how blocking and barswapping function, projectile travel times, and many more aspects of the game have been changed in an attempt to shrink the skill gap. Additionally, the addition of unbalanced sets and mythics decreases the role of skill by making builds more important. In ESO, it is not always true that the more skilled player wins nor is it even true that a player can always see their skills improve. In many cases, players don't know whether their build or their skill is the issue.

ESO's skill expression issue also affects all of the types of players I listed above. Newer and more casual players will have a hard time identifying areas of improvement or even seeing their improvement since the build they are in plays a bigger role than the skill that they have. Existing competitive players don't like feeling like their time spent building skills was a waste. This is especially true if they learned to master something like bash or light attack weaving only to see it nerfed. Other players from competitive games won't even be interested in trying ESO because they will see that it is not an environment that rewards skill and time spent.

Barriers to Entry in ESO
The ideal competitive game would have low barriers to entry. The barriers to entry in ESO are very high. There are a lot of moving parts to ESO's barrier to entry issue. One barrier to entry is of course is level/CP. I think level differences are to be expected in MMORPGs and ESO at least provides a No CP option for PvP. Low level in PvE is also an issue for the highest end of PvE content, but there is still veteran content that can be completed by lower CP players. The level barrier is more minor compared to ESO's other big barriers. Perhaps ESO's biggest barrier to entry is the knowledge required to even get your foot in the door in PvP and in PvE trials. This is mainly in the form of knowing how to build a character. There are 100s of sets in ESO. Many of the sets are completely useless and they even gimp and trap inexperienced players without them even knowing. Some choice is a good thing, too much choice is a bad thing. A lot of knowledge is needed to make an effective build on your own and sort through the useless sets. The game also does not do a good job of teaching the important core mechanics such as blocking, breaking free, light weaving, and rolling at the right time. One big reason for this is that the difficulty difference between Normal vs Veteran and Veteran vs Veteran HM is far too vast. In normal and overland content players will not understand the importance of block, roll, and break free because there is no reason to do so. While information about these mechanics can be found within the game, I still don't think the information is easy to come across nor is the importance emphasized. Lastly, once a player figures out how to build a character, there are often many things that must be completed to obtain the sets. I think ZOS has done a good job with making sets easier to obtain for PvE, but many good PvP sets require a PvE grind. There's also the problem of mythics which sometimes requires tedious and time consuming lead grinding.

All and all, once again, all types of potential players are negatively affected by ESO's high barrier to entry. The grind may discourage potential first time players as well as returning players from even trying PvP or PvE to see if they like it. This keeps the communities small.

Reward in ESO
This post is already becoming quite long so I will keep this part short. Reward in ESO has been discussed many times on this forum. The game simply isn't very rewarding and rewards definitely don't seem to scale with the difficulty of an achievement. In PvP, AP isn't all that useful, many of the sets from rewards of the worthy aren't all that useful, and other reward types have lost their value (such as Alliance Rank) due to ZOS' actions. In PvE, leaderboards are often broken, there's not much built in recognition for high achieving players within the game, and the in game rewards for difficult achievements can also be lackluster.

If the rewards aren't good, fewer people will be interested in even getting their foot in the door (there's no reason to). Competitive players won't feel like difficult achievements are worth achieving. In many cases, the exclusivity of a difficult achievement is a reward, but this loses value with power creeps and content nerfs. In the end, bad reward structure leads to less participation and activity from all types of players.

ZOS' Approach
ESO is lacking in all 4 of the outlined areas, and each area impacts most types of existing players and all types of potential players. I think ESO realizes some of these issues within the game and they have made efforts to address it. Unfortunately, I think the developers attempts to fix these issues end up worsening each outlined aspect in every way, further making every type of player unhappy. There are many examples of ZOS using the approach I am about to discuss, but I want to focus on 2 of the most notorious examples: procs and Oakensoul.

Procs
Proc sets have been an issue in ESO for many years now. Since PvP is an environment where lining up burst is essential to being successful, I think the introduction of proc sets was a way to shrink the gap between experienced players and newer players. Using sets, items, or nerfing mechanics is a consistent theme in ZOS' approach to fix ESO's issues, but every time this sort of approach only ends up upsetting every type of player. While it is true that proc sets can allow less experienced players to kill more experienced players, the end result is that every player will still be unhappy. At the start of the first procalypse, the sets were hard to obtain (barrier to entry issue). Viper was the most effective proc and it could only be obtained through trials or by paying millions of gold. Eventually proc sets could be obtained through dungeons or arenas, but this can still be a barrier for new players. Proc sets also negatively impact both skill expression and reward since using these sets can overshadow skill differences and getting kills may feel less rewarding. Lastly, community is negatively impacted since many players become frustrated with proc metas and quit the game. If we look at procs by types of players, newer players may be unable to even obtain these sets. Newer players that can obtain these sets may have trouble identifying areas where they need to improve since proc sets do some of the work for the player. Additionally, competitive players using proc sets can more effectively use them, creating a very poor experience for the newer players. Competitive players who don't use proc sets will be at a disadvantage against those that do and may either quit or adapt to the meta. In the end everyone is wearing proc sets, new players either can't obtain these sets or die more easily than ever. Competitive players get upset with the lack of skill expression or feeling of reward for getting kills. Potential players will see that ESO does not have a healthy PvP environment. the end result is that everybody lost and PvP is worse for it. This is the type of approach that ZOS should absolutely AVOID for addressing these issues.

Oakensoul
Oakensoul is a more recent attempt to fix some of ESO's issues, but in many ways it suffered from a few of the same issues as procs. Oakensoul itself had a barrier to entry issue since it is a mythic that required annoying leads and it was locked behind a chapter's paywall. While it made PvE easier for some, it was eventually nerfed, leaving some of those players alienated and discouraged from PvEing again because the mythic didn't do anything to help those players build needed skills. In PvP, Oakensoul had a similar effect to procs, where it helped some players get kills more easily, but ultimately more experienced players utilized the mythic better. In the end, all types of players were left unhappy. Once again, the approach used was to introduce a skill gap shrinking item to fix issues which never works.

Conclusion/Solution
In order for both PvP and end game PvE to grow and succeed, Community, Skill Expression, Barriers to Entry, and Reward need to be kept in mind. It is time to stop introducing new item sets or nerfing core mechanics since this approach ends up upsetting every type of player as outlined. Instead, Skill Expression should be embraced, barriers to entry need to be lowered, rewards need to be increased, and communities should be free to grow and not alienated. Additionally, the knowledge gap should be addressed by either reducing the number of sets, or adding more opportunities for players to learn core mechanics throughout their time playing. With the current approach of introducing item set bandaids or nerfing players to be on the same level, the number of players engaging in these activities will continue to decline. A more involved and complete approach is needed, otherwise these activities will remain niche or die out.

I prefer Nefas' explanation regarding U35. (google it. it has adult language in the video and will result in censor action if posted, even though ESO is rated M for mature)




And how can we say Cyrodiil is a niche activity when the reason more people don't participate are population caps so low nobody can get into the zone between 15:00-24:00 EST ?

Cyrodiil, especially now holds very few people. The exact numbers aren’t known, but it may even be less than 300 people total. The main campaign isn’t full for the majority of the day on most servers. That’s pretty niche for a game with as many daily players as ESO. Outside of Cyrodiil, PvP activities have very low activity as well. Look at IC’s population throughout the day or try to get a group BG queue.

If people can't get into Cyrodiil during prime time due to such low population caps, when most people have time to play, then they aren't going to try during off hours either. They're just never going to invest time into PvP if they can't play during the evening hours in their respective server.

alpha_synuclein

Sakiri wrote: »

Never said providing them would help. And the phrase is in quotations as a blanket term using wording people would understand, not necessarily calling folks bad.

True, my bad.

Sakiri wrote: »

I've seen tutorials that are both better and worse. Too much complicated info in the beginning, such as how to light attack weave, is just going to turn off casual, non competitive players. The kind here for story.

I don't believe they should be all dump at the start. But some more structured intro to group content especially would be useful. There were multiple very good suggestions on the forum about damage and support roles tutorial that could be attached to the Undaunted quest line and unlocked when player decides to venture into normal dungeons. And then more advanced version before vets. Although for this to work the normal dungeon queue should be rework to something more than speedy transmute source. We could also use some more structure when it comes to introducing dungeons. Below level 50 you get dungeons unlocked from the easiest to the harder ones. And then you hit a magic level and you get all the DLCs at ones. Regardless of the fact that something like Ruins of Mazzatun is waaaay easier than, let's say Coral Aerie. It might not be such a bad idea to introduce DLC dungeons gradually as well, based on their difficulty.

Sakiri wrote: »

Problem isn't that the game was advertised play how you want, it's that it's aimed at elder scrolls fans, not mmorpg fans.

But if it's releasing content for both, it should at least try to accommodate both. Latest trial HM's are very clearly aimed at well organized groups of mmo oriented players (and let's keep it that way, please )

Sakiri wrote: »

There's no incentive to do trials after your stickerbook is complete. The satisfaction of helping others get gear isn't enough for many people. Hence my mount/skin idea. Adding a chance at a rare drop keeps people going in. This game is literally not aimed at competitive endgame, be it pvp or trial raiding. That's the problem. And until they find a way to incentivise it without making it feel like "raid/pvp or die" like say, world of warcraft, it's going to continue to have low participation rates.

That is very true and it's bull**** a pity

Necrotech_Master

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Telos_Tim wrote: »

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Hasenpfote wrote: »

ESO has a gamedesign issue, light attack weaving is mandatory to do a meaningful dps, this can by bypasses if you do heavy attack build.

Light attack weave is not mandatory to do meaningfull DPS.

I swear I remember it being counted on for a lot more than you get out of it today. Did they change it while I was away.

Case in point: The build I'm trying to emulate only gets 7% of it's total damage from LA's. At 135K, 9.5K isn't going to be missed if you swap in Velothi. Hmmm....

You light attack weave for the increased chance to proc glyphs and for the chance to cause a status effect from the weapon itself.

Light attacks do not proc status effects. Atleast not until U42 where ZoS adds a new set that will enable that option.

light attacks themselves dont proc status effects, but they have the highest chance to proc enchantments which can proc a status effect

Sakiri

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

Never said providing them would help. And the phrase is in quotations as a blanket term using wording people would understand, not necessarily calling folks bad.

True, my bad.

Sakiri wrote: »

I've seen tutorials that are both better and worse. Too much complicated info in the beginning, such as how to light attack weave, is just going to turn off casual, non competitive players. The kind here for story.

I don't believe they should be all dump at the start. But some more structured intro to group content especially would be useful. There were multiple very good suggestions on the forum about damage and support roles tutorial that could be attached to the Undaunted quest line and unlocked when player decides to venture into normal dungeons. And then more advanced version before vets. Although for this to work the normal dungeon queue should be rework to something more than speedy transmute source. We could also use some more structure when it comes to introducing dungeons. Below level 50 you get dungeons unlocked from the easiest to the harder ones. And then you hit a magic level and you get all the DLCs at ones. Regardless of the fact that something like Ruins of Mazzatun is waaaay easier than, let's say Coral Aerie. It might not be such a bad idea to introduce DLC dungeons gradually as well, based on their difficulty.

Sakiri wrote: »

Problem isn't that the game was advertised play how you want, it's that it's aimed at elder scrolls fans, not mmorpg fans.

But if it's releasing content for both, it should at least try to accommodate both. Latest trial HM's are very clearly aimed at well organized groups of mmo oriented players (and let's keep it that way, please )

Sakiri wrote: »

There's no incentive to do trials after your stickerbook is complete. The satisfaction of helping others get gear isn't enough for many people. Hence my mount/skin idea. Adding a chance at a rare drop keeps people going in. This game is literally not aimed at competitive endgame, be it pvp or trial raiding. That's the problem. And until they find a way to incentivise it without making it feel like "raid/pvp or die" like say, world of warcraft, it's going to continue to have low participation rates.

That is very true and it's bull**** a pity

Completely agreed. If they're going to provide both, they should support both. I like the idea of sideways progression like we have, but new entrants are at a disadvantage, like myself. I don't have the sets, I need the sets to do the content, but no one wants to do the content, so you're left with Crag pugs that often fail.

I prefer guild runs, structured, semi optimized raiding. I'm not a meta snob but I have base expectations. Use food, pots, know what your rotation is and what your class can do. Typically you learn this from others after making mistakes and learning, but there's a lot of folks averse to it. In ffxiv we call this GCBTW and "you don't pay my sub" syndrome.

We need to find a way to reach those who want to learn, and teach them, be it an in game system through undaunted or what.

Another thing ffxiv has, is the website has what they call a job guide. All your actions(abilities) are listed along with what they do. They could add resources like this to the website. Plenty of ideas.

sarahthes

Sakiri wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

Never said providing them would help. And the phrase is in quotations as a blanket term using wording people would understand, not necessarily calling folks bad.

True, my bad.

Sakiri wrote: »

I've seen tutorials that are both better and worse. Too much complicated info in the beginning, such as how to light attack weave, is just going to turn off casual, non competitive players. The kind here for story.

I don't believe they should be all dump at the start. But some more structured intro to group content especially would be useful. There were multiple very good suggestions on the forum about damage and support roles tutorial that could be attached to the Undaunted quest line and unlocked when player decides to venture into normal dungeons. And then more advanced version before vets. Although for this to work the normal dungeon queue should be rework to something more than speedy transmute source. We could also use some more structure when it comes to introducing dungeons. Below level 50 you get dungeons unlocked from the easiest to the harder ones. And then you hit a magic level and you get all the DLCs at ones. Regardless of the fact that something like Ruins of Mazzatun is waaaay easier than, let's say Coral Aerie. It might not be such a bad idea to introduce DLC dungeons gradually as well, based on their difficulty.

Sakiri wrote: »

Problem isn't that the game was advertised play how you want, it's that it's aimed at elder scrolls fans, not mmorpg fans.

But if it's releasing content for both, it should at least try to accommodate both. Latest trial HM's are very clearly aimed at well organized groups of mmo oriented players (and let's keep it that way, please )

Sakiri wrote: »

There's no incentive to do trials after your stickerbook is complete. The satisfaction of helping others get gear isn't enough for many people. Hence my mount/skin idea. Adding a chance at a rare drop keeps people going in. This game is literally not aimed at competitive endgame, be it pvp or trial raiding. That's the problem. And until they find a way to incentivise it without making it feel like "raid/pvp or die" like say, world of warcraft, it's going to continue to have low participation rates.

That is very true and it's bull**** a pity

Completely agreed. If they're going to provide both, they should support both. I like the idea of sideways progression like we have, but new entrants are at a disadvantage, like myself. I don't have the sets, I need the sets to do the content, but no one wants to do the content, so you're left with Crag pugs that often fail.

I prefer guild runs, structured, semi optimized raiding. I'm not a meta snob but I have base expectations. Use food, pots, know what your rotation is and what your class can do. Typically you learn this from others after making mistakes and learning, but there's a lot of folks averse to it. In ffxiv we call this GCBTW and "you don't pay my sub" syndrome.

We need to find a way to reach those who want to learn, and teach them, be it an in game system through undaunted or what.

Another thing ffxiv has, is the website has what they call a job guide. All your actions(abilities) are listed along with what they do. They could add resources like this to the website. Plenty of ideas.

I run a raiding guild/discord and i raid lead in a couple others.

I have a core for people who want to progress from beginner to harder content. I give them weekly feedback, go over logs, setups, parses etc.

Only THREE out of the twelve players on the team actually respond to my feedback and work to improve.

Sakiri

sarahthes wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

Sakiri wrote: »

Never said providing them would help. And the phrase is in quotations as a blanket term using wording people would understand, not necessarily calling folks bad.

True, my bad.

Sakiri wrote: »

I've seen tutorials that are both better and worse. Too much complicated info in the beginning, such as how to light attack weave, is just going to turn off casual, non competitive players. The kind here for story.

I don't believe they should be all dump at the start. But some more structured intro to group content especially would be useful. There were multiple very good suggestions on the forum about damage and support roles tutorial that could be attached to the Undaunted quest line and unlocked when player decides to venture into normal dungeons. And then more advanced version before vets. Although for this to work the normal dungeon queue should be rework to something more than speedy transmute source. We could also use some more structure when it comes to introducing dungeons. Below level 50 you get dungeons unlocked from the easiest to the harder ones. And then you hit a magic level and you get all the DLCs at ones. Regardless of the fact that something like Ruins of Mazzatun is waaaay easier than, let's say Coral Aerie. It might not be such a bad idea to introduce DLC dungeons gradually as well, based on their difficulty.

Sakiri wrote: »

Problem isn't that the game was advertised play how you want, it's that it's aimed at elder scrolls fans, not mmorpg fans.

But if it's releasing content for both, it should at least try to accommodate both. Latest trial HM's are very clearly aimed at well organized groups of mmo oriented players (and let's keep it that way, please )

Sakiri wrote: »

There's no incentive to do trials after your stickerbook is complete. The satisfaction of helping others get gear isn't enough for many people. Hence my mount/skin idea. Adding a chance at a rare drop keeps people going in. This game is literally not aimed at competitive endgame, be it pvp or trial raiding. That's the problem. And until they find a way to incentivise it without making it feel like "raid/pvp or die" like say, world of warcraft, it's going to continue to have low participation rates.

That is very true and it's bull**** a pity

Completely agreed. If they're going to provide both, they should support both. I like the idea of sideways progression like we have, but new entrants are at a disadvantage, like myself. I don't have the sets, I need the sets to do the content, but no one wants to do the content, so you're left with Crag pugs that often fail.

I prefer guild runs, structured, semi optimized raiding. I'm not a meta snob but I have base expectations. Use food, pots, know what your rotation is and what your class can do. Typically you learn this from others after making mistakes and learning, but there's a lot of folks averse to it. In ffxiv we call this GCBTW and "you don't pay my sub" syndrome.

We need to find a way to reach those who want to learn, and teach them, be it an in game system through undaunted or what.

Another thing ffxiv has, is the website has what they call a job guide. All your actions(abilities) are listed along with what they do. They could add resources like this to the website. Plenty of ideas.

I run a raiding guild/discord and i raid lead in a couple others.

I have a core for people who want to progress from beginner to harder content. I give them weekly feedback, go over logs, setups, parses etc.

Only THREE out of the twelve players on the team actually respond to my feedback and work to improve.

Thats unfortunate, and not wholly unexpected.

Those that want to improve, we should nurture like pretty, precious flowers, man.

Stamicka

Anifaas wrote: »

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

then they should start providing tools to learn combat better

That will not work because the combat standard in ESO is the problem. The varying skill level is a symptom. For many, it is hard to become good with a combat system that you don't enjoy. Anywhere you read about ESO on the intertnet, that isn't a fan site, frequently describe ESO combat as the greatest barrier to enjoying this game. It is not easy to jump into ESO coming from other games because its combat system is so "unique" and awkward. It is unrelatable coming from WoW, STO, New World, ESO, GW2, etc... It also still suffers from frequent technical problems at the server level.

I believe the developers are sympathetic to this situation which is why they introduced new ways to play via Oakensoul, Velothi Amulet and even the Arcanist play-style. I hope the developers continue to provide alternate play-styles than the antiquated system of last decade because that is necessary if they want to grow the user-base from 2024 onward.

I really disagree with this take. Lots of MMORPG veterans hate ESO's combat that's true. I'm the opposite, I can't stand tab target combat with cooldowns. I'm not gonna suggest WoW and related games to change for me, I'm just gonna play games with combat systems I like. Lots of people like the tab target cooldown style, lots of people like the ESO's action combat approach. Neither type of game needs to completely change their combat system to become like the other. The players just have to decide which one they prefer and play the game that suits them.

Why should it be different for ESO? Who cares if people hate the combat system and don't play the game because of it. That just means the game isn't for them and hopefully some other game is. ESO had players who loved the combat system for what it was. Why should they be alienated for the potential to attract a totally different crowd? It's ok for a game to be different, it'll find its crowd. Not everything needs to be changed so its closer to a WoW clone.

Galeriano2

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Telos_Tim wrote: »

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Hasenpfote wrote: »

ESO has a gamedesign issue, light attack weaving is mandatory to do a meaningful dps, this can by bypasses if you do heavy attack build.

Light attack weave is not mandatory to do meaningfull DPS.

I swear I remember it being counted on for a lot more than you get out of it today. Did they change it while I was away.

Case in point: The build I'm trying to emulate only gets 7% of it's total damage from LA's. At 135K, 9.5K isn't going to be missed if you swap in Velothi. Hmmm....

You light attack weave for the increased chance to proc glyphs and for the chance to cause a status effect from the weapon itself.

Light attacks do not proc status effects. Atleast not until U42 where ZoS adds a new set that will enable that option.

light attacks themselves dont proc status effects, but they have the highest chance to proc enchantments which can proc a status effect

Light attacks have the same chance to proc enchants as every weapon ability and bash which is 100%.

Necrotech_Master

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Telos_Tim wrote: »

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

Galeriano2 wrote: »

Hasenpfote wrote: »

ESO has a gamedesign issue, light attack weaving is mandatory to do a meaningful dps, this can by bypasses if you do heavy attack build.

Light attack weave is not mandatory to do meaningfull DPS.

I swear I remember it being counted on for a lot more than you get out of it today. Did they change it while I was away.

Case in point: The build I'm trying to emulate only gets 7% of it's total damage from LA's. At 135K, 9.5K isn't going to be missed if you swap in Velothi. Hmmm....

You light attack weave for the increased chance to proc glyphs and for the chance to cause a status effect from the weapon itself.

Light attacks do not proc status effects. Atleast not until U42 where ZoS adds a new set that will enable that option.

light attacks themselves dont proc status effects, but they have the highest chance to proc enchantments which can proc a status effect

Light attacks have the same chance to proc enchants as every weapon ability and bash which is 100%.

i worded that poorly, the chance to get a status effect is highest from weapon enchantments (20%)

and since light attack can proc enchantments, they have a fairly good chance to proc the status effect

so while light/heavy attacks themselves cannot proc status effects, the enchantment can

i think WW will be an exception to this, as the next update their light and heavy attacks will be typed as bleed dmg and can proc hemorrhaging

alpha_synuclein

sarahthes wrote: »

I run a raiding guild/discord and i raid lead in a couple others.

I have a core for people who want to progress from beginner to harder content. I give them weekly feedback, go over logs, setups, parses etc.

Only THREE out of the twelve players on the team actually respond to my feedback and work to improve.

I know the feeling

alpha_synuclein

Sakiri wrote: »

Completely agreed. If they're going to provide both, they should support both. I like the idea of sideways progression like we have, but new entrants are at a disadvantage, like myself. I don't have the sets, I need the sets to do the content, but no one wants to do the content, so you're left with Crag pugs that often fail.

I prefer guild runs, structured, semi optimized raiding. I'm not a meta snob but I have base expectations. Use food, pots, know what your rotation is and what your class can do. Typically you learn this from others after making mistakes and learning, but there's a lot of folks averse to it. In ffxiv we call this GCBTW and "you don't pay my sub" syndrome.

We need to find a way to reach those who want to learn, and teach them, be it an in game system through undaunted or what.

Another thing ffxiv has, is the website has what they call a job guide. All your actions(abilities) are listed along with what they do. They could add resources like this to the website. Plenty of ideas.

We do have very good websites, like ESOU or ESOhub that do similar thing, but they are purely player made. What I would like to see is more ingame tools.

Both the requirements to join a group and the "I play the way I want and you don't get to tell me what to do" come from the fact that all organized group content is also fully player made. Covering some basics through the game itself would help a ton with both.

Right now with random groups leaders set their expectations based on what they want to do (ex. farm run vs learning run) or know will work.
Sometimes it's reasonable, sometimes it's not, but if you're new every condition that you cannot meet feels like gatekeeping. And it's too often labelled as such for no good reason. If at least some suggestions of minimal performance needed for completing dungeon/trial on certain difficulty level was given by the game itself, there will be much less assumptions of ill intent coming from players that weren't included.

Same with any kind of suggestions given in group content or during progressions. If there was a tutorial that very clearly states: "You can play the way you want when you're solo, but our group content is designed for teams of players that fulfill specific roles. If you play the role X you are expected to do A, B and in harder content even C". Currently any form of advice is considered "subjective opinion of other player, that I don't need to follow". Even if that suggestion is: slot a taunt if you're tank and do adequate damage if you're a DD.

fizzylu

liliub17_ESO wrote: »

If ZOS wants to improve the game, I would suggest dropping the "play how you want" if the game doesn't actually support the concept, if the intent is to continue adding skills and sets which trigger particular effects rather than relying on skills. Decide if the game is geared to the new player who's expected to slowly(ish) gain the know-how and gear to go into harder and harder content - or is the game geared toward HM players who require a hand full of top gear sets and skills to race through content. I am not saying everything should be stupid-easy. There should be challenge, there should be content which requires a skilled party, there should be temporary failure which requires forethought and planning in order to succeed. But having gameplay which is best achievable by a few cookie cutter builds run in a particular manner is not success- it is laziness. And that goes for players, too. If you can only succeed by running a build someone else optimized, you aren't succeeding as a player, you're simply riding on the shirttails of another. Unless, of course, that's your thing.

@liliub17_ESO
I'm sorry to hear you had that experience. Now, to give more insight on my original post here.... I do not struggle to get through vet content. No one has complained about what I'm using or how I'm playing either. My main point I was trying to make, with your last paragraph in mind, is that I think the majority of endgame focused PvE players make ESO endgame PvE out to be more difficult than it actually is. And for me, that's not the type of players I want to play with and definitely not how I enjoy a game.

Even the "play how you want" concept. I do believe this game has that built into it, to some degree of course. If there was no standard or minimum expectations to what should be in a build, this game would be nothing but a braindead grind. So yeah.... a player can't run a build that's lacking basic buffs, that doesn't meet minimum stat expectations, etc.... but as long as they know how to build and their build has the basic things every build (within their main role) should have, I do think they have that freedom of "play how you want". I run the sets, weapons, and the abilities of my choosing. And I manage just fine. While my build is not by the book meta; it performs well, has stats equal/balanced in power to meta builds, and I'd even argue is better in some circumstances.

I have never restricted myself to the endgame PvE building rules PLAYERS have put in place and try to enforce.... and I have yet to even encounter content that requires those "rules" or as you said, "a few cookie cutter builds". And it's that kind of mindset that keeps me away from participating in endgame PvE with the actual endgame PvE crowd. It has absolutely nothing to do with Zenimax or the PvE content they create.... it's just that I'd truly rather stick to just running with PUGs every now and then before ever fully diving into the endgame PvE scene of ESO where the majority seem to believe content can only be completed by players playing in very specific, boring ways.

liliub17_ESO

fizzylu wrote: »

... Even the "play how you want" concept. I do believe this game has that built into it, to some degree of course. If there was no standard or minimum expectations to what should be in a build, this game would be nothing but a braindead grind. So yeah.... a player can't run a build that's lacking basic buffs, that doesn't meet minimum stat expectations, etc.... but as long as they know how to build and their build has the basic things every build (within their main role) should have, I do think they have that freedom of "play how you want". I run the sets, weapons, and the abilities of my choosing. And I manage just fine. While my build is not by the book meta; it performs well, has stats equal/balanced in power to meta builds, and I'd even argue is better in some circumstances.

I have never restricted myself to the endgame PvE building rules PLAYERS have put in place and try to enforce.... and I have yet to even encounter content that requires those "rules" or as you said, "a few cookie cutter builds". And it's that kind of mindset that keeps me away from participating in endgame PvE with the actual endgame PvE crowd. It has absolutely nothing to do with Zenimax or the PvE content they create.... it's just that I'd truly rather stick to just running with PUGs every now and then before ever fully diving into the endgame PvE scene of ESO where the majority seem to believe content can only be completed by players playing in very specific, boring ways.

Agreed. A player should have the basics down pat before they venture into a HM dungeon, Trials, or other higher level areas. They shouldn't expect to be carried, but neither should they be expected to have meta builds and certain sets. While I have never had the misfortune of being in a PUG that called for builds to be shared before starting, I have seen it in chat and heard of it from others. On one hand, I get it - on the other, hard nope, not going to even consider being part of that.

Thing is, with the experience I shared, it was assumed that it was my non-meta build that caused the entire party to fail. We were the usual party of 2 DPS, healer, and tank - I was the last one standing half the time (though when I fell, it was quickly, to be fair), yet clearly it was all because of my build which I had developed and played successfully for the entire game at that point. /sarcasm To be clear, the others were good players. We just took a bit to gel into a solid party who could whoop the boss' arse. (This was a while ago, remember.)

I want to play the game, enjoy the scenery someone took a long time to create. Yes, vanquishing a boss, clearing a dungeon, pinning the wings of a dragon, whatever-else feels darned good when done. I don't personally really care for PvP except for a very, very few games. And even then, I dabble. I'm not here in ESO for that, but I do want others to have a good, rewarding experience if they choose PvP over PvE.

At the end of the day, PvE and PvP tend to be different playstyles - and this game doesn't necessarily cater well to PvP. Instead of trying solutions which have been suggested by the very players who might know how to 'fix' the problem, things like population caps are instituted. (Makes no sense to me to do that, but I'm not a dev.)