PTS Feedback - Combat has become uninteresting and far less enjoyable

pmn100b16_ESO · August 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

pmn100b16_ESO wrote: »

Ezareth wrote: »

ColtPython wrote: »

One situation in particular continued to occur until I quit the PTS (mad as hell) and went back to the live server. I would run into a Templar (this is not a dig on Templars but just painting the picture) who would begin jabbing. After the changes to block regeneration, I certainly cannot block this without putting a sure end to my stamina pool and then the next jabs will kill me. So I roll. Rolling of course activates a timer that will cause the next roll to be more expensive and so on. What does the Templar do? Well the attack is not affected by the same mechanics as rolling so they turn and jab again. I roll at a higher cost and put my self in a situation where the next roll is going to start really costing me. At this point my options are limited to fear or cloak and hide if I can. They just break fear and begin jabbing. Basically like the OP says "spam my damage abilities over and over and nothing else."

Yup. These are the guys who will take my entire stamina bar to kill. There are some damage abilities you almost *have* to block or dodge roll and jabs is one of them. Now, by doing the correct counter to these abilities you end up hurting yourself more than the person who was countered! It is counterintuitive and pretty infuriating. Everyone just starts spamming their damage abilities over and over and the variation and excitement in combat is removed.

pmn100b16_ESO wrote: »

And the sad thing about the whole stamina regen when blocking 'fix' is that there's still permablockers

I find myself instinctively blocking certain things, like a charge attack for example, thinking, good job, blocked that, only to realise I've just gimped myself doing it.

Exactly how I feel too.

mike.gaziotisb16_ESO wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

nimander99 wrote: »

Why not just limit the number of dodge rolls a player can do every few seconds instead of a blanked stam block dodge nerf?

I liked it the way it is in current live. People complain non-stop about how there is no skill in ESO. but catching a sorc who is trying to escape or shutting down a dodge roller is in itself skill. nerfing both of these abilities is lack of it.

Nerfing the defensive abilities only is just plain stupid.

People tell me "You could only bolt 6-7 times in 1.5, now you bolt 15 times that's stupid". Yes it is stupid, but in 1.5 if you charged after me 6-7 you would also be out of stamina at the end, so at least we'd have a fair fight then.

Now gap closing costs nothing, while dodging-blocking-bolting costs buckets. It only favours the side with more numbers in combat.

The dodge roll penalty needs a shorter cooldown.

The Stamina regen penalty needs a second or two before it activates.

This would allow other players the ability to guarantee hits on other players while still allowing room for skillful (and enjoyable) play.

Trouble with this is permablockers, which ZOS wants an end to, will just press and release the rmb every second to avoid the penalty. The simplest solution, which they seem to want to avoid at all costs for some reason, is the blanking out of skills with rmb pushed down, same way they do as you hold the sprint key down. There's all sorts of arguments why block casting is desirable or even necessary, but I'd prefer the end to block casting over this current stamina regen fix that has resulted in penalising intelligent defensive play.

And during these times they would be vulnerable. I know if I'm wrecking blow spamming a DK and he release for a split second he goes flying. In a 1 v 1 reactively blocking should a viable alternative for *everyone*. When you're getting pummeled by 4 people, blocking shouldn't be something you can use to almost completely negate damage done to you. Make it so you have to release for a second before getting your stamina back or something...or holding block for 2 out of any 3 seconds gives you 0 regen or something.

If I see someone lining up a wrecking blow at me, blocking it shouldn't cost me more stamina than it cost them to wrecking blow me, especially since I still took *some* damage!

And I'm all for that, certainly better than the way it is now on pts. I just don't think zos will go for it because its not striking at the heart of what they want to achieve, which is very little rmd use when tanking. I'm talking mainly about pve tanking when saying coming on and off the rmb every second. It would almost be business as usual for them if it worked that way. Personally I couldn't care less about how easy or hard pve tanking is, but it seems zos wants to hit that just as hard as any permablockers in cyrodiil.

AhPook_Is_Here · August 2015

Maybe they should just change every skill to work like Streak/BE works now, add an increased cost for repetitive use inside a fixed period of time to make combat more interesting and dynamic. Using several skills will give the spam one a chance to get off cool down rather than just exhaust resources.

If mashing a single skill like say hidden blade while in clouding bat swarm is all there is to combat then maybe some reason for variety needs to be built into the game.

Dagoth_Rac · August 2015

Just fighting trash PvE mobs in Imperial City, I seem to run out of stamina much faster than live. I will dodge roll out of the occasional red circle from a fire mage and block the occasional Dremora heavy attack, but certainly nothing remotely in the realm of perma-dodging or perma-blocking. Just naturally responding to combat cues. Something weird is going on with stamina.

Lucky28 · August 2015

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Maybe they should just change every skill to work like Streak/BE works now, add an increased cost for repetitive use inside a fixed period of time to make combat more interesting and dynamic. Using several skills will give the spam one a chance to get off cool down rather than just exhaust resources.

If mashing a single skill like say hidden blade while in clouding bat swarm is all there is to combat then maybe some reason for variety needs to be built into the game.

that's a bad idea for streak and it's a bad idea applying it to other skills. as i've said. making it so players cannot build their character to overcome the weaknesses of their skills is poor design.

AhPook_Is_Here · August 2015

Lucky28 wrote: »

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Maybe they should just change every skill to work like Streak/BE works now, add an increased cost for repetitive use inside a fixed period of time to make combat more interesting and dynamic. Using several skills will give the spam one a chance to get off cool down rather than just exhaust resources.

If mashing a single skill like say hidden blade while in clouding bat swarm is all there is to combat then maybe some reason for variety needs to be built into the game.

that's a bad idea for streak and it's a bad idea applying it to other skills. as i've said. making it so players cannot build their character to overcome the weaknesses of their skills is poor design.

If mashing a single button is the most profitable way to a high parse then you have to find a way to make using other things reward the single button more, like off-balance for DKs, invisibility for NBs, or you have to punish it by raising the cost of the single button (could be fixed, doesn't have to be additive), adding a hard cool-down or reducing the damage of the ability to put it on par with other abilities and normal attacks that have been buffed with secondary abilities. So it is just a question of what way you want to take it, better and more challenging debuff chains or penalties for button mashing.

Lucky28 · August 2015

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Lucky28 wrote: »

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Maybe they should just change every skill to work like Streak/BE works now, add an increased cost for repetitive use inside a fixed period of time to make combat more interesting and dynamic. Using several skills will give the spam one a chance to get off cool down rather than just exhaust resources.

If mashing a single skill like say hidden blade while in clouding bat swarm is all there is to combat then maybe some reason for variety needs to be built into the game.

that's a bad idea for streak and it's a bad idea applying it to other skills. as i've said. making it so players cannot build their character to overcome the weaknesses of their skills is poor design.

If mashing a single button is the most profitable way to a high parse then you have to find a way to make using other things reward the single button more, like off-balance for DKs, invisibility for NBs, or you have to punish it by raising the cost of the single button (could be fixed, doesn't have to be additive), adding a hard cool-down or reducing the damage of the ability to put it on par with other abilities and normal attacks that have been buffed with secondary abilities. So it is just a question of what way you want to take it, better and more challenging debuff chains or penalties for button mashing.

On the pts i'm smashing one button more than ever. the changes to dodge roll and streak make combat in Cyrodiil simple minded and lackluster. it doesn't make anything harder, more fun or more challenging.

So i disagree.

Rayste · August 2015

From a skillful players point of view I can see how this can be frustrating .... but the majority of players are casual and I think removing the ability to 1vX is not fun for some, but better for most. ZOS actually did this one right.

twistedmonk · August 2015

[edit] join a group.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Rude and Insulting comments]

Teargrants · August 2015

[Moderator Note: Removed moderated quote]

..Because no one should be able to even 1v2 and win based on player skill? Everything should just be whoever has more ppl wins in solo/small man fights? We're not talking about perma bats DKs on launch killing scores and scores of players here.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Rude and Insulting comments]

Darlgon · August 2015

yodased wrote: »

From my measly 5hrs in pts i can say that min maxers are taking a hit in the patch. It seems that they are pushing folks to hybridize their builds and not stack resource or regen or damage.

Did you try a hybrid at all?

My "hybrid" DK was hit worse, because his stamina pool is split with his magicka pool. So in addition to massively smaller hits out, massively shorter time blocking before death. Of course, the new Cyrodiil debuff isnt helping that any either.

twistedmonk · August 2015

Teargrants wrote: »

twistedmonk wrote: »

stop trying to be a lone wolf and join a group.

..Because no one should be able to even 1v2 and win based on player skill? Everything should just be whoever has more ppl wins in solo/small man fights? We're not talking about perma bats DKs on launch killing scores and scores of players here.

This attitude is about the dumbest thing I've seen in a long while.

I've seen plenty of streamers that win 1v2 in current PTS patch...kingrichard, sypher, left lucy, even deltia lol

so I'd say this is more a testament to personal skill level.

Teargrants · August 2015

Rayste wrote: »

From a skillful players point of view I can see how this can be frustrating .... but the majority of players are casual and I think removing the ability to 1vX is not fun for some, but better for most. ZOS actually did this one right.

So you posit that most ppl who want to PvP want a combat system that involves less thought and less skill, and subsequently is less rewarding and less enjoyable to play? Because that's what these changes accomplish - it's not just affecting ppls ability to 1vX. If ZOS simply wanted to limit the ability to 1vX w/o dumbing down the entire combat system, they could have simply reverted everything to 1.5. Even that would be better than what we have here.

I would posit that I too was once a low skill 'casual' player when I started out. However the depth of the combat system (which allowed skilled players to 1vX) gave me something to strive towards. I wanted to keep playing to improve my own skill level so I could achieve the feats I saw others accomplishing. Otherwise, I'd have just stayed back playing the game I'd been playing for the last 4 yrs.

Darnathian · August 2015

This is not Zos fault. all the whining and complaining since launch has led us here. We asked for this crap now deal with it or leave like the rest of us.

Only thing bringing me back is if they suck it up and revert to 1.5 combat. Closest thing I saw to balance

Darnathian · August 2015

Double post

Domander · August 2015

hrothbern wrote: »

Start de penalty of no Stamina Recovery AFTER 2 seconds Blocking

That should give enough leeway for interactive combat blocks and bashes

:-)

And then watch as many players macro 2 second right key clicks.

I had the same idea, but then I thought about it and realized that there's many players who would exploit it, like they exploit everything else that they are able.

RoamingRiverElk · August 2015

Indeed.

Playing on the PTS as sorc just feels like playing in a swamp of mediocrity where skill... well... it still has some kind of an impact, but I'm not able to play in what feels like skilful play as much as on Live. That's because of roll dodge cost and the nerfed damage, healing and damage shields. It really does feel like it's so much about dps vs healing now, instead of about doing many kinds of things. It's not dynamic anymore.

And that's not even counting that the whole way I've been playing DK for the past year, with some tweaks, is just not viable anymore. Nor is there any incentive for me to play a destro resto dk now, since sorc can do that better.

What was so wrong about permablock in the first place? I've played on sorc, dk, and stamina nb on Live, and I have absolutely no problem with it. The reason why some permablockers were so "op" while they were just blocking, blocking, blocking and not getting damaged on Live *was due to Nirnhoned armor*.

DK used to be a beautiful class. Now with all the nerfs, it's just not viable for small group outnumbered play unless there's some new trick, like damage reduction percentages being added in an "interesting" way with the battle spirit 'buff'. The DK's only crutch, nirn (which I haven't used) is history now too.

But the developers wouldn't know about this of course, because they don't really play on the Live servers (or do they?) where any attempt at small group play results in you *having to fight heavily outnumbered*. Nor have I yet, ever, seen a dev play skilfully. If you have, please point me in the direction of that video, I'd really love to see it.

And all of our tools are being taken away. No dynamic ultimate generation, burst going, defensive actions costing a lot, a set that will totally destroy anyone trying to use shields when playing outnumbered (because you can bet at least 35% of the Cyrodiil population will be wearing that set when they get their hands on it)...

I want a server with 1.6 [edit: 1.5. Well, 1.6 if I can't have 1.5

Clearly I PvPd a tad too much today!]. I'd even level up my characters again from zero...

Wing · August 2015

tanking overall got more boring (they don't do anything now but conserve stamina and contribute far less then they did before) skillful play has been punished and become more boring (no dodge rolling, blocking, bashing) perma blocking is still alive and well, and everyone is switching back to dresses.

le sigh.

Teiji · August 2015

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Just fighting trash PvE mobs in Imperial City, I seem to run out of stamina much faster than live. I will dodge roll out of the occasional red circle from a fire mage and block the occasional Dremora heavy attack, but certainly nothing remotely in the realm of perma-dodging or perma-blocking. Just naturally responding to combat cues. Something weird is going on with stamina.

Soloing IC trash without all points into stamina and 5k weapon damage is awkward, this is due to healing received going from -15% to -50%, making PvE more about taking as little damage in as short a space of time as possible through melting mobs down quickly, making the experience very lethargic to say the least; it feels artificially difficult, the mobs don't hit you too hard but your self-healing is completely terrible so the experience is very negative unless you're stacking tons of damage.

I'm cautiously optimistic as the developers are legitimately cool people, it just seems they're a bit out of touch with some major gripes the community has; similarly to this, around this time last year we had the Guild Summit, it's possible they will dedicate something this year in order to better 'get in touch with the community and its major gripes' in order to establish a better TESO: TU environment with the long-term health of the experience in-mind.

We shall see.

Rayste · August 2015

Teargrants wrote: »

Rayste wrote: »

From a skillful players point of view I can see how this can be frustrating .... but the majority of players are casual and I think removing the ability to 1vX is not fun for some, but better for most. ZOS actually did this one right.

So you posit that most ppl who want to PvP want a combat system that involves less thought and less skill, and subsequently is less rewarding and less enjoyable to play? Because that's what these changes accomplish - it's not just affecting ppls ability to 1vX. If ZOS simply wanted to limit the ability to 1vX w/o dumbing down the entire combat system, they could have simply reverted everything to 1.5. Even that would be better than what we have here.

I would posit that I too was once a low skill 'casual' player when I started out. However the depth of the combat system (which allowed skilled players to 1vX) gave me something to strive towards. I wanted to keep playing to improve my own skill level so I could achieve the feats I saw others accomplishing. Otherwise, I'd have just stayed back playing the game I'd been playing for the last 4 yrs.

Depending on the player, Less thought and skill does not always equal less rewarding and fun. Look at COD. But I get it, this is an MMO. I am not arguing, I am just trying to think outside of the box here. I believe I know why ZOS is going this route.

Ezareth · August 2015

yodased wrote: »

From my measly 5hrs in pts i can say that min maxers are taking a hit in the patch. It seems that they are pushing folks to hybridize their builds and not stack resource or regen or damage.

Did you try a hybrid at all?

What exactly does hybridize mean? Do you mean throw a bunch of crap together from a random assortment of skills and call it a build? I tried maxing regen, I tried maxing Stamina. The issue as I mentioned isn't that min/maxers are taking a "hit", min max is actually far stronger now than it ever was. The issue is, combat is boring because it was just simplified to damage ability key mashing. Blocking and dodge roll have been neutered so bad that the name of the game becomes glass cannon.

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Just fighting trash PvE mobs in Imperial City, I seem to run out of stamina much faster than live. I will dodge roll out of the occasional red circle from a fire mage and block the occasional Dremora heavy attack, but certainly nothing remotely in the realm of perma-dodging or perma-blocking. Just naturally responding to combat cues. Something weird is going on with stamina.

That's my experience as well. As I said it's mainly to do with resetting your regen every time you block or bash. Over the course of a 30 second fight that adds up fast. You constantly need to bash mobs in IC and block their heavy attacks. While their damage output is predictable and it is by no means difficult, the combat itself is now very uninspired.

Rayste wrote: »

From a skillful players point of view I can see how this can be frustrating .... but the majority of players are casual and I think removing the ability to 1vX is not fun for some, but better for most. ZOS actually did this one right.

twistedmonk wrote: »

stop trying to be a lone wolf and join a group.

What I read in this is Zerg is the new Meta. Yet everyone has concluded that the game engine can't handle the zerg so that seems like a terrible suggestion and path for the game.

Regardless "1vX" is a meaningless contrivance. What it really means is an extremely skilled player is able to takeon a group of far less skilled player. These changes don't change any of that. What happens when a large group of extremely skilled players band together as you suggest? I'm sure the players will love that even more.....at least with "1vX" the players usually have a chance to and often do kill the player.

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

Indeed.
It's not dynamic anymore.

Teiji wrote: »

Soloing IC trash without all points into stamina and 5k weapon damage is awkward, this is due to healing received going from -15% to -50%, making PvE more about taking as little damage in as short a space of time as possible through melting mobs down quickly, making the experience very lethargic to say the least; it feels artificially difficult

Exactly!

aco5712 · August 2015

perma blocking is still a thing ZOS.... its not hard to spec your warrior tree into block cost reduction.... its not hard to get that stamina back especially now when people do less damage. It would have been harder to do it with 1.6 meta because the damage is so high that if you drop block you insta die...... Maybe you should have made no stam regen in 1.6 and watched all the perma blockers die over and over again lol.

Soulac · August 2015

That's the reason to have 2.2k mag Reg as Stamina NB.
Cloak is my defense now and dodge is only there in case someone marks me.

Sustain build and I can't maintain multiple dodge rolls, thanks zos.

ToRelax · August 2015

Soulac wrote: »

That's the reason to have 2.2k mag Reg as Stamina NB.
Cloak is my defense now and dodge is only there in case someone marks me.

Sustain build and I can't maintain multiple dodge rolls, thanks zos.

Well, then cloak will just be nerfed in the next update...

TheBull · August 2015

It's not that regen is a problem. It's that it takes so much to kill any decent player. 1v1 kills will be rare in the city, maybe in the sewers, maybe.

The edge just isn't there. It's almost like pillow fight compared to live.

edit - Feel free to stop by my thread and give me some agrees and insightful Aug. 8

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/204910/dont-you-think-50-damage-reduction-is-a-bit-much#latest

Xsorus · August 2015

Combat is shittier on PTS, it would of been better to just add Soft Caps back in 1.6

Farorin · August 2015

Ezareth wrote: »

Let me start by saying I've played both as a Vet15 Bosmer Nightblade wearing 7/7 Medium Armor, triple Stamina cost reduction enchants, and 90 out of 100 Champion points into Stamina regen, (10 into Warlord) with full Vet14 Legendary gear with 2 Stamina regen bonuses and Vet10 Blue Stam/Magicka drink as well as the Vet 16 Bosmer NB Template with 7/7 Medium Armor, Purple Drink, triple Stamina regen enchants, 100 out of 100 into stamina regen and a V16 maximum stamina legendary set of gear.

As far as Stamina resource generation goes you're not really going to find a player with a setup any more stamina efficient than mine, I'm easily in the top 1% as far as that goes. I have just over 2400 Stamina regeneration without a major(Tripot)/minor endurance(Relentless Focus) or Battle Rush buffs active and just over 20,000 stamina( a loss of 600 with the same setup on live). With the V16 Template I have 30,00 stamina and 2300 stamina regen.

So after many sessions of testing and tweaking on the PTS I'm finding that amazingly it is extremely difficult for me not to run out of stamina in any skillful sort of extended combat with a build that is focused on *not* running out of stamina and it's pretty dissapointing. I'm not really dying...but I'm finding myself unable to continue engaging in combat while I'm waiting for resources to regen which just isn't fun.

This isn't because I'm spamming dodge roll. It isn't because I'm holding block, it *is* because I'm using all of my abilities, including dodge roll, Bash, Block (reactively only) and weapon abilities. I can kill 1 person easily using my entire stamina bar, but the moment I try to fight two players or fight another player after killing the first I'm virtually out of stamina. I've tried weaving in heavy attacks to help supplement my stamina but that has limited effectiveness since the return is so low. Bashing and Blocking are now prohibitively expensive with the loss of stamina regen. If someone goes to wrecking blow me, it is cheaper for me to let them hit me and break free, than it is for me to block it since I'm then given CC immunity. This isn't behavior that should be rewarded!

The only way I've found to have the stamina to ensure I have the stamina to continue fighting is to just spam my damage abilities over and over and nothing else. Not only is this actually effective in 2.1....is pretty darn *boring*. And that is what combat has become to me in the 6 or 7 hours I've spent wandering around IC. Boring and uninteresting. The things that made combat to me interesting (even on my Sorc); Bashing and blocking have an unacceptable cost attached to them which makes no sense

I don't want this to become all doom and gloom. I've waited for IC for so long and had such high hopes for it but I find myself looking forward to patch day with trepidation, not excitement. Something needs to be done here to not penalize skillful play, while restricting the abuse of permadodging/permablocking. If this goes live as it is, I can't see myself lasting very long as the combat was the only thing other than my friends that keep my playing this game.

They have dumbed it down a bit, but that is what the majority were seemingly calling for. Easier gameplay with less skill involved.

Why else do the majority prefer nonvet? Because it's easier. I can't stand nonvet for that exact reason, it feels like there is something wrong if all I have to do is spam a damage move over and over again for me to earn a long string of kills without even paying much attention to my opponents and environment.

IxSTALKERxI · August 2015

Use cloak and 5 piece shadow walker on your stam nb

that is all.

As for the rest of your post I agree. Luckily for me I do mostly group play, but it's going to be very frustrating playing solo or a small group and getting wiped by a larger group of 10 really bad pugs just because they have more combined DPS. This patch is a buff to zergs.

#Inb4lag

Tavore1138 · August 2015

This is a very good post about the stamina issues, I'd been so focused on my dislike of the TV system that I hadn't coherently thought about why the combat was less *something*.

Another 'issue' with the blocking thing is when you are fighting ranged damagers be it bows or sorcs where you can burn so much stamina dodging, blocking & breaking free that you don't have enough left to close the gap and hurt them - resource management should be a challenge but perhaps not this much of one and not aimed at simply stamina folks.

Maulkin · August 2015

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

This is a very good post about the stamina issues, I'd been so focused on my dislike of the TV system that I hadn't coherently thought about why the combat was less *something*.

Another 'issue' with the blocking thing is when you are fighting ranged damagers be it bows or sorcs where you can burn so much stamina dodging, blocking & breaking free that you don't have enough left to close the gap and hurt them - resource management should be a challenge but perhaps not this much of one and not aimed at simply stamina folks.

Resource management is only a problem where you're on the back foot or adding some defensive play into your game (via some dodge, bolt or block). If you outnumber the opposition and go full out attack, just spamming gap-closers and DPS it's even more impossible to run out of resources than before.

Dracane · August 2015

You guys seem to forget, that the changes to roll dodge and block were made, because there is this massive damage reduction in pvp. If they didn't change anything, it would be impossible to kill players with this damage reduction on top.

I think, many of us were quite satisfied with 1.6 and 1.7 is just boring and annoying. I want 1.6 back, because it was beautiful actually. Defense is strong, but 1 mistake could kill you. That's how it should be in my opinion and that's what I loved. Combat was exciting and rewarding. If you were skilled, you could take on a small group of less skilled players, because mistakes can kill you ,this is a beautiful concept and I want it to stay

This game is already plastic enough with too many lazy limitations in pvp. And 1.7 was a step in the wrong direction in my opinion. It definately has some good aspects. Only some though