Gameplay Updates and Q&A with Eric Wrobel

lathbury · February 2016

James-Wayne wrote: »

Helluin wrote: »

PvP wise, this changement to Magelight infact alters completely the description of this class and it's an unicum in game.

Shadow Cloak spammed, mainly by magicka builds, was surely an issue that required an action but this changement doesn't limit it, it nullifies a skill.
Probably some players "abused" of it but we can say something similar about every other core class skill.
Many other NB players like me uses and used this skill for skirmishing, as a defensive and repositioning skill.

It doesn't nullifie it, Magelight needs to be slotted to start with, second it needs to be cast and has a timer plus it also just got a reduced radius and higher cost. You can still shadow cloak everywhere you just need to be more aware of who is running Magelight now because just like how NBs can pop up anywhere at a moments notice now so can magelight be suddenly activated at a moments notice.

I love this change for PvP, it evens the battlefield for all players, Stamina or Magicka. Your a NB with shadow cloak so you need to start being more sneakier and smarter that is all.

ha lol have you even been on the pts it goes sorc streaks on you or dk chains activates magelight gets buff wails on you you try and gain distance to cloak get pulled and magelight again it negates the skill for 5 seconds which also means you cant access any of the passives in that line.

Barlthump · February 2016

Sarousse wrote: »

Swernik wrote: »

Isn't overload ultimate also reflectable?
This makes no sense to make meteor un-reflectable !

This.

@ZOS_GinaBruno what do you have to answer to this ?

Yeah cause people run around dropping 20 meteors before their ultimate bar is over right? Classic definition of Sorcs wanting more power everyday.

actosh · February 2016

@ZOS_GinaBruno @Wrobel

Why are you keep on treating Heavy Armor like the little redhead stepchild that nobody wants to have around?

Heavy armor used to be usefull, but right now, since u raised the values for medium and light armor, there is little to no need to wear freakin heavy armor. Medium should be reverted back to 50% of Heavy Armors Value and Light to 25% like it was in the past.

Will u ever put in some changes to the passives or will heavy be taken out of the game someday since it has the most stupid passives u can imagine.

Why not more Stam morphs for dk???
Stonefist, Draw Essence, Whip???

Frenkthevile · February 2016

kaorunandrak wrote: »

Couple of questions.

Especially with the "no current plans for spellcrafting" design decision:

1. When will Stamina builds(in general) get access to more abilities that will allow them to make builds pvp/pve that aren't reliant on the same four weapon abilities? (Wrecking blow, Rapid strikes if you have maelstrom weapons, Rally, Steel tornado) Nightblades at least get a hand full of stamina abilities to pick from even though many are magic based (seriously change that) you have Dragon knights using two dots(that again are based on magic......) Sorcs get an armor morph that is worthless cause the magika morph is way better.

2. When are you going to address or even acknowledge the disparity in power and utility between dual wield and two hand?(Dual wield allows for the 5-5-2 set combination and extra enchantment while adding more AOE, Range, Defense, Flat burst(light/heavy attacks), Flat DPS, Mobility, and with the upcoming changes to bleeds and champion points hands down the best bleed dot in game. While two hand brings Wrecking blow(which too many builds have shown in pve there are more viable DPS set ups, and in pvp too many are over dependent on this one ability) and rally, unless your target is in the 25% then it shines like a beacon with Executioner.

3. When will tanks get a pvp taunt or generally be useful in pvp? This was something you said we would be getting with spellcrafting and since that's not happening why can't tanks run in pvp? Honestly unless your a streamer with a chip on your shoulder the size of Texas and upset people so much that they go into a blind rage to attack you over the rest of your group you are nothing but a mass of hit points that will be dealt with after you watch the rest of your team get eradicated. To many other games have shown that pvp taunting is not only extremely useful but paramount to proper group play. Some have taunt duration that force confrontations and give teammates openings or breathing room others include or use separately a -range mechanic forcing situations and plays from opposing range users they may not be comfortable with.

4. When is stamina going to get any sort of worth while utility abilities they can bring to the team aside from damage?

5. When is stamina going to get any sort of worth while defensive abilities similar to health shields?

6. When is stamina going to get that Stamina heal(ie sacrifice a resource for stamina) we were promised with spellcrafting?

7. When is stamina going to get more then one ultimate in game that scales off of physical? In fact when are you to address the fact that every one uses the same handful of ultimates?

8. Why is stamina the most heavily taxed and regulated resource in-game?(cant block cast no stam regen, cant roll dodge higher and higher cost, high bash cost, no worthwhile defense options we can use outside two heals everything else calls for 5k+ stamina to use so we have to rely on blocks/rolls/and bashes)

9. When are you going to address magika block casting?

10. When are you going to make heavy armor passives useful and meaningful?

11. When are you going to make combat better without relying on animation canceling?(making light and heavy attacks matter by increasing their damage, DPS, and animation speed or adding truly useful buffs and debuffs to them that don't transfer to skills or combo-esque buffs that increase the power of skills?)

12. If animation canceling is your go to answer for enhanced combat when are you going to implement ingame tutorials and resources for its use and practice (training dummies) to improve the QoL for those who dont frequent the forms/twitch/youtube and know nothing of it?

13. When are you going to implement more useful stamina based item sets especially crafted?( right now the "meta" is hundings or bust where is a stamina based magus or seducer, hell what about torugs so we can craft a two piece weapon damage? In fact since you did it with kena and apparently will be doing it with the Clever alchemist set why arent you transitioning all the "weapon/spell damage adds" to this dual buff setup? Further why aren't we seeing this buff style taken with more stats rather than just weapon/spell damage? Wouldn't having dual buffs (while being EXTREMELY op) allow for the "play how you want" war cry that eso has promised? In fact where are the hybrid builds and support that was coming??

14. When will you switch from software updates to hardware updates( such as giving cyrodil its own dedicated server) to attempt to address cyrodil lag? You guys are aware that you have , Crowsfall, Camelot unchained, Black desert online to name a few that are all coming and promising a far more stable open world and siege based pvp environments in early testing phases then what we have available two years into this game?

Aspi90 · February 2016

No one is going to use the other moprh from crystal frag (or like 95% of all players don´t). Why do you introduce such a skill, i mean i know why, but compared to the other morph this one is still to bad. So please make it a stam morph, this is all stam sorcs ask for.

actosh · February 2016

@Wrobel

Are there any plans to make both morphs desireable, when it comes to choose one?

Most morphs in the game are a no brainer. example crystal frags

Aunatar · February 2016

Since meteor is being tuned to other ultimates, are you also making it dodgable like other ultimates?

Murmeltier · February 2016

Why you ask for more Feedback? The Players gaves you over a Year Feedback for the Classes, do you really read it? If yes, why you dont use the Feedback to rework Skills the Players really asking for. You see it doesnt fits if you say "Give us Feedback, we care and work on this" and get Classchanges like this. These are not the Changes which the most Players was asking for over a Year.

All the Time and all the Feedback you get from the Players, wasted. And now you ask us again, do the same Thing like before. The Players are angry and you slap them into the Face with this again? Why the Players should think you will do this better in the next Weeks?

Then your Answers, it sounds that you are proud of this Disaster, who has tested this? Who said these Changes are good, Streamers and some little Groups of "Pros"? Maybe the same Persons who destroyed the Fun for Tanks with the Stamina Reg Debuff, maybe the same Persons who said "vMA is cool live with it, Casuals"?

Do you want to build a Game for this little Groups or do you want to build a Game around all Players Experience and Feedback?

It feels like you build a Network and motivate some Streamers or sponsors them, to talk positive about the Game. Maybe you decided that their Feedback about the Classes are more important for you, than the Feedback from all other experienced Players outthere? You look at Streams and ask Streamers but i dont see the Things the real experienced Playerbase wants, where is our Feedback?

Here is my Question:

Zos, the Classchanges with the next DLC are really weak and loveless, where is our Feedback gone? And pls dont try to explain us we have to be Patience because you have had over a Year Time to rework the Skills. Other Games works really hard on the Gamebalance & Skills and some of them are really F2P.

Why i should offer another Question about Skills if you dont use the Infos from all of us and proof that you care for our Time and Money, we have invested in you? The Templar Threads are full of Feedback, did you ever read them?

EnOeZ · February 2016

Aunatar wrote: »

Since meteor is being tuned to other ultimates, are you also making it dodgable like other ultimates?

Also if the rationale behind Meteor being non reflectable anymore is that it was the only ultimate that could be, what about making Dragon Leap / Take Flight / Ferocious Leap (DK Ultimate) which is the only ultimate that can't be fired rooted, become unrootable ?

KenCleanAirSystem · February 2016

@Wrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno

Admittedly. I haven't read every post in this thread, so others may have already mentioned this, but even so, it's worth repeating.

For the love of god, please change Killer's Blade to deal physical or poison damage. With the philosophy put forth in the latest batch of CP changes, that you shouldn't need to spend points on multiple stars to increase your damage dealing effectiveness, why is this Stamina morph still doing Magic damage?!? It makes no sense the way it is, and will basically kill this ability completely for Stamina NBs if it stays the way it is.

If the upcoming changes remain as they are, not only do you need to put points into another star to increase Killer's Blade's effectiveness, but you have to put them into a whole other constellation, and one that is of absolutely no benefit to a Stamina build, no less.

Please, please, please consider changing this Stamina morph to deal damage that makes sense for a Stamina based character.

jamesharv2005ub17_ESO · February 2016

EnOeZ wrote: »

Aunatar wrote: »

Since meteor is being tuned to other ultimates, are you also making it dodgable like other ultimates?

Also if the rationale behind Meteor being non reflectable anymore is that it was the only ultimate that could be, what about making Dragon Leap / Take Flight / Ferocious Leap (DK Ultimate) which is the only ultimate that can't be fired rooted, become unrootable ?

They think they know more than the players what makes a good game. Its why this game has been and will continue to be under performing. They do not listen. They are arrogant. Way I look at it at least I dont have to pay per month for this. If this thing still had a sub only model it would be closed.

Look at Imperial City. Probably the lowest selling DLC ever for a game. They kept insisting that being able to loot other players was a good idea. Look how it turned out. Now they are doing the same thing again. All they are doing is either driving people to quit or driving people to stop paying them. Either way they should stop.

ShadowHvo · February 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hello everyone!

[*] Leeching Strikes: Also in the next incremental patch, we plan on increasing the amount of health restored from this ability, based on your feedback.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Jaronking · February 2016

Can @Wrobel discuss the reason for adding AOE caps and why they will not be removed.The PVP community been Asking for months now and their a poll with overwhelming support against it.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler and @Wrobel You know ESO live will be spammed with AOE caps so just talk about it.

Bfish22090 · February 2016

When will stamina sorcerers become viable?
why werent they any changes to stamina sorcerer?
when will they give a damage class ability to stamina sorcerers?

Soris · February 2016

Aunatar wrote: »

Since meteor is being tuned to other ultimates, are you also making it dodgable like other ultimates?

That would be reasonable. Or it would only be fair if my nova/standart had an invisible barrier that prevents ppl to go out of it.

MissBizz · February 2016

@Wrobel : Can you please explain why you chose the take away the third heal from BoL as the preferred skill change rather than any of the below options?

-Add LoS
-Reduce the full heal to 50% (so it's 3 small heals)
-Reduce all 3 heals a bit
-Give it bolt escape/roll dodge treatment
-Increase cost
-Reduce range
-Anything that would have tamed down the skill but kept the 3rd heal.

ThatNeonZebraAgain · February 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hello everyone!

On this Friday’s ESO Live Twitch show, we’ll be joined by Lead Combat Designer Eric Wrobel to discuss some of the ability and balance changes going into the Thieves Guild base game patch. This will include what’s been done so far, some upcoming changes we plan to make, and answering some of your questions live. First, we’d like to address a few popular topics we’ve seen over the past week from the PTS forums:
Breath of Life: We understand that many of you are frustrated with this change, but we found the ability was a little too powerful as a single ability (both as a single target and AoE healing ability). We’ve been watching a lot of livestreams, and Templars appear to still be very useful using this ability in conjunction with others. This includes using Focused Healing which now grants you the Major Mending buff, or Healing Ritual which has a decreased cast time. We don’t currently have any plans to change Breath of Life beyond what’s already been done.

Magelight: We plan on making a few changes to this ability based on some feedback we’ve seen including reducing the radius of the reveal, and increasing the cost of the ability. Ultimately, we want it to be a little more difficult to find stealthed enemies unless you specifically use the Radiant Magelight morph, and want it to be more expensive to get the Major Empower buff from toggling Magelight.

Meteor: This was the only Ultimate that you were previously able to reflect, so this change was simply bringing it in line with all other Ultimates. We also plan on making a slight reduction to the snare on the Ice Comet morph.

Siphoning Attacks: We plan on increasing the resources provided by this ability in the next incremental patch.

Leeching Strikes: Also in the next incremental patch, we plan on increasing the amount of health restored from this ability, based on your feedback.

Alliance War Skill Line: Rich Lambert posted a very detailed response in this thread that we encourage you to check out, but in short, we based our changes on what we found to be the average amount of AP gained based on our data. That said, what’s currently on the PTS is lower than intended, and will be fixed in the next incremental patch.

Templars: We’ve been reading your feedback across the forums. We understand your frustration, and do appreciate you taking the time to let us know about your pain points. We have some additional changes going in for you in the next patch including increasing the duration of the damage reduction from Empowering Sweep, increasing the bonus to the initial hit from Crescent Sweep, and adjusting the buffs from Rune Focus to stay on you for 8 seconds after leaving the rune.

With all that said, please post any combat or itemization-related questions for Eric in this thread, and we’ll do our best to answer as many as we can on Friday’s show. Remember to check today’s PTS patch notes first as we included a few fixes in this most recent update.

Thanks, everyone, and we look forward to talking with you later this week!

Thanks for the feedback. Interested to see how much the increase to SA is, though it would have to be significant in order to make it pay off against its own cost and the cost of abilities to proc it. However, the increase to stat return needs to be on the proc, not the basic attack. What makes SA valuable, particularly to NB tanks, is sustain while blocking. Dropping block to try to gain back resources via basic attacks presents a significant risk to the tank (and thus the group) against endgame boss mechanics.

Leeching morph definitely needs love, but I don't think increasing the health restore will make people want to use it. People need stam or mag, not health, which can be gained from many other abilities that are already part of rotations (eg Sap Essence, Funnel Health/Swallow Soul, etc).

Please see my thread for an in-depth discussion on the ways SA is the backbone of NB tanking.

Brrrofski · February 2016

MissBizz wrote: »

@Wrobel : Can you please explain why you chose the take away the third heal from BoL as the preferred skill change rather than any of the below options?

-Add LoS
-Reduce the full heal to 50% (so it's 3 small heals)
-Reduce all 3 heals a bit
-Give it bolt escape/roll dodge treatment
-Increase cost
-Reduce range
-Anything that would have tamed down the skill but kept the 3rd heal.

Most of them hurt the skill more than the upcoming changes.

Heal dungeons? Use other skills. Pvp? Others will have to start healing themselves I guess.

I don't have a problem with the change.

Soris · February 2016

MissBizz wrote: »

@Wrobel : Can you please explain why you chose the take away the third heal from BoL as the preferred skill change rather than any of the below options?

-Add LoS
-Reduce the full heal to 50% (so it's 3 small heals)
-Reduce all 3 heals a bit
-Give it bolt escape/roll dodge treatment
-Increase cost
-Reduce range
-Anything that would have tamed down the skill but kept the 3rd heal.

Not these! They are even bigger nerfs than what we have now. With this way you are gimping even more who is not a light armored full dedicated healer.
This should NOT happen.

Artjuh90 · February 2016

MissBizz wrote: »

@Wrobel : Can you please explain why you chose the take away the third heal from BoL as the preferred skill change rather than any of the below options?

-Add LoS
-Reduce the full heal to 50% (so it's 3 small heals)
-Reduce all 3 heals a bit
-Give it bolt escape/roll dodge treatment
-Increase cost
-Reduce range
-Anything that would have tamed down the skill but kept the 3rd heal.

Not the dogde roll treatment. That would even worse for pve then this. But the changes affect pve more then pvp yet again. Sure is healing annoying sometimes? Yes. But there is no problem in a meta where dps is the way to go. Things would be different if the tanks or healers would dominante. Tanks aren't really viable in pvp even pve (talking about proper tanks with 40-50k hp). You see more and more dungeons where tanks aren't even used anymore and with the way zos is going the only way to go is selfsustaining high dps. Which would bevfine if they would have chosen this from the beginning but how groupfinder is build and the ammount of synergy's and supporting abiltys shows zos made team build is designed for the trinty in groupcontent

bowmanz607 · February 2016

What was the reason for decreasing the major movement buff from 40% to 30%?

Bashev · February 2016

bowmanz607 wrote: »

What was the reason for decreasing the major movement buff from 40% to 30%?

You move to fast and lag the server.
/kidding

bowmanz607 · February 2016

Will we ever see new AvA sets available for purchase in nonvet?

_Chaos · February 2016

Lets not beat around the bush here....

WHY DO WE HAVE AOE CAPS AND WHAT'S IT GONNA TAKE TO REMOVE THEM

bowmanz607 · February 2016

What was the reason for the new animation prioritization and what are the chances it will contribute to lag?

Cinbri · February 2016

@ZOS_GinaBruno @Wrobel
Regarding questions and Wrobel answers on eso live:
1. For now we know that new pvp and trial sets have weapon/jewel/armor parts. What parts dlc daily quests sets'(like Baharaha Curse and Serpent Spirit) have except armor?
2. There is many suggestions to nerf Fasalla Guil set into oblivion however people forgetting of what made it useless(Durok Bane) before. Can you tell us about changes for this set? I think jewelry parts should be removed from loot table to prevent it to be used in combination with light/medium 5 pieces parts, i.e. high damage chars; set should be only for heavy armor users; and without weapon parts set will become too weak in compare with other new sets.
3. Most important question - tell us about future Templar buffs. Coz right now there is nothing to be proud of regarding templars, just to prevent mistake you can do - don't say something like "we nerf-hammered templar pvp healers but in return you got 12% buff for Sun Fire so now can deal 500 more damage with this long casted skill".
Also in main templar feedback thread i mentioned suggestions to fix some templar skills
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2685317/#Comment_2685317
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2685851/#Comment_2685851
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2684861/#Comment_2684861
If you read and acknowledged those problems and agree with it, tell us more about future serious buffs of those skill.
And again: we wanna hear about what will be done regarding templars(serious buffs preferably).
Also off-topic question:

Cinbri wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno as we know those costumes will be in crown store.
Will it will be released same time as DLC goes live to celebrate it?

film · February 2016

film wrote: »

@Wrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno

When it comes to class balance I am curious as to why Stamina Sorc's are the only class that do not have a class skill that attacks (Magicka templar have Puncturing Sweep, Stamina Templar Biting Jabs Javelin, Magicka DK Whip, Embers Stamina DK Unstable Flame Magicka NB Concealed Weapon Stamina NB Surprise Attack Magicka Sorc Crystal Frags) ?

IC update you gave them buffs and solidified them as class but that's really it. I think it is pertinent to this update to buff Stamina Sorc's but I wouldn't even call it a buff. Give them something to look forward to as a class. Give them a skill to call their own. At the very least I hope @Wrobel and the rest of the ZOS crew addresses the Stamina Sorc issue of being ignored for a while now and talks about his/their vision for that class.

At the very least give them something.

Please.

Thanks.

Also to note if it helps: The enemy in maelstrom arena Xivilai Toxicoli has attacks that seem to be Battle Mage-esque that aren't in the game for players. I believe there are skills there already in place to look at for Stamina Sorcs.

dpencil · February 2016

@ZOS_GinaBruno Here are my questions (I play a magicka sorc mainly):

1. Bound Armor and Magelight have both required double barring in the past. Now with the change to Magelight, it's possible to keep it only on one bar. Could Bound Armor be reworked to function similarly, with most of its buffs active simply for having it slotted?

2. Can we get a healthbar in the UI for pets?

FENGRUSH · February 2016

film wrote: »

film wrote: »

@Wrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno

When it comes to class balance I am curious as to why Stamina Sorc's are the only class that do not have a class skill that attacks (Magicka templar have Puncturing Sweep, Stamina Templar Biting Jabs Javelin, Magicka DK Whip, Embers Stamina DK Unstable Flame Magicka NB Concealed Weapon Stamina NB Surprise Attack Magicka Sorc Crystal Frags) ?

IC update you gave them buffs and solidified them as class but that's really it. I think it is pertinent to this update to buff Stamina Sorc's but I wouldn't even call it a buff. Give them something to look forward to as a class. Give them a skill to call their own. At the very least I hope @Wrobel and the rest of the ZOS crew addresses the Stamina Sorc issue of being ignored for a while now and talks about his/their vision for that class.

At the very least give them something.

Please.

Thanks.

Also to note if it helps: The enemy in maelstrom arena Xivilai Toxicoli has attacks that seem to be Battle Mage-esque that aren't in the game for players. I believe there are skills there already in place to look at for Stamina Sorcs.

I know right?! The one stam sorc has a frontal attack that knocks everyone back. They literally made a skill not in the game and gave it to stam sorc NPCs only. KILLING ME

Didgerion · February 2016

Are there any plans to remove classes in the future and having just skill lines?

Right now all balance attempts are failing at both: class level and resource type level.

Gameplay Updates and Q&amp;A with Eric Wrobel

Gameplay Updates and Q&A with Eric Wrobel