So many are furious with the combat team development, what's the path forward?

GrumpyDuckling · March 2016

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

I certainly wouldn't want to be a member of the team who is responsible for balance. It's just too difficult when I try to realistically think about the task of balancing everything as a whole.

However, because it's necessary to strive for balance, perhaps the combat team could implement a system that removes the 4 classes that we currently have (Templar, Dragonknight, Nightblade, Sorcerer) and instead allows us to choose 3 of the 12 skill lines for building our character.

Then, the issue is not about balancing classes, but instead, about balancing skill lines. This would drastically reduce the amount of work for the combat team and also give players more options. Then we wouldn't have whole groups of people complaining that their entire class feels useless to them (as we currently have with Templars).

I don't think that solves an issue of balance because we would still have the same trees. Instead of classes, it would be skill lines. Same problem, different way the skills are presented to us.

They've convulated their own issue of balance with Vet ranks and Champion Points.

I like the point @eliisra conveys.

ZoS or Matt presenting to us what path they're going down in regards to the game direction would probably clarify things for us.

What I like about the idea of removing classes (which has been stated before, by others) and only focusing on skill lines is that then an entire class won't be deemed "worthless" by players, like we currently have with Templars. I'm not saying that removing classes would fix balance, but it makes it easier to balance combat.

Can you imagine the difficulty and stress of having to balance 12 skill lines that are permanently locked into 4 specific classes? Why not remove the restrictions and only have to worry about the skill lines themselves?

Muizer · March 2016

It's rarely wise to go with the vocal majority. More often than not I hope ZoS will not give in to what's being asked for on the forums. Take the people who clamour for AoE cap removal. They can roughly be divided in two groups:

- a small group who misses the old days when players within a very narrow range of builds could wreak havoc, and believe removing the AoE cap and reinstating dynamic ult will restore them to godhood.
- a very large group who are fed up with zergs, and have been led to believe by the first group that removing AoE caps and reinstating dynamic ult are the anser, but have not actually thought this through for themselves.

The first group is just being egocentric. The latter has a genuine complaint, but no credible solution. The only thing ZoS combat team can reasonably take away from this is that zerging is a problem.

umagon · March 2016

The problem is that the combat lead is not mathematical engineer and if he is not a good one. Sure he his creative when coming up with the skills' looks and feels. But that creativity can not design a mmo combat system. Which at the core is pure mathematics. He needs to be reassined to a different role, the mess the combat system is in is evident of that.

WalkingLegacy · March 2016

@GrumpyDuckling I smell what you're cooking

NBrookus · March 2016

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

@NBrookus

I've been advocating some of the devs play with us as well. Could go hand in hand at strengthing community to dev relations.

If you watch the videos they did on ESO Live of them playing....it was unmotivating and personally left me wondering if they play MMOs, do they even play their own?

Shoot, I'd even group it up with Gina and Jessica - I bet they play better than Wrobel.

I don't care if they aren't good players. If they aren't, it would be even better for them to experience the game from the point of view of players who are. Or vice versa.

GrumpyDuckling · March 2016

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

@GrumpyDuckling I smell what you're cooking

Thank you @WalkingLegacy . It bothers me that we're asking creative people to force themselves into a box by jamming skill lines into classes and telling them to "figure it out and make everyone happy." They're suffocated by "class balance" and it's a lot less suffocating to only have to worry about skill line balance Remove class restrictions so they only have to focus on skill lines. Let's make things easier for the combat team.

Zheg · March 2016

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

I certainly wouldn't want to be a member of the team who is responsible for balance. It's just too difficult when I try to realistically think about the task of balancing everything as a whole.

However, because it's necessary to strive for balance, perhaps the combat team could implement a system that removes the 4 classes that we currently have (Templar, Dragonknight, Nightblade, Sorcerer) and instead allows us to choose 3 of the 12 skill lines for building our character.

Then, the issue is not about balancing classes, but instead, about balancing skill lines. This would drastically reduce the amount of work for the combat team and also give players more options. Then we wouldn't have whole groups of people complaining that their entire class feels useless to them (as we currently have with Templars).

I don't think that solves an issue of balance because we would still have the same trees. Instead of classes, it would be skill lines. Same problem, different way the skills are presented to us.

They've convulated their own issue of balance with Vet ranks and Champion Points.

I like the point @eliisra conveys.

ZoS or Matt presenting to us what path they're going down in regards to the game direction would probably clarify things for us.

What I like about the idea of removing classes (which has been stated before, by others) and only focusing on skill lines is that then an entire class won't be deemed "worthless" by players, like we currently have with Templars. I'm not saying that removing classes would fix balance, but it makes it easier to balance combat.

Can you imagine the difficulty and stress of having to balance 12 skill lines that are permanently locked into 4 specific classes? Why not remove the restrictions and only have to worry about the skill lines themselves?

Because, for someone hired to do exactly that job, it shouldn't be impossible. ESO has less classes and class specific skills than almost everyone of their competitors. Haven't played in years, but gw2 had 8 classes and 5 skill lines for each. ESO has 4 and 3, almost a quarter. If it can't be done with current staff, hire people that can achieve it, all of their competitors are capable of it, 'stress and difficulty' seem to be nonfactors for them, why should ESO get a pass?

GrumpyDuckling · March 2016

Zheg wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

I certainly wouldn't want to be a member of the team who is responsible for balance. It's just too difficult when I try to realistically think about the task of balancing everything as a whole.

However, because it's necessary to strive for balance, perhaps the combat team could implement a system that removes the 4 classes that we currently have (Templar, Dragonknight, Nightblade, Sorcerer) and instead allows us to choose 3 of the 12 skill lines for building our character.

Then, the issue is not about balancing classes, but instead, about balancing skill lines. This would drastically reduce the amount of work for the combat team and also give players more options. Then we wouldn't have whole groups of people complaining that their entire class feels useless to them (as we currently have with Templars).

I don't think that solves an issue of balance because we would still have the same trees. Instead of classes, it would be skill lines. Same problem, different way the skills are presented to us.

They've convulated their own issue of balance with Vet ranks and Champion Points.

I like the point @eliisra conveys.

ZoS or Matt presenting to us what path they're going down in regards to the game direction would probably clarify things for us.

What I like about the idea of removing classes (which has been stated before, by others) and only focusing on skill lines is that then an entire class won't be deemed "worthless" by players, like we currently have with Templars. I'm not saying that removing classes would fix balance, but it makes it easier to balance combat.

Can you imagine the difficulty and stress of having to balance 12 skill lines that are permanently locked into 4 specific classes? Why not remove the restrictions and only have to worry about the skill lines themselves?

Because, for someone hired to do exactly that job, it shouldn't be impossible. ESO has less classes and class specific skills than almost everyone of their competitors. Haven't played in years, but gw2 had 8 classes and 5 skill lines for each. ESO has 4 and 3, almost a quarter. If it can't be done with current staff, hire people that can achieve it, all of their competitors are capable of it, 'stress and difficulty' seem to be nonfactors for them, why should ESO get a pass?

Your argument assumes that other games have perfectly balanced classes. I highly doubt that other developers have no class balancing issues in their games. Unless you are in the position of the people you are saying should be replaced by other more "capable" people, then you can't simply say "hey, you should be able to fix this." I don't think it's that simple.

Instead of saying what the developers "should do," I'm campaigning to make balancing easier for them so that the balancing issues we think should be fixed will have a better chance of being fixed. Why not completely remove the "Templar's suck so I want to play a different class" complaint by allowing people to pick and choose their skill lines? It's not that Aedric Spear, Dawn's Wrath, and Restoring Wrath skill lines all suck. It's that the 3 skill lines, when forced to be combined together, simply aren't as good a combination as other classes have in their skill lines.

I get it. It's easy to be frustrated and mad. But I think it's more effective to brainstorm realistic solutions than it is to call for new balancing developers.

charley222 · March 2016

i play from the beta release

and just comeback about maybe 7 day , and my 2 guild are gone and all player in my friend list ,
conclusion , some player just get boring and frustrated too wait forever for something get fix or balance , now is easy 2 1/2 year and is still now done . stamina build still very limited still need too wait a other 3 or 4 month for heavy armor and everyone know about cyrodiil ,ect ,,,, and the coding is so bad , i need too log off every 1 hour because my auto attack , not working anymore and get stuck

, anyway i dont have a lot of hope , but going too enjoy orsinium

the next 2 or 3 month , but really missing some massive RVR cyrodiil

,
good topic op , on my side i`m not mad anymore just throw the towel or no hope

Divinius · March 2016

I just gave the OP an Awesome solely for using the word "vociferously" in a sentence.

Dreyloch · March 2016

Alabyn wrote: »

I hope part of the way forward is taking a more collegial attitude on the forums. Allegations that developers do not read the Forums, "hate" certain types of players, or classes conveyed by spiteful and provocative, insulting language just muddy the waters. The way forward begins not with Wrobel or anyone else explaining themselves, but with constructive feedback and behaving as gentleman and women. I hope your thread heads in that direction!

Once that culture has changed on these forums, we can begin the important work of improving the game.

Yeaahhhh, we've tried that. I've tried that, this guy, his sisiter, best friend, and his dog have tired that. ZoS simply does nothing but "say" they are reading our feedback and do either the exact opposite, or nothing at all with the 100's of idea's this community has put forth. Some are outrageous for sure, but some are extremely well thought out and presented, only to see nothing happen with it. Not a single response saying "Hey that's a pretty cool idea. But here's why we think it won't work". That's all they gotta do!! Yet it's never done.

Dyride · March 2016

ZOS will make so much money with a barbershop, housing, and race changes with Crown Store or gold options like they have with motifs and XP boosts.

It is pretty obvious they lost out by not having a finished product in place at launch.

ZOS was stuck with creating Vet Ranks and Cadwells instead of releasing with Imperial City like expected.

Then the Bot-fix patch, which moved to server-side calculations, has poisoned PvP with lag.

Rather than continue with compelling endgame PVE and solo content after Craglorn, they had to finish console development and overhaul the combat system with 1.6.

Console seems to have a healthy population but also slows the development cycle for patches and fixes.

The Vet ranks removal is going to be two years too late, I would guess 95% of the players who care have already quit.

I would rather see Dev effort towards something that actual improved the game as it is rather than another huge overhaul of the game mechanics with Vet rank removal.

$infraction2008b16_ESO$ · March 2016

yodased wrote: »

Remember that not everyone is the same as yourself, even though it feels that way.

No they just prefer to pick the most optimal FOTM route, or even exploit as much as deemed acceptable and even beyond that.

That's the thing with players from any MMO, you give them an inch and they'll take a mile. Unfortunately this is ZoS's first MMO and I kind of get the feeling they don't want to go and balance things out proper in case they anger the more hardcore side and any well known guilds move on or streamers leave all because they removed or balanced a certain meta they were used to.

As for the magicka/stamina balance, you don't need a poll just look at what sort of abilities, skill lines, passives, damage types, gear, races etc and how they compare. Stamina is still the same underdog as it was at launch just after 1.6 they made it more feasible by adding a few morphs to class abilities but they still need to bring it up to par even more.

It's also kind of ridiculous that there are no base class abilities that use stamina (bar dark exchange but that gives magicka in return), when you start a new character for example you have to level magicka scaling abilities in order to use stamina morphs, you can't go full on stamina with your class from the moment you step out of your coldharbour cell so you are pretty much edged to using magicka until you start leveling class abilities to their max ranks and only then you are given the choice whether to use stamina for a couple. It's kind of like they forgot about stamina when they made the class trees or only expected people to use the weapon abilities as fillers rather than focus on a stamina build.

acw37162 · March 2016

It was one of the most intelligent things that could do to not respond in the Templar thread. Being able to readily identify where you would more likely then nor make things worse or feed the fire is a sign of intelligence.

As far as Templars are concerned, while I am personally not a fan of the changes, they are stronger this patch. There is a rather substantial gap between what some vocal Templar posters think the class should be and what the vision the Developmental team has for the class.

The gap between the two is part of the reason for the amount of forum frustration being expressed. That mixed in with the normal forum raging.

As far as Wrobel, he is the figure head. God bless him for stepping up but he's kind of a terrible communicator. You would think a muti-million company/product would give more training or find someone who is a better communicator.

A good portion of the hate directed to him is not deserved. There is a small amount that is actually well deserved.

The familiar format of ESO live, with the inside jokes, and passive aggressive comments also does not help. If this was two guys in garage streaming, yeah it's nice. They run a multi million enterprise be it a game or not and generally appear to treat most things like its a frat house.

Add to that the semi anonymity of the Internet and the general toxicity of almost all forums and well you have the appearance of a lot of hatred towards the combat team, whichin my opinion is inaccurate.

Now, if the animation timing pass had been pushed live to the masses who don't live on the forums would have felt that combat change there would have been some very legitimate hate pointed at the combat team.

kirk_lewis_ESO · March 2016

Look at it this way - if you were to take data from the player base of this game, you would get confused. PVP vs PVER vs RP garbage. People thinking alienating one to focus on the other will attract more consumers etc. They also made the mistake of consolidating pvp into pve, they made the mistake of trying to appease the more volatile player-base etc. When you try to appease a guy who is accustomed to game hopping instead of MMO veterans who are accustomed to playing one game for years, what would you think would happen? Also, why re-invent the wheel? You take the wheel, see what works, improve greatly on what doesn't and go on from there adding in your personal flavor from there (lore, story, combat tweaks, animation/art style etc) which is the other issue. Don't make the wheel oval (empty game). You create base problems unique to that product along with the problems similar products have or had with what a lot of people love left out (housing) too.

NoMoreChillies · March 2016

when there is 8 different classes of players all asking for a nerf to the other class, who do the devs listen to?

Turelus · March 2016

For a great example of what I and other have spoke about here, check this link: http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/2745633/#Comment_2745633

So Wrobel comes back to the community and gives feedback to say that they've looked at what's been said, they're still planning more changes in future. The community however instantly jump on attacks towards him because they didn't get exactly what they wanted right then and there.

What we should have seen is "Thanks Wrobel, here are some additional things I feel could be looked at going forward. <insert constructive post>"

ToRelax · March 2016

GrumpyDuckling wrote: »

I certainly wouldn't want to be a member of the team who is responsible for balance. It's just too difficult when I try to realistically think about the task of balancing everything as a whole.

However, because it's necessary to strive for balance, perhaps the combat team could implement a system that removes the 4 classes that we currently have (Templar, Dragonknight, Nightblade, Sorcerer) and instead allows us to choose 3 of the 12 skill lines for building our character.

Then, the issue is not about balancing classes, but instead, about balancing skill lines. This would drastically reduce the amount of work for the combat team and also give players more options. Then we wouldn't have whole groups of people complaining that their entire class feels useless to them (as we currently have with Templars).

Nope, it would drastically increase the amount of work required to balance the system, as well as making it way harder to keep balance when adding more classes or abilities. From 4 classes we would go all the way up to 220 different combinations wich are all interwoven on top of that.

Great thread OP. Likely we just can't do anything but wait, either in this game or another. But if there was good communication and the relationship between devs and customers could be repaired, this game still has huge potential imo.

hrothbern · March 2016

Turelus wrote: »

Take a look at the game and you'll see even more players who simply don't care and keep playing.

I won't argue ZOS need better communication, but just because we (the vocal forums community) think something should be doesn't mean it should be or that it's best for the game.
If ZOS were to listen to the forums then we would see every single class have the ability to one shot each other because everyone demands their class should be buffed and anything that beats them should be nerfed.

There are some good posts now and then which give good structured feedback about how ZOS could make changes to the game, but most are just "rahhh rahhh X is horrible!" "waaa waaa Y killed me" "Booo hooo you nerfed Z so I can't win every fight any more".

Adapt or die, if you have a good idea post it in a way other that throwing personal insults at the lead developers and asking for them to be fired.

agree on all the points you make

The"General Discussion Forum" is unfortunately full of:

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And somewhere on our Forums there should be room for that.... also for what many will consider as very narrow minded emotional blurps...
As long as they are not insulting

I guess from our side as users, constructive threads/posts are much better placed at the "Combat & Character Mechanics" Forum, or some of the other Forums.

That pragmatical suggestion does not take away that I really dislike constructive posts being pushed away from the prime Forum, the general discussion, by a potpourri of negative posts....

But that is someting for ZOS Communications...
They could from their side introduce a sub-forum for these kind of threads/posts and move these threads/posts consistently to that sub-forum.

Teridaxus · March 2016

Muizer wrote: »

It's rarely wise to go with the vocal majority. More often than not I hope ZoS will not give in to what's being asked for on the forums. Take the people who clamour for AoE cap removal. They can roughly be divided in two groups:

- a small group who misses the old days when players within a very narrow range of builds could wreak havoc, and believe removing the AoE cap and reinstating dynamic ult will restore them to godhood.
- a very large group who are fed up with zergs, and have been led to believe by the first group that removing AoE caps and reinstating dynamic ult are the anser, but have not actually thought this through for themselves.

The first group is just being egocentric. The latter has a genuine complaint, but no credible solution. The only thing ZoS combat team can reasonably take away from this is that zerging is a problem.

So much this, i always facepalm about the request to bring back the dk vampire emperor who can whip out a group of 50 people alone.

hrothbern · March 2016

Turelus wrote: »

The thing is they are being reasonably communicative now, more so than in the past. However every time they say an off hand comment like "AP caps" the forums explodes with threads saying they're idiots, fire them, they don't play the game etc.

I agree fully they could be more open with how they work on things, I have seen some of the best player/developer communication possible in the MMO genre whilst playing EVE Online. However the difference in the feedback given from that community and this one is very different.

I do agree their development cycles and deployment times for issues seem to be completely messed up. No bug should take three months to fix if it's addressed on a PTS (it shouldn't even make it to live) but the community can't keep looking at specific developers and saying "everything is this persons fault!"

However when we as a community start growing up and trying to engage these people with rational and polite threads we'll get better communication. This can be seen on the forums in some threads where the Developers or community team have taken the time to reply to a well structured and calm question.

Honestly though I don't think anything at this point will make this community happy.
They make threads asking for feedback, they give us reason as to why they did/didn't do something. Then they get raged at because they didn't go in the direction we wanted them to, even if they have actual rational and reasoned answers as to why.

Rich would make /lurk posts to show he had seen the thread or would be watching it, then people just attacked him for not replying to it in any way or giving more feedback.

From what I understand we seem to want developers who have a permanent presence on the forums replying to every individual issue and the only answer they can give is "yes, you're 100% right we'll do what you want".

In closing I again agree we do need better communication and ZOS need to step up with bug fixing releases, however as I and others have said we as a community need to step up on our manners constructive information offered.

We do indeed need a good working relationship on this forum.
That has to come from everybody involved: players and ZOS.
Respect, politeness, some humility, putting effort in outlining your arguments in an articulated way, are all essential elements

Not intending to highjack this thread,
But imo the original root-balancing of this game, two years ago, was not that well conceived, topped of with a potpourri of cool abilities. Extreme builds were "controlled" by a band-aid general blanket called soft caps.
So my guess is that we are still facing a long process of balancing and root-balancing of the game mechanics.
Something that will take longer than the next DLC DB. Much longer.

All the more reason to have a very good working relationship between all people involved in this great game. In good spirits.

And last but not least:
The Nr 1 rule in change management is that you can never communicate too much !!!

and BTW that will not be easy for the involved ZOS people !!!
The natural tendency of most people is just wait again a little bit longer before communicating, because then they know themselves a little bit more what is certain to change.
And exactly that is what you should not do !!!
(tons of experience and literature on that)

xellink · March 2016

Zheg wrote: »

Because, for someone hired to do exactly that job, it shouldn't be impossible. ESO has less classes and class specific skills than almost everyone of their competitors. Haven't played in years, but gw2 had 8 classes and 5 skill lines for each. ESO has 4 and 3, almost a quarter. If it can't be done with current staff, hire people that can achieve it, all of their competitors are capable of it, 'stress and difficulty' seem to be nonfactors for them, why should ESO get a pass?

Gw2 is not balanced but the updates and more frequent metagame shifts allows different builds to be imba for a while. Gw2 is also an older game and a slightly better balance would be expected. However the game is heavily skewed towards balanced (jack of all trades) and DPS builds. No pure role setups are viable even in team based play.

The closest game to achieve true balance is guild wars one. However the tooltip for each skill can extend to several paragraphs. It also took 3-4 years before sensible balance was achieved. I kept up with the metagame and true balance was achieved very gradually at about 5 years and to the point pve and pvp skills had to be separated which frustrated many players. This forces players to switch between attb pts and equipment between pve and pvp and the inventory size was horrendous. Also mesmers were used as a balancing tool as they alter how other classes performed. The Mesmer class was completely revamped after as it suffered many drawbacks in pve. There remains a lot of complains regarding illusion magic but I guess the game died as anet started balancing it. Gw1 continues to be balanced over several patches despite the release of gw2.

Tavore1138 · March 2016

I'd speculate that half the problem is that when you design a game you don't *play* the game and experience it the way players do - so both your feelings about things in game and the buttons/skills/rotations you use will not be the same. This will lead to decisions that sometimes confuse the heck out of the player base.

Also I have a feeling that sometimes the devs may listen to a small subset of players who are not really representative of the majority of players. The streamers and the pros who's views are certainly of value but are obviously going to biased by how they play not how the rest of us play - what makes them happy may not necessarily work for everyone and skills they find good or bad with specialist max/min builds may not really feature in the same way for many of us.

Personally I have been disheartened by the changes to stamina over the last few major patches as they seem to miss that for a stamina build we have to get skills, blocks, sprints, sneaks, break frees and dodges all out of one resource pool which now has penalties for dodging more than once and for daring to block in combat - whereas as magicka builds can happily do all these things out of a secondary pool and recharge their main pool at all times with no penalty.

Add the incoming punishments in the CP changes and the refusal to scale key skills off physical as well as magic damage and it all adds up to what seems like a fundamental lack of understanding of how their game mechanics work 'on the ground' - and that leads to a lack of faith in the decisions being taken.

ESO live doesn't help because often the people talking there sometimes come off like they are trolling those affected most - perhaps that is not intentional but it rubs salt in the wounds when all you want to do is play a game and have an even chance of success.

Tankqull · March 2016

Jhunn wrote: »

People saying 'you have no clue about the big picture', mhm, but it's really not hard to tell from the forums. The AOE caps poll had +-4000 people voting. You'd never have half that vote nowadays.

but ... butt... eso is bright and striving awesomeness...

Ethromelb14_ESO · March 2016

yodased wrote: »

Let's make sure we are on the same page here

You are the third dot from the 7,000,000,000 from the left. I think I see me over there on the right.

None of us have any idea of the big picture. We all see these little frames and compartments and think we can extrapolate that out to scale of the playerbase.

Know what, the most you can actively be a part of is 2,499 players. This is your community. 5 guilds, 500 people, minus yourself.

You could then take a strawpoll of those people and try to take some info from that, but its such a small sample size your data will be completely broken.

Remember that not everyone is the same as yourself, even though it feels that way.

They have access to the data. We don't. 100% of these posts and ideas are just that, ideas, conjecture, speculation.

Not to say I don't agree with the concept and the ideals behind it, but don't think that we can affect change by being on the forums.

Last maths were done someone figured out it was less than 1% of all players that visit these forums, so uh how can a vocal minority of super low % mean anything?

The only problem with your example, is that, you're interacting with OP from your right position in the illustration - despite him being on the left. This thread was a means to make that possible, and he's using it. This channel of communication makes it easier to get in to contact with more than simply the 2,499 players you claim he's restricted to. So his belief that it's worth the effort to offer a few blunt words to the people in charge, is not a futile effort.

Also, to use an example of my own. In a traffic jam, I don't need to be at ground zero of the accident to know that there's a problem, and that it's causing me grief. Anymore than one needs to know what caused a blackout. Once inquired about, and notified or caught up to date on the cause of the problem, one can start putting their argument together on why they have an issue with the situation having occurred at all.

His patience has been exhausted and he is now using the forum as a form of media to voice himself. And he's well within his rights, as would anybody else be ...

Ishammael · March 2016

eliisra wrote: »

To be honest, I kinda expect this game to revert into a "Skyrim online" or simliar. As in a couple of new PvE DLC's every year with mostly solo content. There's still a market for that, due to being TES franchise. Also cheap to maintain even if you dont win any awards lol.

Just feel they wont be able to deliver the game they set out to make. This was suppose to be a kinda top 10 MMORPG with PvX content including AvAvA and endgame PvE. Competing with games like WoW, SWTOR, Lineage and Tera. But seems they lack the expertise, staff, finances and likely support and understanding from higher management to run that kind of machinery.

They're not even using the cash shop to full potential and missing out on so much revenue. Stuff like barber, race change and ofc good looking costumes, hair styles, alliance change, weapon skins and similar regenerates so much micro transactions in online games. It should have been in-game 1 year ago.

I personally think ESO will keep going for many years to come, but as a more modest game. I also doubt Wrobel will still be able to handle combat, itemization, classes, CP and skills in the future. That just nuts for one person, even there's more staff involved. He must be so burned out that guy, kinda understand why he's not getting PvP combat.

Considering the content additions over the last two years, time given to fan art and RP in ESO Live, I think this is the correct assessment. I think that if ZoS could change Cyro to PvE-only they would -- strictly for cross-faction RP.

Turelus · March 2016

Everyone also has to remember this game wasn't build around perfect balance and equality.

Wrobel said it himself on a stream, when he as asked to originally make abilities he was just told to go and make a bunch of awesome abilities so he did.

Also the game was never made to be a Stamina or Magicka build game, we the players pushed it in that direction by min/maxing and then demanding for change when Magicka came out on top.

Now they're doing their best to fix and balance a game which from the initial design was not intended to be played the way we play, we were just meant to slot the fun abilities, place our stats all over the place and run around in unorganised blobs mashing skills at one another.

Now sure we can fault them for not having the forsight to see that a design strategy like that in a game which offers PvP is just terrible, but for all the crap we give them they're trying! Hell two years ago we didn't even have stamina class skill morphs, now everyone is up in arms that the ones we have aren't good enough.

As others have said here and in other threads, ZOS are doomed whatever they do because we are overly demanding and expect a perfect solution implemented within a few hours of the issues being discovered.

Lysette · March 2016

SuraklinPrime wrote: »

I'd speculate that half the problem is that when you design a game you don't *play* the game and experience it the way players do - so both your feelings about things in game and the buttons/skills/rotations you use will not be the same. This will lead to decisions that sometimes confuse the heck out of the player base.

Also I have a feeling that sometimes the devs may listen to a small subset of players who are not really representative of the majority of players. The streamers and the pros who's views are certainly of value but are obviously going to biased by how they play not how the rest of us play - what makes them happy may not necessarily work for everyone and skills they find good or bad with specialist max/min builds may not really feature in the same way for many of us.

Personally I have been disheartened by the changes to stamina over the last few major patches as they seem to miss that for a stamina build we have to get skills, blocks, sprints, sneaks, break frees and dodges all out of one resource pool which now has penalties for dodging more than once and for daring to block in combat - whereas as magicka builds can happily do all these things out of a secondary pool and recharge their main pool at all times with no penalty.

Add the incoming punishments in the CP changes and the refusal to scale key skills off physical as well as magic damage and it all adds up to what seems like a fundamental lack of understanding of how their game mechanics work 'on the ground' - and that leads to a lack of faith in the decisions being taken.

ESO live doesn't help because often the people talking there sometimes come off like they are trolling those affected most - perhaps that is not intentional but it rubs salt in the wounds when all you want to do is play a game and have an even chance of success.

Would you play a game, which is your daytime job?- Not really - you want to get away from what you do during the day. So we cannot really blame them for not playing the game like players do. It's their job and not their spare time activity.

Sallington · March 2016

Alabyn wrote: »

I hope part of the way forward is taking a more collegial attitude on the forums. Allegations that developers do not read the Forums, "hate" certain types of players, or classes conveyed by spiteful and provocative, insulting language just muddy the waters. The way forward begins not with Wrobel or anyone else explaining themselves, but with constructive feedback and behaving as gentleman and women. I hope your thread heads in that direction!

Once that culture has changed on these forums, we can begin the important work of improving the game.

Do you have any idea of the amount of constructive feedback that the community has given them? Take your fedora off.

Has there even been an actual dev response to the Templar feedback thread on the PTS forums? Some of the best ideas I've ever heard are in that thread, as well as VERY detailed information regarding the problems as well as the fixes to those problems.

Nothing. No response after like 75 pages.

Like someone else said, a poll with over 4000 votes on AOE caps. The majority of which STRONGLY encourage the removal of. Where's the dev discussion on removing AOE caps been?

"We're looking into it. No ETA though."

Turelus · March 2016

Sallington wrote: »

Alabyn wrote: »

I hope part of the way forward is taking a more collegial attitude on the forums. Allegations that developers do not read the Forums, "hate" certain types of players, or classes conveyed by spiteful and provocative, insulting language just muddy the waters. The way forward begins not with Wrobel or anyone else explaining themselves, but with constructive feedback and behaving as gentleman and women. I hope your thread heads in that direction!

Once that culture has changed on these forums, we can begin the important work of improving the game.

Do you have any idea of the amount of constructive feedback that the community has given them? Take your fedora off.

That doesn't mean they have to act on it though. End of the day this is their game and if they want the Templar class to fight in their house that's how it's going to be. Just because the vocal forums (and mostly PvP) community don't like that stance doesn't mean they can't do it.

I have been a Nightblade since day one, I've been through the lows, enjoying the current highs and fully expect lows again some day. The fact is though I enjoy the game and the dynamic PvP fights. My biggest gripe now isn't skill balance but the core mechanics which are in an ugly flux of pre-vet/veteran/CP/no-vet.

I am hoping that ESO 3.0 (which makes the most sense to be the VR removal release) will bring some balance and stability to the system and we can work onwards from there.

Also plenty of things get listened to when feedback is given, but knee-jerk reaction rage about "my class isn't win any more" are quite often what a majority of the posts break down into.