The issues related to logging in to the European PC/Mac megaserver have been resolved at this time. If you continue to experience difficulties at login, please restart your client. Thank you for your patience!
Towards an Understanding of Diverging Player Performance and it's Effect on Content Scaling.
f047ys3v3n
✭✭✭✭✭
✭
✭
Towards and Understanding of Diverging Player Performance and it's Effect on Content Scaling.
Table of Contents because yes, it is long.
Introduction
A little game history
Sources of divergence
-We keep you in the dark and feed you... propaganda
- The nerf machine
-Champion pointed heads.
- Go buff yourself or a friend
- Resource management
- Soft Capped in the head
- Two bars is better than one or the same
- RNJesus is dead stop praying
- ESmacrO
Conclusion - Explanation of why any of this matters
Suggestions for changes
Introduction
Having been in the game since beta I have noticed a dramatic divergence in player performance specifically in PVE since the days of 1.x. Though of the factors I believe behind this effect all rolls, heals, tank, and dps, I think that the difference is best illustrated by dps as dps is primarily concerned with an easily quantifiable damage per second output number whereas tank and heals are less easily quantifiable. I have identified a variety of factors that I believe have lead to this yawning gulf. These factors are, a continuing devotion to information asymmetry, the nerfing of most content, Champion points, the buff system, resource management changes, soft cap removal, bar swap changes, gearing, and macros. The resulting widening gulf in player performance I think is increasingly important in PVE as content has been increasingly divergent in it's difficulty. Much previously reasonably challenging content has been nerfed to the point that most 4 man content can be soloed whereas the vet version of the new trial is so challenging that I believe the current number of guilds to have completed it world wide is 6 and I don't believe any has done hard mode. In short, I, and most other players who play a few hours a day and are good but not elite, have really nothing to do that is remotely challenging but also completable save the soon to be nerfed VWGT and VICP dungeons and VMA which can be completed by us on some classes but not others and also cannot be run with friends so doesn't really count. Honestly, I think this is a problem. Partially one of lack of middle ground content, but also one of choices in game design that facilitate divergence such that content is much harder to scale. This post is about those game design choices as it is my contention that, with such great divergence between good and elite players in damage output, it is probably not possible to make content applicable to many players. I do not mean to imply that I think each of these changes or ongoing choices is bad. I think several are an improvement. As such I will conclude my diatribe with my thoughts on how to change things to lower divergence without getting rid of positive changes. I encourage my readers to likewise provide input.
A little game history
First let us talk about the past to frame the issue today. Until very near the end of 1.5, the last build of the original combat system, a typical poor, and clueless player you might find in zone for a pledge might to about 600 dps to the most elite players 1.6k on Dk, or 1.2k on anything else. That is to say, that the best players in the game were doing about 2.7x the damage of a very poor player who, nevertheless had the best BOE and crafted gear. Those poor players scaled up just about the 10x scaling and are now about at 6k dps with their heavy attacks and random skill firing or spam until your run out of mana casting followed by heavy attacks. Meanwhile, the most elite players, when buffed up in group, are at 40k. This is a much larger 6.7x multiplier between the worst and the best. Interestingly, this multiplier is not mostly a matter of most good players being that much better than the terrible one but is also a divergence from good to elite. I was that 1.2k NB in the past and now I am at 25k on NB and 23k on Templar. I used to do 75% of elite dps (irrelivant at that time because veil) and now do 63% though, I am ranged to their melee. The fact that, as will be seen, I am on the elite side of most of the divergence making changes and I am doing far more complicated and well timed rotations now then I was back in the day has not really helped me keep up. For the changes I think it is best to go in chronological order. We will start at the very beginning and then go through 1.6, the new combat system and CP, and the situation today where clearly ZOS is starting to see the problem and make some changes but simultaneously seems to lack understanding of the full panoply of changes and the ways in which they interact with each other to bring about the magnitude of issue now faced
We keep you in the dark and feed you... propaganda
Before there was free to play, before there were champion points, and probably as soon as the game ever went live there was a commitment to keeping the player base ignorant. Most MMO's communicate pretty well with the player base letting them know when gear is going to come and go, what they intend to make BIS, which builds are intended to do what, and what thinks they currently think are out of balance as well as how they intend to balance them. In these games, tools exist to determine group dps, test dummies exist for practicing skills, and tool tips are made as accurate as possible. ESO has always had the opposite approach. For whatever reason ESO works to deny players as much information as possible. Whether it be the constantly inaccurate tool tips, the set gear that doesn't do what it says, the surprise nerfs and buffs to gear, virtually anything having to do with the economy, or the lack of patch notes on most changes even up to 30% nerfs or buffs to skills eso has not been forthcoming. When the good people of this game made an add-on that actually gave group DPS ESO even made a point to promptly break it. Ditto with the magic NPC test dummy who they eventually found existed. The thing about all this ignorance is that it really only creates information asymmetry. The top guilds tend to figure out and keep secret what is actually going on. This gives them a huge advantage. I might add that this is the same economic principle behind a prohibition on insider trading. Information asymmetry creates a self perpetuating loop of haves and have-nots. Remember the block and walk instant stam regen bug that certain PVP guilds knew and used for 6 mos before anybody else. Quit it ESO, let people have the tools to see what is going on.
The nerf machine
I remember the days of 3 NPC mobs being somewhat challenging in vet areas. This was nerfed, world bosses have been nerfed, dungeons have been nerfed, quest bosses have even been nerfed. The effect of all this, aside from things not being so fun, is that nobody ever has to learn anything about the basic mechanics of the game in the process of playing the solo content. As a consequence of that, when they wander into something remotely difficult, like say VWGT, they cry and bleed all over the forums. And to some extent I can't help but agree with them as nothing in their past play experience has even hinted to them that they should not stand in red, should try to think of how to best optimize their skill selection, or should wear anything other the garbage they are rewarded for quests. A gulf in content has been created wherein almost all content has been made so easy you can light attack through it whereas the hardest stuff, VMA and VMOL are harder than any content before. There is no natural training progression as there was in the past with solo non vet --> solo vet --> craiglorn --> vet dungeons --> AA / HR --> SO. Content is terribly badly scaled today such that very little exists between stuff you can light attack through and stuff that most people do not have enough innate skill to ever complete. Not only has this completely obliterated any sort of natural training progression but it has left most endgame players little to do.
Champion pointed heads.
The first big change with 1.6 was Champion points. ZOS seemed to be the only one who did not see where this was going. With, according to PTS testing at that time, 40% of DPS being Champion point differences and with a massive 400k xp per point, and about 1,200 points before big dps contribution drop off, it was not hard to see how quickly players would diverge. Diverge players did quickly to the point that ZOS eventually had to scramble and drop a cap on CP barely 6 months in. That cap has somewhat reduced the problem but, clearly to the surprise of ZOS, despite their massive reduction in XP for CP gain for lower CP players, through the instituting of variable CP costs curved to current CP number, and also massive increase in available XP in new areas most of the player base was really still not catching up to cap. This seems to have lead to a bit of panicking on ZOS's part as evidenced by a second dramatic lowering of the CP cost curve, no increase in cap with new content, a free 40 CP to most players, and a free 160 CP to anybody who manages to get a vet character at all. The bottom line was that, in a game where the grind to max level was apparently so onerous that they decided to lower it ZOS instituted an entire Korean MMO style level system on top of that first one which was several orders of magnitude longer. I applaud ZOS for realizing the error though they are clearly still having to live with the fallout. Champ points continue to be a major cause of player divergence though this is obviously being actively addressed.
Go buff yourself or a friend
The second big change with 1.6 was the Major Minor system. Prior to 1.6 each skill did it's thing and there were not classes of skill, such as skills which grant major empower, who's major effect was the same as, and overrode other skills. Since 1.6 each dps, and really heals, regardless of what else they do has to keep their major power, and crit bonus's active as well as, if they are really into min, maxing, the minor as well. This usually amounts to two major's as the second becomes a minor and a lot of buffs don't have many compelling minor sources. In my case I usually get spell power from pots or a dk running igneous and spell crit from mage lights and the same pot. Other major and minor buffs also greatly come into play such as debuffing boss resistance and increasing crit damage. These must now be accounted for in a group. This has added complexity and complexity basically means player divergence.
Resource management
Another big 1.6 change was actually one I think we were all happy about in resource management. Prior to 1.6 we all had to run spell sym to keep our magica coming as we had low resources and basically had to use healers as battery packs. This took up a bar slot on almost everybody's bar (stam toons were relatively rare.) Similarly, everybody had to run magelight as it was a passive 10% dps buff which is strong. That was two bar slots gone for most folks. Now, spell sym is only useless for cross faction VD puggle grenades in PVP and magelight is also off the bars of many folks who use pots. Two more bar slots means more skills, more complexity, and more divergence.
Soft Capped in the head
Probably the last really big change in 1.6 was the elimination of soft caps on base player stats. Many of us advised against this and it resulted in some very strange things when done such as a trash drop green set becoming the BIS over any raid gear. Before that all serious players had their main stats soft capped and all the elite sets offered basically cap sidestepping effects such as an AOE DOT from Mephala's and Valken, and a heavy attack buff from Infallible. It was easy for developers to keep this sort of thing in line as, with the exception of Valken (which got out of hand precisely because proc chance could be multiplied by number of dots), most of these things were basically add on damage that could not really be multiplied in any way. When you could really maximize your key stats uncapped, add to them set proc buffs like scathing mage, group buffs like spell power cure, and then multiply those maximized numbers by things like the major spell power buff more divergence happened. I think my Mag NB runs at about 3.4k spell power and 41k magica fully buffed now and stam builds are usually over 4k in weapon damage.
Two bars is better than one or the same
I guess here is as good as any place to talk about bar swapping changes as I don't remember exactly when it all went down. Bar swap has always been a little hinky and still is as it just doesn't go off when a channeled skill is active (pots don't fire either much to my annoyance.) There were times, in the past, when bar swap had a 1.5 sec cast time as well. All of this meant that not many people spread their single target rotation across two bars until recently. Now this is relatively common and, in the right circumstances, bar swap can actually be used as an animation cancel for a truly no cost bar swap (more on this later.) The effect of bar swap changes cannot really be understated from a dps divergence standpoint because of how many more DOT's it allows. For best deployment it is often used in conjunction with a dressing room type add on to allow a player to have different skills on the bar quickly when arriving at a boss fight where the player desires a differing set of more single target skills then in trash mobs. I should note that this is the first place where I have mentioned the use on add ons as a divergence factor. Add ons such as DPS meters have always been used by good players but the use of dressing room type ones has increased in commonness dramatically since bar swap has been made more fluid allowing both bars to be better combined into what is effectively a single 10 slot bar.
RNJesus is dead stop praying
Gearing as been under rather constant change in way that has also fostered divergence. In the days of the first raids, AA and HR, the best armor dropped from those raids and only dropped in desirable traits. There was something of a cool down to this as jewelry and lower body peices only dropped from weekly coffers but the rest could be obtained with 100% chance of right traited drop from the boss of each trial. Consequently it really only took 20 or 30 completions to have a set of what you probably wanted with the exception that healers, who actually wanted the jewelry would need to do a few more. Things went down hill from here. Soon, with SO, traits were random. VDSA did one better with only about a 50% drop rate of a random traited weapon from the final boss. Surprisingly, the desirable healer and footman sets from VDSA were actually BOE and came in only one, often odd trait per piece but this is a massive aberration as most PVE gear would become BOP and random traited. The culmination of all this is probably the mess with VMA weapons with their remarkable power and approximate mean time to acquisition of several months of a run a day. The trend has been clear. Exponentially longer grinds for significantly better gear (Aether in the AA days was worth maybe 1/4th the dps increase of a VMA weapon and that was a 5 peice set not a single peice.) The VMA gear is to important, the content so difficult, and the weekly leaderboards so competitive, that the word on the street is that about half the leaderboard spots are now players paying other players to run their account for them. Given the number of really bad players I have run into with that very hard to obtain title hanging on them who have trouble even doing pledges and also the relative difficulty most guilds have finding trial worthy players I'll believe it. It reminds me of the days when a certain group of players used to take 150k gold a pop to wheelbarrow players through VDSA for a weekly though this is clearly more blatant as players are not being wheelbarrowed but actually having others use their account. I would say ZOS should really watch for this as it is not that hard to figure out with IP addresses but ZOS has never been much for that sort of thing. Not really very fair to players completing themselves and getting kicked off the leaderboard by the paid ringers though. To add to the generally exponentially harder gear grind imposed on players for their general gear is the significant number of special group buff sets which now exist and a group needs to maximize it's success. The first of these group buff sets were worm cult, ebon, and saviors though soft caps made only worm cult matter. Healing mage jewelry and masters resto staffs were added during the lower and upper craiglorn patches and some, though few still use them since they have not been updated. Since the last update worm and ebon both matter and to this is added at least spell power cure, and Alkosh. Soon the new Infallible will be added as well. That is a lot of group buff sets that now need to be pieced together to get a group to maximum effectiveness. Truly acquiring and coordinating BIS gear in ESO for an entire raid has never been harder and this has become a major source of divergence in player and raid performance.
ESmacrO
So, I gather that I have gotten in trouble with my comments on macros in the past. To put is simply, I think a lot of end game players, who are nevertheless very good players, and in most cases more skilled than me, use them on trials boss fights. I furthermore think that having a substantial number of people using them is pretty necessary for top times and also pretty helpful in getting MOL completes altogether. Though ESO does not prohibit macros this opinion nevertheless gets me in trouble for probably the same reason that saying pro athletes use steroids gets you in trouble though no rational person should believe that people are successfully competing with others using performance enhancing substances while not using them themselves. The simple fact is that, like cycling for doping, ESO is well designed for macros. First, ESO has a lot of differently timed DOT's that all require to be refreshed at just the right time to maximize dps. Say you run the new meta build, a stam dk, and take a look through the voluminous number of DOT's available through weapon lines as well as skill lines and pick out the following: Venomous claw (8.5sec), Noxious breath (8 sec), Poison Injection (10 sec), Barrage (8 sec), Acid spray (5 sec), Rending Slashed (9 sec), Rearming trap (6 sec plus 1.5 sec rearm), Igneous Weapons (30sec) and rapid strikes (.6 sec). How well do you really think you can optimize the casting of these given the wide variety of durations. The lowest common multiple, for you math nerds is 6120 seconds, by the way. Realistically, you will probably settle on a roughly 8 second rotation and simply give up 1 second of rending, 2 of injection, and have spray down for 3 seconds. You will try to keep up igneous on it's own but probably forget it a lot. By this reasoning you will give up a huge amount of dps to someone running a better optimized macro. I am currently fighting the giant PITA of writing a long, two bar, multiple timing optimizing, macro and beginning to practice using it as it is really not what I want to do but is clearly necessary to being competitive in this game. I have little doubt adding twisting path and perhaps shades would boost my NB's dps but they are not 8 seconds like my other DOT's and therefore hard to add get much out of without a macro.
Macros are not all managing off timed DOT's though. They are also about perfect timing on skill cooldowns. This is hugely beneficial to dps and a human amount of variance in that timing costs a great deal of dps. In this small window of time wherein I have known about the magic test dummy NPC before it is removed next week I have tested a little. Using the same rotation that I currently use on my NB but macro'd gains a 17% dps increase. Same skills, same rotation, and no missed weaves when I am not macroing but a 17% difference. The cost of just a human amount of timing variation from skill cast to skill cast is 17%. That is a mammoth amount of difference in practice. I have yet to test the addition of different skills of off timings and was amazed at the mere effect of optimized timing alone. My timing is, relatively speaking, very good on my weave. It is just that heavy attacks scale unevenly and generally poorly with charge duration that a small difference in timing is a large dps difference. You basically want to cast the next skill as soon as the cooldown for the last one is done but erring one way means no cast whereas the other means a surprisingly large dps loss.
Conclusion - Explanation of why any of this matters
Plainly, I favor a conscious plan to reverse some of the divergence in ESO player performance mostly because the scaling difficulty is now so absurdly stretched that I find myself challenged but completing 3 pieces of content (VICP, VWGT, and VMA), Unable to complete VMOL at all, and so strong in other content that I don't have any need for a full group. It is absurd that in such a large game only 3 tiny things are scaled anywhere near correct for my particular level and two of these are being nerfed. How do you develop content for players doing 12-40k dps? Yet, none of these players are actually clueless. The first would be a player with mix of purple and gold crafted gear of good and well chosen crafted sets who does their buffs, perhaps one dot, and an ok weave in a pug group without any group buffs. The second has BIS Maelstrom stuff, an uber stam dk build, a group with the right sets and buffs, and a very well put together macro. You simply can't scale stuff to that, the divergence is ridiculous. Here are the changes I propose:
Suggestions for changes
- Quit trying to hide everything, give test dummies, and let folks find out group dps. People will learn more if the information is not hidden and this will close the gap some.
- Buff up some middle ground content so people have some motivation to learn and players who know the basics aren't board out of their mind doing normal content.
- Arg, Champ points, do you know how many people won't even try the game or try it again because of the grind imposed by these things? Sure, were moving the right way but seriously, this system probably already killed this game. If you haven't already, fire the fool whose idea this was. At least then you will have one less fool. I wish I had a good fix for this but it was probably a fatal mistake and you are now just respirating a corpse. I have 900 points by the way so I'm not exactly crying for things I don't have.
- I would consider terminating DOT's and buffs when you swap bars. Running two bars deep on boss pulls with an add-on to quickly switch configurations from fight to fight is a substantial cause of divergence that could be removed without negatively effecting most players experience. Most players do not want to run two bars deep, they do because they need to to be competitive.
- Grinding because of poor RNG does not content make. You are far over now, and long have been, the line at which keeping one player in game by occupying him longer in his gear grind cost you more than one player leaving because of frustration. Realistically, you are probably at a point of at least 10 players lost for each kept.
- Nobody really wants to macro, you shouldn't design the game for it. You could make top players more effective than macros with a few simple changes. First, standardize DOT timings at say 6 or 8 seconds so that they can all be run in a rotation that a human instead of a machine can keep track of. Second, tweak the scaling of heavy attacks so it isn't a huge dps loss if the timing isn't perfect. The extra damage of the heavy attack charging longer should make up some of the loss from a delay in skill cast. Lastly, give each class an anti macro skill like sorcs have in shards. The skill must be a big boon to DPS but must be dynamically and unpredictably interacted with in a way a macro cannot. For NB's relentless focus seems like a good candidate as it already has a proc. I'm sure you can find something to mess with on Templar, and DK. Obviously some scaling on all this will be necessary since your changing durations and making a proc skill but I think that it is pretty important.
For all those still reading this never ending diatribe, thanks and let me know what you think.
-47
Edited by f047ys3v3n on May 28, 2016 6:00PM Table of Contents because yes, it is long.
Introduction
A little game history
Sources of divergence
-We keep you in the dark and feed you... propaganda
- The nerf machine
-Champion pointed heads.
- Go buff yourself or a friend
- Resource management
- Soft Capped in the head
- Two bars is better than one or the same
- RNJesus is dead stop praying
- ESmacrO
Conclusion - Explanation of why any of this matters
Suggestions for changes
Introduction
Having been in the game since beta I have noticed a dramatic divergence in player performance specifically in PVE since the days of 1.x. Though of the factors I believe behind this effect all rolls, heals, tank, and dps, I think that the difference is best illustrated by dps as dps is primarily concerned with an easily quantifiable damage per second output number whereas tank and heals are less easily quantifiable. I have identified a variety of factors that I believe have lead to this yawning gulf. These factors are, a continuing devotion to information asymmetry, the nerfing of most content, Champion points, the buff system, resource management changes, soft cap removal, bar swap changes, gearing, and macros. The resulting widening gulf in player performance I think is increasingly important in PVE as content has been increasingly divergent in it's difficulty. Much previously reasonably challenging content has been nerfed to the point that most 4 man content can be soloed whereas the vet version of the new trial is so challenging that I believe the current number of guilds to have completed it world wide is 6 and I don't believe any has done hard mode. In short, I, and most other players who play a few hours a day and are good but not elite, have really nothing to do that is remotely challenging but also completable save the soon to be nerfed VWGT and VICP dungeons and VMA which can be completed by us on some classes but not others and also cannot be run with friends so doesn't really count. Honestly, I think this is a problem. Partially one of lack of middle ground content, but also one of choices in game design that facilitate divergence such that content is much harder to scale. This post is about those game design choices as it is my contention that, with such great divergence between good and elite players in damage output, it is probably not possible to make content applicable to many players. I do not mean to imply that I think each of these changes or ongoing choices is bad. I think several are an improvement. As such I will conclude my diatribe with my thoughts on how to change things to lower divergence without getting rid of positive changes. I encourage my readers to likewise provide input.
A little game history
First let us talk about the past to frame the issue today. Until very near the end of 1.5, the last build of the original combat system, a typical poor, and clueless player you might find in zone for a pledge might to about 600 dps to the most elite players 1.6k on Dk, or 1.2k on anything else. That is to say, that the best players in the game were doing about 2.7x the damage of a very poor player who, nevertheless had the best BOE and crafted gear. Those poor players scaled up just about the 10x scaling and are now about at 6k dps with their heavy attacks and random skill firing or spam until your run out of mana casting followed by heavy attacks. Meanwhile, the most elite players, when buffed up in group, are at 40k. This is a much larger 6.7x multiplier between the worst and the best. Interestingly, this multiplier is not mostly a matter of most good players being that much better than the terrible one but is also a divergence from good to elite. I was that 1.2k NB in the past and now I am at 25k on NB and 23k on Templar. I used to do 75% of elite dps (irrelivant at that time because veil) and now do 63% though, I am ranged to their melee. The fact that, as will be seen, I am on the elite side of most of the divergence making changes and I am doing far more complicated and well timed rotations now then I was back in the day has not really helped me keep up. For the changes I think it is best to go in chronological order. We will start at the very beginning and then go through 1.6, the new combat system and CP, and the situation today where clearly ZOS is starting to see the problem and make some changes but simultaneously seems to lack understanding of the full panoply of changes and the ways in which they interact with each other to bring about the magnitude of issue now faced
We keep you in the dark and feed you... propaganda
Before there was free to play, before there were champion points, and probably as soon as the game ever went live there was a commitment to keeping the player base ignorant. Most MMO's communicate pretty well with the player base letting them know when gear is going to come and go, what they intend to make BIS, which builds are intended to do what, and what thinks they currently think are out of balance as well as how they intend to balance them. In these games, tools exist to determine group dps, test dummies exist for practicing skills, and tool tips are made as accurate as possible. ESO has always had the opposite approach. For whatever reason ESO works to deny players as much information as possible. Whether it be the constantly inaccurate tool tips, the set gear that doesn't do what it says, the surprise nerfs and buffs to gear, virtually anything having to do with the economy, or the lack of patch notes on most changes even up to 30% nerfs or buffs to skills eso has not been forthcoming. When the good people of this game made an add-on that actually gave group DPS ESO even made a point to promptly break it. Ditto with the magic NPC test dummy who they eventually found existed. The thing about all this ignorance is that it really only creates information asymmetry. The top guilds tend to figure out and keep secret what is actually going on. This gives them a huge advantage. I might add that this is the same economic principle behind a prohibition on insider trading. Information asymmetry creates a self perpetuating loop of haves and have-nots. Remember the block and walk instant stam regen bug that certain PVP guilds knew and used for 6 mos before anybody else. Quit it ESO, let people have the tools to see what is going on.
The nerf machine
I remember the days of 3 NPC mobs being somewhat challenging in vet areas. This was nerfed, world bosses have been nerfed, dungeons have been nerfed, quest bosses have even been nerfed. The effect of all this, aside from things not being so fun, is that nobody ever has to learn anything about the basic mechanics of the game in the process of playing the solo content. As a consequence of that, when they wander into something remotely difficult, like say VWGT, they cry and bleed all over the forums. And to some extent I can't help but agree with them as nothing in their past play experience has even hinted to them that they should not stand in red, should try to think of how to best optimize their skill selection, or should wear anything other the garbage they are rewarded for quests. A gulf in content has been created wherein almost all content has been made so easy you can light attack through it whereas the hardest stuff, VMA and VMOL are harder than any content before. There is no natural training progression as there was in the past with solo non vet --> solo vet --> craiglorn --> vet dungeons --> AA / HR --> SO. Content is terribly badly scaled today such that very little exists between stuff you can light attack through and stuff that most people do not have enough innate skill to ever complete. Not only has this completely obliterated any sort of natural training progression but it has left most endgame players little to do.
Champion pointed heads.
The first big change with 1.6 was Champion points. ZOS seemed to be the only one who did not see where this was going. With, according to PTS testing at that time, 40% of DPS being Champion point differences and with a massive 400k xp per point, and about 1,200 points before big dps contribution drop off, it was not hard to see how quickly players would diverge. Diverge players did quickly to the point that ZOS eventually had to scramble and drop a cap on CP barely 6 months in. That cap has somewhat reduced the problem but, clearly to the surprise of ZOS, despite their massive reduction in XP for CP gain for lower CP players, through the instituting of variable CP costs curved to current CP number, and also massive increase in available XP in new areas most of the player base was really still not catching up to cap. This seems to have lead to a bit of panicking on ZOS's part as evidenced by a second dramatic lowering of the CP cost curve, no increase in cap with new content, a free 40 CP to most players, and a free 160 CP to anybody who manages to get a vet character at all. The bottom line was that, in a game where the grind to max level was apparently so onerous that they decided to lower it ZOS instituted an entire Korean MMO style level system on top of that first one which was several orders of magnitude longer. I applaud ZOS for realizing the error though they are clearly still having to live with the fallout. Champ points continue to be a major cause of player divergence though this is obviously being actively addressed.
Go buff yourself or a friend
The second big change with 1.6 was the Major Minor system. Prior to 1.6 each skill did it's thing and there were not classes of skill, such as skills which grant major empower, who's major effect was the same as, and overrode other skills. Since 1.6 each dps, and really heals, regardless of what else they do has to keep their major power, and crit bonus's active as well as, if they are really into min, maxing, the minor as well. This usually amounts to two major's as the second becomes a minor and a lot of buffs don't have many compelling minor sources. In my case I usually get spell power from pots or a dk running igneous and spell crit from mage lights and the same pot. Other major and minor buffs also greatly come into play such as debuffing boss resistance and increasing crit damage. These must now be accounted for in a group. This has added complexity and complexity basically means player divergence.
Resource management
Another big 1.6 change was actually one I think we were all happy about in resource management. Prior to 1.6 we all had to run spell sym to keep our magica coming as we had low resources and basically had to use healers as battery packs. This took up a bar slot on almost everybody's bar (stam toons were relatively rare.) Similarly, everybody had to run magelight as it was a passive 10% dps buff which is strong. That was two bar slots gone for most folks. Now, spell sym is only useless for cross faction VD puggle grenades in PVP and magelight is also off the bars of many folks who use pots. Two more bar slots means more skills, more complexity, and more divergence.
Soft Capped in the head
Probably the last really big change in 1.6 was the elimination of soft caps on base player stats. Many of us advised against this and it resulted in some very strange things when done such as a trash drop green set becoming the BIS over any raid gear. Before that all serious players had their main stats soft capped and all the elite sets offered basically cap sidestepping effects such as an AOE DOT from Mephala's and Valken, and a heavy attack buff from Infallible. It was easy for developers to keep this sort of thing in line as, with the exception of Valken (which got out of hand precisely because proc chance could be multiplied by number of dots), most of these things were basically add on damage that could not really be multiplied in any way. When you could really maximize your key stats uncapped, add to them set proc buffs like scathing mage, group buffs like spell power cure, and then multiply those maximized numbers by things like the major spell power buff more divergence happened. I think my Mag NB runs at about 3.4k spell power and 41k magica fully buffed now and stam builds are usually over 4k in weapon damage.
Two bars is better than one or the same
I guess here is as good as any place to talk about bar swapping changes as I don't remember exactly when it all went down. Bar swap has always been a little hinky and still is as it just doesn't go off when a channeled skill is active (pots don't fire either much to my annoyance.) There were times, in the past, when bar swap had a 1.5 sec cast time as well. All of this meant that not many people spread their single target rotation across two bars until recently. Now this is relatively common and, in the right circumstances, bar swap can actually be used as an animation cancel for a truly no cost bar swap (more on this later.) The effect of bar swap changes cannot really be understated from a dps divergence standpoint because of how many more DOT's it allows. For best deployment it is often used in conjunction with a dressing room type add on to allow a player to have different skills on the bar quickly when arriving at a boss fight where the player desires a differing set of more single target skills then in trash mobs. I should note that this is the first place where I have mentioned the use on add ons as a divergence factor. Add ons such as DPS meters have always been used by good players but the use of dressing room type ones has increased in commonness dramatically since bar swap has been made more fluid allowing both bars to be better combined into what is effectively a single 10 slot bar.
RNJesus is dead stop praying
Gearing as been under rather constant change in way that has also fostered divergence. In the days of the first raids, AA and HR, the best armor dropped from those raids and only dropped in desirable traits. There was something of a cool down to this as jewelry and lower body peices only dropped from weekly coffers but the rest could be obtained with 100% chance of right traited drop from the boss of each trial. Consequently it really only took 20 or 30 completions to have a set of what you probably wanted with the exception that healers, who actually wanted the jewelry would need to do a few more. Things went down hill from here. Soon, with SO, traits were random. VDSA did one better with only about a 50% drop rate of a random traited weapon from the final boss. Surprisingly, the desirable healer and footman sets from VDSA were actually BOE and came in only one, often odd trait per piece but this is a massive aberration as most PVE gear would become BOP and random traited. The culmination of all this is probably the mess with VMA weapons with their remarkable power and approximate mean time to acquisition of several months of a run a day. The trend has been clear. Exponentially longer grinds for significantly better gear (Aether in the AA days was worth maybe 1/4th the dps increase of a VMA weapon and that was a 5 peice set not a single peice.) The VMA gear is to important, the content so difficult, and the weekly leaderboards so competitive, that the word on the street is that about half the leaderboard spots are now players paying other players to run their account for them. Given the number of really bad players I have run into with that very hard to obtain title hanging on them who have trouble even doing pledges and also the relative difficulty most guilds have finding trial worthy players I'll believe it. It reminds me of the days when a certain group of players used to take 150k gold a pop to wheelbarrow players through VDSA for a weekly though this is clearly more blatant as players are not being wheelbarrowed but actually having others use their account. I would say ZOS should really watch for this as it is not that hard to figure out with IP addresses but ZOS has never been much for that sort of thing. Not really very fair to players completing themselves and getting kicked off the leaderboard by the paid ringers though. To add to the generally exponentially harder gear grind imposed on players for their general gear is the significant number of special group buff sets which now exist and a group needs to maximize it's success. The first of these group buff sets were worm cult, ebon, and saviors though soft caps made only worm cult matter. Healing mage jewelry and masters resto staffs were added during the lower and upper craiglorn patches and some, though few still use them since they have not been updated. Since the last update worm and ebon both matter and to this is added at least spell power cure, and Alkosh. Soon the new Infallible will be added as well. That is a lot of group buff sets that now need to be pieced together to get a group to maximum effectiveness. Truly acquiring and coordinating BIS gear in ESO for an entire raid has never been harder and this has become a major source of divergence in player and raid performance.
ESmacrO
So, I gather that I have gotten in trouble with my comments on macros in the past. To put is simply, I think a lot of end game players, who are nevertheless very good players, and in most cases more skilled than me, use them on trials boss fights. I furthermore think that having a substantial number of people using them is pretty necessary for top times and also pretty helpful in getting MOL completes altogether. Though ESO does not prohibit macros this opinion nevertheless gets me in trouble for probably the same reason that saying pro athletes use steroids gets you in trouble though no rational person should believe that people are successfully competing with others using performance enhancing substances while not using them themselves. The simple fact is that, like cycling for doping, ESO is well designed for macros. First, ESO has a lot of differently timed DOT's that all require to be refreshed at just the right time to maximize dps. Say you run the new meta build, a stam dk, and take a look through the voluminous number of DOT's available through weapon lines as well as skill lines and pick out the following: Venomous claw (8.5sec), Noxious breath (8 sec), Poison Injection (10 sec), Barrage (8 sec), Acid spray (5 sec), Rending Slashed (9 sec), Rearming trap (6 sec plus 1.5 sec rearm), Igneous Weapons (30sec) and rapid strikes (.6 sec). How well do you really think you can optimize the casting of these given the wide variety of durations. The lowest common multiple, for you math nerds is 6120 seconds, by the way. Realistically, you will probably settle on a roughly 8 second rotation and simply give up 1 second of rending, 2 of injection, and have spray down for 3 seconds. You will try to keep up igneous on it's own but probably forget it a lot. By this reasoning you will give up a huge amount of dps to someone running a better optimized macro. I am currently fighting the giant PITA of writing a long, two bar, multiple timing optimizing, macro and beginning to practice using it as it is really not what I want to do but is clearly necessary to being competitive in this game. I have little doubt adding twisting path and perhaps shades would boost my NB's dps but they are not 8 seconds like my other DOT's and therefore hard to add get much out of without a macro.
Macros are not all managing off timed DOT's though. They are also about perfect timing on skill cooldowns. This is hugely beneficial to dps and a human amount of variance in that timing costs a great deal of dps. In this small window of time wherein I have known about the magic test dummy NPC before it is removed next week I have tested a little. Using the same rotation that I currently use on my NB but macro'd gains a 17% dps increase. Same skills, same rotation, and no missed weaves when I am not macroing but a 17% difference. The cost of just a human amount of timing variation from skill cast to skill cast is 17%. That is a mammoth amount of difference in practice. I have yet to test the addition of different skills of off timings and was amazed at the mere effect of optimized timing alone. My timing is, relatively speaking, very good on my weave. It is just that heavy attacks scale unevenly and generally poorly with charge duration that a small difference in timing is a large dps difference. You basically want to cast the next skill as soon as the cooldown for the last one is done but erring one way means no cast whereas the other means a surprisingly large dps loss.
Conclusion - Explanation of why any of this matters
Plainly, I favor a conscious plan to reverse some of the divergence in ESO player performance mostly because the scaling difficulty is now so absurdly stretched that I find myself challenged but completing 3 pieces of content (VICP, VWGT, and VMA), Unable to complete VMOL at all, and so strong in other content that I don't have any need for a full group. It is absurd that in such a large game only 3 tiny things are scaled anywhere near correct for my particular level and two of these are being nerfed. How do you develop content for players doing 12-40k dps? Yet, none of these players are actually clueless. The first would be a player with mix of purple and gold crafted gear of good and well chosen crafted sets who does their buffs, perhaps one dot, and an ok weave in a pug group without any group buffs. The second has BIS Maelstrom stuff, an uber stam dk build, a group with the right sets and buffs, and a very well put together macro. You simply can't scale stuff to that, the divergence is ridiculous. Here are the changes I propose:
Suggestions for changes
- Quit trying to hide everything, give test dummies, and let folks find out group dps. People will learn more if the information is not hidden and this will close the gap some.
- Buff up some middle ground content so people have some motivation to learn and players who know the basics aren't board out of their mind doing normal content.
- Arg, Champ points, do you know how many people won't even try the game or try it again because of the grind imposed by these things? Sure, were moving the right way but seriously, this system probably already killed this game. If you haven't already, fire the fool whose idea this was. At least then you will have one less fool. I wish I had a good fix for this but it was probably a fatal mistake and you are now just respirating a corpse. I have 900 points by the way so I'm not exactly crying for things I don't have.
- I would consider terminating DOT's and buffs when you swap bars. Running two bars deep on boss pulls with an add-on to quickly switch configurations from fight to fight is a substantial cause of divergence that could be removed without negatively effecting most players experience. Most players do not want to run two bars deep, they do because they need to to be competitive.
- Grinding because of poor RNG does not content make. You are far over now, and long have been, the line at which keeping one player in game by occupying him longer in his gear grind cost you more than one player leaving because of frustration. Realistically, you are probably at a point of at least 10 players lost for each kept.
- Nobody really wants to macro, you shouldn't design the game for it. You could make top players more effective than macros with a few simple changes. First, standardize DOT timings at say 6 or 8 seconds so that they can all be run in a rotation that a human instead of a machine can keep track of. Second, tweak the scaling of heavy attacks so it isn't a huge dps loss if the timing isn't perfect. The extra damage of the heavy attack charging longer should make up some of the loss from a delay in skill cast. Lastly, give each class an anti macro skill like sorcs have in shards. The skill must be a big boon to DPS but must be dynamically and unpredictably interacted with in a way a macro cannot. For NB's relentless focus seems like a good candidate as it already has a proc. I'm sure you can find something to mess with on Templar, and DK. Obviously some scaling on all this will be necessary since your changing durations and making a proc skill but I think that it is pretty important.
For all those still reading this never ending diatribe, thanks and let me know what you think.
-47
I am currently worried for the future of ESO. Population seems like it is in free fall and the cancellation of the North America in-person gathering feels very much like pulling the plug. Kudos on fixing the in-game economy though. Clearly whatever gold shenanigans were happening the last couple years are fixed.
13
-
Acsvf✭✭✭I'm sure what you have to say is interesting but the lack of a sufficient number of paragraphs makes it rather difficult for me to consume.@LightArray
Lightarray Level 50 Dunmer Magicka Templar Healer
CP: 192
Add @Acsvf when quoting me to give me a notification!3 -
DerpyShadowz✭✭✭✭f047ys3v3n wrote: »ESmacrO
By this reasoning you will give up a huge amount of dps to someone running a better optimized macro. I am currently fighting the giant PITA of writing a long, two bar, multiple timing optimizing, macro and beginning to practice using it as it is really not what I want to do but is clearly necessary to being competitive in this game. I have little doubt adding twisting path and perhaps shades would boost my NB's dps but they are not 8 seconds like my other DOT's and therefore hard to add get much out of without a macro.
I disagree, A macro is completely unnecessary to be competitive at all in end game situations. It is all down to how well you can execute a good rotation. If a macro is required to compete and keep on top of timings and do end game DPS, then perhaps the execution of that rotation, isnt as good as one may think. A term we tend to use for that is when someone has "reached their ceiling"
The fact there is little doubt Twisting path would increase your dps and that a macro is required to even get any use out of it because of its duration is more worrying than the thought of creating a macro in the first place.
A macro isn't a competitor, It is a false sense of player skill.
Edited by DerpyShadowz on May 24, 2016 9:21AMLurking in the shadows.1 -
Asmael✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Kinda agree on most points, except macros. Have fun starting your 6120 seconds macro, and realize you just screwed yourself, because you need to dodge rolls, and refresh ranged DoTs early on, time blocks or pop a heal.
As for the 2 bars section... No, you don't need Dressing room or anything, and I completely disagree with this section:- I would consider terminating DOT's and buffs when you swap bars. Running two bars deep on boss pulls with an add-on to quickly switch configurations from fight to fight is a substantial cause of divergence that could be removed without negatively effecting most players experience. Most players do not want to run two bars deep, they do because they need to to be competitive.
That would literally destroy the point of having 2 bars, we don't really need to dumb down the game to the point where having a second bar is useless most of the time. Enjoy your 1-2-3-4-5-5-5-5-5-5 rotation as a DD. I don't even see how it relates to addons allowing you to swap abilities / gear, you can do this by hand. Also, to say that most players don't want to run two bars deep is a blanket statement. Why prevent people from being competitive when they want to?
As for DPS scaling, it is pretty easy to pull 20k DPS using only crafted gear + either Agility / Willpower, 16k+ with no CPs at all. As for the 40k DPS, those are not reached solo, and you should be comparing top DDs in the same conditions as an average DD. Realistically, you'll have trouble getting much more than 30k DPS on your own against the average non-vulnerable boss, even with all the BiS gear in the world.PC EU - Zahraji of the Void, aka "Kitty", the fluffiest salmon genocider in town.
Poke @AsmaeI (last letter is uppercase "i") on PC EU or Asmael#9325 on Discord and receive a meow today.3 -
dday3six✭✭✭✭✭
✭At this point I really don't care if it's small minded but this marco propaganda needs to stop. I personally have little interest in anything else you're going to say simply because that view.
Quite frankly, I'm on console thus there's no easy way for me to have access to macros, and I've no quality of life addons like buff timers. Yet through practice I was able to hone my rotation. I'm very competitive, and have quite the reputation as a monster Stamina NB DPS on the PS4 DC NA server. Bluntly you do not need marcos. They are infact a liability since you cannot change them on the fly. Putting out the best DPS is organic. It changes based on the circustances, and requires a lot more freedom of decision making than macros allow.5 -
Rune_Relic✭✭✭✭✭
✭Somehow I felt an awesome was insufficient and an injustice for that wall of text.
My first thoughts on seeing that wall was whether or not to jump threads
However, I am glad I read all of it.
I have no idea how you could truncate it without removing essential content.
Well done OP. An excellent and thorough appraisal I couldn't have said any better.
I wish it wasnt a wall of text that will put many people off reading it.
Which is a real shame.
@wrobel @ZOS_RichLambert ...food for thought.Edited by Rune_Relic on May 24, 2016 10:38AMAnything that can be exploited will be exploited0 -
Rune_Relic✭✭✭✭✭
✭I Highlander l wrote: »f047ys3v3n wrote: »ESmacrO
By this reasoning you will give up a huge amount of dps to someone running a better optimized macro. I am currently fighting the giant PITA of writing a long, two bar, multiple timing optimizing, macro and beginning to practice using it as it is really not what I want to do but is clearly necessary to being competitive in this game. I have little doubt adding twisting path and perhaps shades would boost my NB's dps but they are not 8 seconds like my other DOT's and therefore hard to add get much out of without a macro.
I disagree, A macro is completely unnecessary to be competitive at all in end game situations. It is all down to how well you can execute a good rotation. If a macro is required to compete and keep on top of timings and do end game DPS, then perhaps the execution of that rotation, isnt as good as one may think. A term we tend to use for that is when someone has "reached their ceiling"
The fact there is little doubt Twisting path would increase your dps and that a macro is required to even get any use out of it because of its duration is more worrying than the thought of creating a macro in the first place.
A macro isn't a competitor, It is a false sense of player skill.
Since when has skill been a major concern for some ?
Most players seem more interested in winning...... no mater the cost...no matter the cheese.
Leaving it to the players to exercise self restraint has failed....abysmally.Edited by Rune_Relic on May 24, 2016 10:41AMAnything that can be exploited will be exploited0 -
CasNation✭✭✭✭✭This was an excellent read, though I don't agree with all of your points.
Please don't take this personally, but I HIGHLY recommend cleaning up the post and organizing it better. Add a table of contents, add an abstract at the top, bold and number section headings, use more concise language in places, and clearer titles for your sections.
Again, not a personal attack. I just think there is a lot of really good info here, and as someone else who has been around for the long haul (and is in a similar good-but-not-elite scenario) I want this information to be more accessible to others.PC NA AD
Gamma Fyr: Dunmer Sorcerer Stamina DPS (the Missing Sister...props to those who get the reference)
Samekh Fyr: Dunmer Nightblade Magicka DPS
Claire Le'Rouge: Breton Templar Heal/Tank (the Resplendent Bastion)
Augustus Constantine: Imperial Nightblade PvP (Blackwater Bandit)
Shadow-of-Sundered-Star: Altmer Dragonknight Lowbie2 -
ADarklore✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭So OP is against add-ons like DressingRoom because they allow for options and players to be able to swap loadouts easily making the game more fun... let's also state that add-ons like DR also are immensely helpful while leveling because it allows you to swap your bar when you turn in a quest, I cannot even imagine having to manually swap skills every time I turned in a quest.
Seems to me OP wants the game to become cookie-cutter instead of allowing player creativity and diversity.CP: 2105 ** ESO+ ** ~~ ***** Strictly a solo PvE quester *****
~~Started Playing: May 2015 | Stopped Playing: July 2025 | Returned: March 2026~~0 -
hrothbern✭✭✭✭✭
✭@f047ys3v3n ,
Smile...
Quite a wall of paper.... and not really structured with paragraphs.... and ofc much too long to be of interest to read for people who prefer soundbytes only....
But I see rather someone speak out who has something meaningful to say than the usual soundbyte posts...
So.... good reading and thanks for your thoughts
Some remarks from my side:
Having been in the game since beta I have noticed a dramatic divergence in player performance specifically in PVE since the days of 1.x..........
and
The nerf machine
I think it is great when this game is the favorite game to play for a wide variety of people !!!
It does however poses ZOS for a challenge.......
ZOS must find a way to keep the difficulty/challenge upright for that whole wide variety. And I think there is room for improvement there. A difficulty scaler. I also think that priority nr 1 NOW is to get the big balancing overhaul finished. Hopefully during Q3-4.
We keep you in the dark and feed you... propaganda
Before there was free to play, before there were champion points, and probably as soon as the game ever went live there was a commitment to keeping the player base ignorant.
A commitment to keep us ignorant ???
Well... perhaps that the desire of ZOS to give a player a feeling of immersion confused things. A full transparency with numerous numbers on your screen "with the dices rolling" would certainly break a natural immersion.
And players that find their game fun also in min-max analysing certain abilities, sets, etc in depth, should have some advantage over easy going players.
However, the game has by now become so complex (you give a couple of examples) with soooo many different factors, and soooo many tweaking changes of factors, that even the basic knowledge is also in my opinion too opaque.
And this causes an avoidable and undesirable gap in the playerbase knowledge and performance.
But imo we should not reverse that complexity. Just make it more transparent.
So I heartly agree with you that tooltips should become better, Cooldown should be described, AND.... perhaps equally important, there must be a definition glossary for and a consistent logic in the general game mechanics available.
(like "nearby", melee, dodgable abilities, blockable abilities, etc, etc, etc)
TBH I must add, that we as Forum members should contribute much more in getting information transparent available for new players, or players that start playing another class.
(What really freaks the hell out of me is that the PTS posts that give tested feedback from PTS are completely overrun by strongly opiniated posts of people, who often did not bother to read factual posts very well or at all....oops... sorry to say that)
The Champion Point system:
I think it is a great addition to the game !!!
But yes, the emergency break was necessary and the catch up as well. And before we can raise the cap again and "blast off" (ESO live), I think ZOS would do well to go bowling together somewhere and do some brainstorming on the system. In my opinion there are as it is now, some basic structural flaws in the system including/mainly a dynamic unbalance. But that is a wall of paper on her own to write out with a lot of math and modelling. So not here.
Well.. that is my 2 cents
and thanks again @f047ys3v3n for your great post
Edited by hrothbern on May 24, 2016 6:29PM"I still do not understand why I followed the advice of Captain Rana to bring the villagers of Bleakrock into safety. We should have fought for our village and not have backed down, with our tail between our legs. Now my home village is in shambles, the houses burning, the invaders feasting.I swear every day to Shor that after Molag Bal has been defeated, I will hunt down the invaders and restore peace in Bleakrock and drink my mead with my friends at the market place".PC-EU0 -
kuro-dono✭✭✭✭macros work too easily in eso. easiest macro is skill + block, so well performing that its amazing. You can do similarly easy which is medium weave + light attack + block, which make the medium attack cast faster and straightaway the light one. after these 2-3 combo macro inbuts, its not that time / effect wise to further it into 4-5 skill combo, which in fact is interesting since its manually very easy to attach into macro combo skill of your choise without affecting it much.
How i came with this knowledge? Blackwidow keyboard and razer program to allow you to do very easy macroing.
Edited by kuro-dono on May 24, 2016 6:49PM0 -
greylox✭✭✭✭✭Read it all and agree 100%PC EU
House of the Black Lotus
*{Smokes-in-the-Shade }* (Mag pet Sorc Argonian, prolific thief, willing participant of the dark arts, gardener of exotic...herbs)
{Lugdum The Mechanist} (Hybrid Orc Templar, collector of ancient Ayleid smoking pipes)
{Rantoul} (Dark Elf Magknight, likes an ale between boss fights, has been known to offer daedric princes out in a fist fight)
{Red, The Wanderer} (Bosmer stam sorc and hunter extraordinaire)
{Shoots-For-Stars} (Argonian Mag pet Sorc Ice mage Healer)
*{Jinny the spark }* (Sassy Imperial Stamplar)
{Crezzi the Drifter} (Magblade khajiit burglar, available for questionable operations)
{Grif the Despised} (StamKnight Tank Nord, Eastmarch Master Drinker and spinner of tall yarns)
{Geraldine Stone-Heart} (High Elf MagSorc Ice Tank, Mystic, practitioner of the ancient arts)
*{Anawinn}* (Stam pet Ward Redguard, Mother to a bear and an unruly Hunger,Librarian, field medic and natures fist)
{*}Mains
{ CP 900+ }
Caretaker of Battle Island (Grand Topal), the holiday destination for the discerning warrior
Residing in Stay-Moist Mansion-Shadowfen - The Smoking Den (as of 6th feb 2017)0 -
f047ys3v3n✭✭✭✭✭
✭Kinda agree on most points, except macros. Have fun starting your 6120 seconds macro, and realize you just screwed yourself, because you need to dodge rolls, and refresh ranged DoTs early on, time blocks or pop a heal.
As for the 2 bars section... No, you don't need Dressing room or anything, and I completely disagree with this section:
I realize that some macro programs, or macro methods, such as on board mouse memory, don't allow for the macro to be interrupted. Many others do, so getting locked into it is not an issue. Hit key to turn on, hit key to turn off. I'm not suggesting one gains advantage by running a macro for a whole fight but rather that sections of fights can have advantage gained on them by running a macro durring them.
As for the dressing room. Your probably right on that. Typically only a few skills need switched. I am not anti-add on by the way I a merely pointing out that add ons do contribute to performance divergence. I am not suggesting that I want all players to perform similarly just that dps output needs to be close enough for plausible content scaling. This is clearly not currently the case.
Please don't take this personally, but I HIGHLY recommend cleaning up the post and organizing it better. Add a table of contents, add an abstract at the top, bold and number section headings, use more concise language in places, and clearer titles for your sections.
Your right, I will try to get a table of contents and some bold stuff in it in the next few days.
In other news, I finished my macro testing on the NB by trying adding twisting path to my previous DOT's in a 24 second rotation (keeps 8 and 12 second dots properly refreshed.) Surprisingly, this was actually a very slight dps loss. The DOT from twisting path just wasn't big enough to make up for the opportunity cost of casting it even with the nice tight macroed bar swaps. So, the end result was a macro being, on my magica NB, 17% higher in dps than me applying the same rotation manually which I am really quite good at. I expect that I will try the macro in some trials as there are certainly some bosses that allow long enough stretches of steady weave for this to pay off. I am curious how much advantage is to be gained with various other builds as I have chosen this NB and my Templar DPS toons specifically for the uniformity in their primary DOT timings (as well as the fact they are ranged). DK's, with their more variable DOT refresh times and larger number of DOT's would suggest more macro advantage. In any case, a 17% increase in DPS is nothing to scoff at. It is a substantial advantage and referenced against a player with a pretty tight weave.
Edited by f047ys3v3n on May 27, 2016 6:59AMI am currently worried for the future of ESO. Population seems like it is in free fall and the cancellation of the North America in-person gathering feels very much like pulling the plug. Kudos on fixing the in-game economy though. Clearly whatever gold shenanigans were happening the last couple years are fixed.0 -
kmatt✭✭Agree with all of this and would like to add something else to discussion that adds more to the skill gap.
As a player from New Zealand the best ping rate i can hope for is 250ms but generally average between 280-350 with some times of the day pushing me back to 1000.
Because of the way the combat in this game is designed and that animation canceling exists with timing this adds another level that some players cannot hope to overcome as not even macros used for timing work reliably with this kind of ping rate.
This could be fixed with Global Cool-downs on the use of skills were only 1 thing can be done per second. But im quite sure ZOS has no interest in even looking at these issues as it would require them to rework combat and stop animation canceling. (I personally know that this is a viable solution from my years of playing World of Warcraft as even with a average ping rate of 320 there the cooldown allowed me to become competitive to the point of becoming top paladin on server and obtaining a few server firsts in the raiding scene).Edited by kmatt on May 27, 2016 7:57AM"Embrace Everything"
~~K.matt~~0 -
0
-
Emma_Overload✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Nice post OP, but I only agree with some of it.
The lack of "middle ground" content is a big problem, as you pointed out. This is really highlighted by VMA, where it's either easy mode or hell mode, with nothing in between.
I disagree about soft caps and what you call divergence, however. The gap in power and efficiency between players gives newbies something to aspire to and struggle for. Envy is the gasoline that fuels the MMO grind!#CAREBEARMASTERRACE4 -
kojou✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Back when this game first went live I was in a guild called "The Noore" and was invited to run my one of my first dungeons by a player with a weird name with numbers in it named f047ys3v3n. We have had an interesting ride together that saw f047ys3v3n going from a Orc Sorcerer (we used the pets for a tank) and me going from a Bosmer Nightblade to eventually both of us covering all classes and roles and multiple races and a lot of content together. There are very few people in this game that understand it better than f047ys3v3n and, while he can be admittedly outspoken and yes that was a wall of text, everything in his post has well grounded arguments and the decision makers at ZOS could do a lot by listening to him and implementing some of the ideas in this post.
I agree with Hrothbern that I think the intention by ZOS was to keep the game from being about numbers and more about game play and immersion, but I also feel that it has turned the game into an information gathering experience. For each new skill or armor set that looks viable a certain amount of theory crafting has to be done to confirm that it works as intended, or if it works in a way to help your build. In general it seems like ZOS has been moving in the right direction with making information more available, but the removal of Ninglenel is a kick in the crotch for a lot of theory crafters and people that want to practice DPS rotations. I fully support the #SaveNinglenel movement until true DPS dummies can be added.
I very strongly agree to the point of content scaling. I don't even run pledges very much anymore because can do them with one hand behind my back and the other holding a beer... well not literally, but the point is they are too easy with the exception of VWGT and VICP. All content leading to them is too easy, and then you have.... VMA and VMoL. Basically after DB we will have the newly scaled SO, VMA and VMoL. 1 of those is solo, and the other 2 require 12 man raid groups, but that's ok as long as there are other things we can do to have fun while we wait for our guild's next VMoL or SO attempt.
One easy fix would be to make Craglorn scaled and relevant again. Another would be a real hard mode for all vet dungeons that also scales the loot tables (not just reading a book to make the last fight a little harder). A harder fix, but the best IMO would be to actually make Vet versions of all the non vet dungeons and continue those stories. I mean who doesn't want to know what happens next with the "Mad Architect" in Coldharbour.
Anyway, I highly recommend players to put their ADHD and inner grammar policeman aside and read the post.Edited by kojou on May 27, 2016 3:29PMPlaying since beta...1 -
f047ys3v3n✭✭✭✭✭
✭Thanks for the kind words Kojou.
I have added a table of contents and some more headings. Hopefully this aids with the wall of text issue. I wonder if we could kill that second boss in VMoL with that wall of text. That would be nice.I am currently worried for the future of ESO. Population seems like it is in free fall and the cancellation of the North America in-person gathering feels very much like pulling the plug. Kudos on fixing the in-game economy though. Clearly whatever gold shenanigans were happening the last couple years are fixed.0 -
Zuuda✭It was a good read. Most of it not something I would have need myself being someone who only started playing two weeks ago, but I have MMOed long enough to recognize all the patterns that you mentioned.
I do like ESO's double bar system. Despite having played GW2 for almost three years I was still reticent about switching bars (weapons) due to the ten second CD involved. Swap, use the skills we need, be it a block, an AoE or a heal, and then have a substandard weapon out for seven more seconds while we auto-attack. ESO's system pleases me a lot more, but it is as you say that it simply became a ten slot bar (or as a sorc, a 15 slot bar).
I have yet to play a single game where people applaud the lack of information that the devs decided to provide. Even back in City of Heroes where attacks were labeled as light, moderate and heavy, and three different attacks labeled 'moderate' would do three different amounts of damage (there was no RNG range involved. If an attack did 40 damage then it always did 40 damage until it met a mob that had damage resistance).
Even back then there was an exhaustive research on how much damage each attack did, and then the animation hardlock (no animation cancelling back then, ha ha!) was taken in consideration for the actual DPS each attack had.
Unfortunately what you mention it is not something easily solved. As you said, it is 'respirating a corpse'. They would need to ditch the corpse and almost start from scratch to get the content scaling in difficulty once more.
It reminds me when Cataclysm came out over WoW and players went from AoE fest, infinite mana for healers to being slaughtered in the new dungeons. As someone who had played WoW back in TBC it was just as I remembered. CC a couple mobs so that instead of five we fought three, and then situational awareness to avoid breaking the CC and re-apply it if needed. After a while the gear replaced all that and the AoE fest returned, but those first weeks, mein gott, the crying over the forums, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth. People simply were no longer capable of understanding tactics instead of brute force.Zuuda Sharptongue - Mage apprentice, Khajiitmasterace, still kinda omnommnivore.1 -
Yngve_Nik✭✭I'm about to hit 3 months in this game as a stam DK tank, would consider myself one of those forgotten midrange players. My ESO plus is up in a few days and I'm honestly not sure I'm going to continue.
I know ZOS is trying to prevent the elitism that happens in other games with inspectable gear, achievements, group DPS easily viewable, etc. But the solution is worse than the problem - few people (especially tanks and healers, who can be choosy) want to pug anything because its impossible to vet anyone and difficult to see who the weak links are. This is exacerbated by all the mechanics the OP talks about as it makes difference between a good DPS and a bad one absolutely massive. More than I've ever seen in any other MMO I've ever played.
So instead of fostering an inclusive community it instead causes skilled players to either quit pugging entirely or resort to using the few bits of information that are available to vet their groupmates - only taking v16, demanding the prospect link an achievement, etc. Meanwhile group finder is dead because tanks and healers have largely abandoned it because the DPS it gives you are frequently unbelievably terrible and have to be carried. Personally I can carry a group through a normal (that isn't WGT or ICP) so I do do the silver pledge through the group finder but I'll never queue for a vet in the group finder because when you have 2 sub-v16 DPS doing less than 6K each it's completely impossible to even finish most veteran dungeons, let alone do the hardmode at the end.Edited by Yngve_Nik on May 29, 2016 1:01PM0 -
f047ys3v3n✭✭✭✭✭
✭In my last training session with Ninglenel, may he rest in peace, or better yet be reincarnated, and his murderers be brought to justice, I tested a 7 cast instead of 8 cast rotation on the hunch that it might be better since my unmacroed weave is a bit longer than one with a macro. This yielded a dramatic change as apparently my 8 second DOT's expired well before the 8th cast. The result was a DPS 3% less than the best macro instead of 17% less. Heavy attacks apparently scale better over time than I gave them credit for. The result is that I now do not believe a macro is an advantage for builds optimized for manageable timings such as my NB 8, 8, 8 build or my Templar 6, 6, 12 build. Builds such as this will clearly be better actively managed as a 3% dps boost in certainly not worth the trouble of toggling on and off a macro to deal with mechanics. Since this NB build, that Templar build, quality Mag sorc builds (mag sorc cannot realistically be macroed), are about as good as ranged dps can get, I no longer think macros are an advantage to ranged DPS though I do still think that many of the melee builds, especially the stam ones but probably mag DK's as well, are probably much easier to manage with them because of all the off timed DOT's and bar swaps.
Thanks be to Ninglenel for his help in obtaining such information and curses be upon that cad what killed him.I am currently worried for the future of ESO. Population seems like it is in free fall and the cancellation of the North America in-person gathering feels very much like pulling the plug. Kudos on fixing the in-game economy though. Clearly whatever gold shenanigans were happening the last couple years are fixed.1 -
f047ys3v3n✭✭✭✭✭
✭I guess I should add a section for cheat engines. I honestly even know this was a thing until meteors started dropping from the sky in cyridiil. I've been told it was a thing for a while and ZOS rather ignored it until it became so obvious. Seems to me that it would be rather trivial to catch such people as much of what they do should be easy enough to flag server side as impossible to do. Even if only one in a hundred attacks were checked I would think you would catch the perpetrators easily enough.
I am happy to see ZOS rolling out the ban hammer but now I am left wondering if just those folks obviously cheating in videos on youtube have been banned or if ZOS is actually making an effort to rout out less obvious cheaters. Like always I would like definitive and informative communications from ZOS on the point and am not likely to get them.
Bravo on the ban hammer though. Cheat engines are pretty next level when it comes to bad behavior. Not exactly "creative use of unintended mechanics."I am currently worried for the future of ESO. Population seems like it is in free fall and the cancellation of the North America in-person gathering feels very much like pulling the plug. Kudos on fixing the in-game economy though. Clearly whatever gold shenanigans were happening the last couple years are fixed.0 -
f047ys3v3n✭✭✭✭✭
✭I guess I should add a few new things though these were new in dark brotherhood which this initial post predated and has taken me a bit to digest:
Of course ZOS buffed stam generally big in the DB . This included a double buff to stam dk's who both got the general buff of stam builds and a bunch of specific ones steming from stam morphs of skills being made poison damage. This, combined with the group buff from infallible aether and the awesome stam Vicious Ophidian set has put some of the best players, in the best groups, over 50k dps. Wow, as a very good ranged mag nb or mag templar who does 27k on a nSO serpent in a well buffed group that is some pretty amazing stuff.
On the other side mag AOE, particularly on the NB, which was the most common mag dps prior to DB, has been double nerfed with a cost increase to sap, a heals nerf to sap, I believe also a damage reduction to sap, and a massive damage reduction to magica det which will probably remove it from most peoples bars. The nerf is enough to reduce may mag NB's aoe below that of my mag templar and basically get me to just serially single target in most situations where I used to AOE. The cost of funnel was also increased by about 25% as part of a general increase to the cost of most skills though much greater in magnitude than most cost increases. Mag nb is, mark my words, one nerf from irrelevance if basically all mag toons are not currently irrelivant.
DB reintroduced SO in a VSO form and reintroduced infalible aether and Vicious Ophidian as the desirable BOP endgame PVE dps sets. VO is amazing but infallible is, in my opinion, not BIS for anybody except mag dk's who also have a vMA shock staff and can run the exploit build where the last bonus of each of these sets procs 3 times every heavy attack. This has added to the huge gulf of divergence between magica and stam.
Following that huge gulf most players have rolled stam dps toons. In the raids I have been a part of I now encounter an average of 2 magica dps. This is true in both PVE and, surprisingly given Vicious death, also PVP. Mag AOE is just so bad now that VD is basically a siege or single target sorc thing. That terrible AOE which I believe was meant to remedy the hugely powerful VD set bleeds over into PVE where many mag builds do less aoe on a typical pull than single target on a boss. This stam vs magica dominance I now judge higher than the days of 1.5 when only mag regenerated ultimate reasonably and mag had spellsym as a constant resource pool. It is quite an accomplishment to have thrown things so far this direction though gear and specific group buffs account for some of this hiding the dramatic magnitudes from newer players.
To summarize, there are really 3 new factors in DB contributing to divergence:
1) Direct buffs to the already highest dps build in the game in a stam and a stam dk direct buff.
2) Nerfs, probably related to an indirect attempt (ZOS refuses on principle to fix problems and always opts to screw something else up with a tangential fix) to nerf VD, put the major nerf on mag AOE which was already far inferior to stam.
3) The introduction of VO and IA sets in VSO further separates magica and stamina gearing as VO is clearly BIS for almost all stam dps's and IA is only good as a buff set for healers to wear or when used in combination with a vMA shock staff in an exploit build on a DK. The difference in dps increase between the best BOP sets for stam and the best BOE sets is now probably in the 12k range. For magica, with the exception of the afore mentioned exploit build it is maybe 3k.
The total divergence looks something like a top stam dk with top gear in a top group now exceeding 50k single target with a mag build being more like 22k on the same boss, also with top gear but in a lousy group with poor group buffs (that build might be a 35k with group buffs). It would not be unreasonable to expect a competent mag build who basically knows what they are doing but is not elite or running (now astoundingly expensive) gold gear and without group buffs to be at around 15k. Obviously this represents a continued increase in divergence which was illustrated by the continuance of the successful use of the manti burn strategy by 2 guilds on the NA server despite the obvious design of the fight to avoid this and the length of the fight in less optimized groups. Further, since the drop of hist, a stack strategy has been successful for big dps stam melee groups on the final boss of VDSA which I also doubt was intended. I do not know if successful completes have been done with the old separation strategy as all the groups I talked to just took huge dps stam melee builds and not moderate dps ranged mag builds. I would be remiss if I did not add here that most groups completing vMoL are using a stack and skip mechanics phases strategy on the final boss which was obviously not intended but that vMoL is so badly scaled that almost no middle ground exists between having enough dps to complete at all and having enough to skip most of the mechanics on the last boss.
The bottom line is that divergence continues to be increased and it is quite impossible to scale content to be relevant for more than a handful of players.I am currently worried for the future of ESO. Population seems like it is in free fall and the cancellation of the North America in-person gathering feels very much like pulling the plug. Kudos on fixing the in-game economy though. Clearly whatever gold shenanigans were happening the last couple years are fixed.0 -
AfkNinja✭✭✭✭✭
✭Learn to express yourself in a succinct manner or these people won't bother reading it.0 -
f047ys3v3n✭✭✭✭✭
✭An example of my frustration on the dps issue:
A few weeks ago we were doing a vHRC hard mode. On the air atro boss the healers did a great job with buffs and debuffs and the tank did a great job holding the boss stationary so he stayed in the wall of elements. I did a masterful job on my rotation with my mag NB combined with as much aoe ultimate cheating on the adds as I could at the beginning. At the end I pulled 26k (my mag nb wears, 1kena, 5 infal, 5 julianos, all gold) and damn what a nice number that is for me on that boss. My add on told me this was 10.3% of the dps for the group. Disappointing in that that lands me just on the lower side of the average given that I was so very smooth on the rotation and effective cleaving the adds. Still, I threw the number down and got some responses. A melee mag toon then volunteered 30.3k dps (Templar DOT max build with right traited vMA.) Then womp, 42k from a stam guy with off traited vMA gear. And that is the thing. A great pull, a great rotation, great execution, and a stam guy (yes, he is also very good) with off traited vMA just crushes you. It is just not even ball park. It is like your driving a broken down fiat in indy car.
You gots to be a stam guy with vMA weapons to even be in this game.Edited by f047ys3v3n on September 7, 2016 7:05AMI am currently worried for the future of ESO. Population seems like it is in free fall and the cancellation of the North America in-person gathering feels very much like pulling the plug. Kudos on fixing the in-game economy though. Clearly whatever gold shenanigans were happening the last couple years are fixed.0
