Annulment, conjured ward. Why the short duration?

Tapio75 · February 2017

Why is it, that these wards have such a short duration?

Its somewhat of annoyance to constantly keep up a spell, that feels more like an baseline armor extension that naturally comes with mage class.

It would be much more enjoyable to play if it had double the duration (Both).

I understand that this might be useful with this duration as protection against burst damage in PVP but in the other hand, this is just the reason why i dislike PVP stuff a lot, it tends to mess PVE side and every time PVE side seems to be the one that needs to adapt. Why cant we just have these things work differently in PVE and PVP.

Id just like this to have longer duration so i could concentrate on other things... No, i dont really need it but its more like a flavour thing on mage type character, no self respecting mage lets angry mobs pound fists and swords to his/her face, mage always have a protection spell that can be hold up for long durations.

Would be interesting to have this thing as "Toggle" though.. A toggle that consumes stamina (Mental stamina in story perspective) to keep up, each 2 seconds its up, it consumes certain amount of stamina, each hit you take costs extra stamina per hit but only x hits per 2 secs. This would be something different and interesting to have.

PS: I liked the originsal sound effect of annylment more.

Voxicity · February 2017

Because it makes using shields more reactive which in my opinion is more fun to play, and more balanced.

raj72616a · February 2017

they used to last like 20sec. but pvper whined abt it. so now they are nerfed to 6sec

strebor2095 · February 2017

You already answered your own question - it was because of PvP, and they used to last I think 12 seconds? I can't remember. Sorcs could stack several different shields and unless you could deal with that extra 30k+ hp every 12 seconds you would never kill them.

The reason the game doesn't have abilities that function differently in PvP and PvE is that they would have to completely rework Cyrodiil and IC - if you're a PvE quester, and you have gotten used to these 12 second shields and you go into a town to fight some monsters - "hang on, now it only lasts 6 seconds! wtf I died, ZOS please make it consistent!" Or maybe you don't browse the forums or reddit at all, and you have no idea that it has a different duration and you base your whole build on shields and then die. You would get more angry players who just used their 56 Dreugh Wax on "useless" sets.

There is no way for ZOS to win this, if they had made the balancing different from the start it would have been fine, but it has gone too far and PvP will always get PvE nerfed. They could do more, regular balance improvements - 1 week give Sorc shield duration of 9 seconds, leave Annul shield at 6. If it leads to too many sorcs overperforming, change it back to 6 and make Annul 9 seconds instead. etc etc.

The introduction of 4v4v4 will let us finally see what is "better" in team PvP, and get ready for all the complaints about that!

Voxicity · February 2017

Chances are if you actually needed to use a shield at a time of high incoming damage, that shield would be broken before the 20 second up time and probably even before 6 seconds. So it's actually no different if you were using them correctly.

If you were using them in every trash fight or low incoming damage moment but they allowed you to stand in red then you're just a bad player and the 'nerf' to shields has simply made that more clear to yourself and others.

mikeabboudb14_ESO · February 2017

this was a pain in the butt its one of the reasons pvp should never be mixed with pve

Kammakazi · February 2017

Because PvP'ers ruined it lul

Tapio75 · February 2017

Well, game allready has different effects on some spells for PVE and PVP.

For example, negate magick stuns PVE but silences PVE, similar differencies could be done in other abilities as well..

For the ward in question, one could make a system that recognizes certain "Flags" around the game.. Like Cyrodil and such being their own instances have their own unique ID attached, this could be one flag to make ability work differently, in this game have 6 sec duration in PVP and 12 in PVE. Duel could also have flag from "Duel state" which is active when people duel, the same effect differencies could happen in abilities as well. I suspect negate magick has this system, player has a "Player flag" on him/her and the targeting recognizes this, therefore having different effect on PVP and PVE.

Other word for "Reactive gameplay" is often "Spamming buttons".

Voxicity · February 2017

Tapio75 wrote: »

Other word for "Reactive gameplay" is often "Spamming buttons".

I wouldn't call recasting it every 6 seconds 'spamming', especially since you don't need your shield up 100% of the time, ESPECIALLY in PvE. Unless you need an OP skill to hold your hand through mechanics.

The only time you would need to spam this skill is if you are under a lot of pressure from high damage, which prior to the nerf to shields still required you to spam them so there's literally no change in gameplay for a skilled sorc.

Tapio75 · February 2017

KaiVox22 wrote: »

If you were using them in every trash fight or low incoming damage moment but they allowed you to stand in red then you're just a bad player and the 'nerf' to shields has simply made that more clear to yourself and others.

There is more to it than being good or bad player when talking about mage shielding himself from harm.

A powerful mage can and will protect himself from harm by using various ward spells, this means a mage can stand in place while casting all sorts of spells. Study of arcane arts is often something that takes lots of learning and reading, study and experiment in mages residence, this often leads mages to be fragile, not very fit on physical side, this mean sthey often tend to stand in protectiave wards rather than run around. Casting spells also requires concentration which easily breaks when running around like crazy rabbit.

Therefore the wards or at least some of them should be designed with this in mind. There needs to be another mechanics in place than short duration which though, is easy mechanic to implement.

These wards could be for example, a toggleable skill that requires resource like stamina or magicka to keep up, every damage should also consume resource. This way the ward can be done right both in PVP and PVE. The burst in PVP can dissolve the shield quickly by draining its resource with large damage, this also prevents another shield stacking since there is no resource to cast another ward, in PVE where you attack normal weak enemies, the shield wwill hold for a long time, it has no big consequence in the end result (Enemies dying in PVE), but in side of doing the thing feel right for the mage ttype characters, it has a big impact.

In various fantasy universees, Maintaining a ward has always required great concentration, thus the standing in place and constant cost of resource is much more "realistic" than one time cost with short duration.

Voxicity · February 2017

Tapio75 wrote: »

KaiVox22 wrote: »

If you were using them in every trash fight or low incoming damage moment but they allowed you to stand in red then you're just a bad player and the 'nerf' to shields has simply made that more clear to yourself and others.

There is more to it than being good or bad player when talking about mage shielding himself from harm.

A powerful mage can and will protect himself from harm by using various ward spells, this means a mage can stand in place while casting all sorts of spells. Study of arcane arts is often something that takes lots of learning and reading, study and experiment in mages residence, this often leads mages to be fragile, not very fit on physical side, this mean sthey often tend to stand in protectiave wards rather than run around. Casting spells also requires concentration which easily breaks when running around like crazy rabbit.

Therefore the wards or at least some of them should be designed with this in mind. There needs to be another mechanics in place than short duration which though, is easy mechanic to implement.

These wards could be for example, a toggleable skill that requires resource like stamina or magicka to keep up, every damage should also consume resource. This way the ward can be done right both in PVP and PVE. The burst in PVP can dissolve the shield quickly by draining its resource with large damage, this also prevents another shield stacking since there is no resource to cast another ward, in PVE where you attack normal weak enemies, the shield wwill hold for a long time, it has no big consequence in the end result (Enemies dying in PVE), but in side of doing the thing feel right for the mage ttype characters, it has a big impact.

In various fantasy universees, Maintaining a ward has always required great concentration, thus the standing in place and constant cost of resource is much more "realistic" than one time cost with short duration.

KEK

Didn't realise this was an RP thread, thought it was about skills/balance. You should probably have put it in https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/fiction-roleplaying

RP is definitely not my forte so I'll be off

Ch4mpTW · February 2017

Why are shields so short you ask? To put it simply, to attempt to 'balance' PvP.

Tapio75 · February 2017

@KaiVox22

When creating and playing an MMORPG, the RP element is always there, not to mention that certain things need to be considered outside efficiency, functionality and what ever comes with competitive play.

The right feel for certain fantasy character themes needs to be taken in account as well... I do believe that both balance and feel can be achieved when creating abilities and considering their stats though it often is not as easy as simply making the balance being the first thing in mind. Usually these things that are not as easy are worth it though

How would you feel about ward that has no set duration, the duration would be in relation to resource it consumes while toggled on.

Like if this Annulment would be toggle instead, while up, it will consume x amount of magicka when active and not taking damage. This would be the base uptime calculated from resource it consumes wwjhile up. This base uptime would be reduced by damage, you take x amount of damage, you lose extra x amount of resource making the ward go down faster. In burst situations, the ward would dissolve quickly but would take the initial burst, leaving the mage with chance to strike back at attacker in PVP but wwith no resource to cast another ward for a while, certainly could not stack wards at all.

In PVE, it will stay up for a duration of resource, small weak mobs will not hurt it that much at all while bigger enemies like bosses would dissolve it more quickly. I think in this way, it would work quite well in both PVE and PVP while still have the right feel on PVE.

Voxicity · February 2017

@Tapio75

You're right, I just had the impression you were talking about shields from a balance perspective not an RP one. I personally don't consider RP elements as important as balance so there's nothing for me to say any more. It's fair enough you put RP elements first (or at least further than me) so you're more than entitled to your opinion about it. Have a nice day

Tapio75 · February 2017

@KaiVox22
Balance is important as well, otherwise the PVP side would not be fun at all but i do put the RP element a bit higher on my small world.

Oakmontowls_ESO · February 2017

I guess just be glad they aren't like they were in Skyrim where they are more akin blocking with magic

MythicEmperor · February 2017

Because PvPers love to complain.

fastolfv_ESO · February 2017

sadly the loudest whiners over 20s duration were nbs that wanted to gank without having to deal with that pesky shield in the way. While a higher duration did make shield stacking more viable a better solution would have been to cap shields to avoid massive stacking not the duration cut

Tapio75 · February 2017

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

I guess just be glad they aren't like they were in Skyrim where they are more akin blocking with magic

I would actually love to have one of these at my disposal.

magorim · February 2017

MythicEmperor wrote: »

Because PvPers love to complain.

I love how PvE players forget that stuff that gets nerfed might be OP in PvE, too. Your dumb NPCs can't complain after all.

salmoncat33 · February 2017

Here is the thing, it is demanded in many trials I have been in to keep shields up. I'm also told to do decent dps at the same time. Shields are on my back bar though... so I have to switch bars almost every 3 seconds to accomplish this. It is not fun to play like this.

Oh.. I didn't keep my shield up for 1 second and the mage turned around and someone wasn't stacked well enough. Zap I'm dead, so much fun.

hmsdragonfly · February 2017

Because 20k shield for 20 seconds is straight up OP. You basically have 2 lives.

My 2nd most played character is an Altmer magsorc. I do care about immersion, look at my signature. But this is an online game, balance always comes first.

exeeter702 · February 2017

Tapio75 wrote: »

KaiVox22 wrote: »

If you were using them in every trash fight or low incoming damage moment but they allowed you to stand in red then you're just a bad player and the 'nerf' to shields has simply made that more clear to yourself and others.

There is more to it than being good or bad player when talking about mage shielding himself from harm.

A powerful mage can and will protect himself from harm by using various ward spells, this means a mage can stand in place while casting all sorts of spells. Study of arcane arts is often something that takes lots of learning and reading, study and experiment in mages residence, this often leads mages to be fragile, not very fit on physical side, this mean sthey often tend to stand in protectiave wards rather than run around. Casting spells also requires concentration which easily breaks when running around like crazy rabbit.

Therefore the wards or at least some of them should be designed with this in mind. There needs to be another mechanics in place than short duration which though, is easy mechanic to implement.

These wards could be for example, a toggleable skill that requires resource like stamina or magicka to keep up, every damage should also consume resource. This way the ward can be done right both in PVP and PVE. The burst in PVP can dissolve the shield quickly by draining its resource with large damage, this also prevents another shield stacking since there is no resource to cast another ward, in PVE where you attack normal weak enemies, the shield wwill hold for a long time, it has no big consequence in the end result (Enemies dying in PVE), but in side of doing the thing feel right for the mage ttype characters, it has a big impact.

In various fantasy universees, Maintaining a ward has always required great concentration, thus the standing in place and constant cost of resource is much more "realistic" than one time cost with short duration.

i just regurgitated a bit of my breakfast....

idk · February 2017

@Tapio75

The duration of ward is 6 seconds so we have to make a choice between being offensive or defensive. Shields that scaled off magika used to last 20+ seconds which allowed us to be defensive the entire time we were being offensive.

The reduction in time was good for the game.

Tapio75 · February 2017

There is one other problem concerning these shields, while they all absorb damage or negate it, they all just feel like visual effects because the weapon/projectile/spell hits sounds like they still hit me, not the ward. Its also "funny", how it is when an npc throws that damned dagger at me, the damage is absorbed but the dagger clearkly ignores the shield because the snare comes through as well. All these physical snares should be negated by various shields, spell snares are different, they can go through and should as it involves knownledge of arcane and allows other caster to "Counter" he ward at least partially.

exeeter702 · February 2017

Tapio75 wrote: »

@KaiVox22

When creating and playing an MMORPG, the RP element is always there, not to mention that certain things need to be considered outside efficiency, functionality and what ever comes with competitive play.

The right feel for certain fantasy character themes needs to be taken in account as well... I do believe that both balance and feel can be achieved when creating abilities and considering their stats though it often is not as easy as simply making the balance being the first thing in mind. Usually these things that are not as easy are worth it though

How would you feel about ward that has no set duration, the duration would be in relation to resource it consumes while toggled on.

Like if this Annulment would be toggle instead, while up, it will consume x amount of magicka when active and not taking damage. This would be the base uptime calculated from resource it consumes wwjhile up. This base uptime would be reduced by damage, you take x amount of damage, you lose extra x amount of resource making the ward go down faster. In burst situations, the ward would dissolve quickly but would take the initial burst, leaving the mage with chance to strike back at attacker in PVP but wwith no resource to cast another ward for a while, certainly could not stack wards at all.

In PVE, it will stay up for a duration of resource, small weak mobs will not hurt it that much at all while bigger enemies like bosses would dissolve it more quickly. I think in this way, it would work quite well in both PVE and PVP while still have the right feel on PVE.

look guy... using your shield when needed is still around, the duration was changed to make the player be more active which is far more engaging and rewards the player for making a good call (most of the time). In solo pve you are not going to even need the damn thing unless you're one of those neckbeards that intentionally gimps themselves for immersion purposes or you are trying to solo a world boss. And VMA as well. Its largely redundant otherwise.

In pvp it became an issue not because of the shear potency of multiple shields being stacked, but because it was very resource efficient for what it provided in duration. IE. most magsorcs for example simply kept the shields up when out of combat, being immune to any kind of opener essentially, and when in combat, unless you could eliminate the entirety of the multiple shields strength within a given time frame, it was impossible to take them down. The change was made so that is no longer the case, if you want that same kind of obscene mitigation you have to commit resources to it every 6 seconds at the very least.

magicka defensive options vs stamina defensive options in the current pvp environment is an entirely different discussion, but the shorter duration change has little to no effect on any sort of pve that matters.

DRXHarbinger · February 2017

Tapio75 wrote: »

Why is it, that these wards have such a short duration?

Its somewhat of annoyance to constantly keep up a spell, that feels more like an baseline armor extension that naturally comes with mage class.

It would be much more enjoyable to play if it had double the duration (Both).

I understand that this might be useful with this duration as protection against burst damage in PVP but in the other hand, this is just the reason why i dislike PVP stuff a lot, it tends to mess PVE side and every time PVE side seems to be the one that needs to adapt. Why cant we just have these things work differently in PVE and PVP.

Id just like this to have longer duration so i could concentrate on other things... No, i dont really need it but its more like a flavour thing on mage type character, no self respecting mage lets angry mobs pound fists and swords to his/her face, mage always have a protection spell that can be hold up for long durations.

Would be interesting to have this thing as "Toggle" though.. A toggle that consumes stamina (Mental stamina in story perspective) to keep up, each 2 seconds its up, it consumes certain amount of stamina, each hit you take costs extra stamina per hit but only x hits per 2 secs. This would be something different and interesting to have.

PS: I liked the originsal sound effect of annylment more.

Because the pvp lot ruin a lot in this game. They cry for everything. Guaranteed monster sets, guaranteed jewlery, 1/10 of the ap requirement to get the alliance skill lines, now able to buy any overland set. This was during the sorc hate era when scrubs couldn't kill a light armor wearer. Not that shields ever got to last that long in combat. It was just so they could gank easier.

exeeter702 · February 2017

Tapio75 wrote: »

There is one other problem concerning these shields, while they all absorb damage or negate it, they all just feel like visual effects because the weapon/projectile/spell hits sounds like they still hit me, not the ward. Its also "funny", how it is when an npc throws that damned dagger at me, the damage is absorbed but the dagger clearkly ignores the shield because the snare comes through as well. All these physical snares should be negated by various shields, spell snares are different, they can go through and should as it involves knownledge of arcane and allows other caster to "Counter" he ward at least partially.

lol.... ok im out of here.

This is either an ingenious troll or someone far beyond any sort of reason.

LuminaLilly · February 2017

Because the 100+ People QQing and Nerf sorc threads, and because wrobel got salty he couldn't instagib a magsorc with his NB.

I can give a smith about pvp, but it's harder to run maelstrom with 6 second shields.

Molydeus · February 2017

KaiVox22 wrote: »

Tapio75 wrote: »

KaiVox22 wrote: »

If you were using them in every trash fight or low incoming damage moment but they allowed you to stand in red then you're just a bad player and the 'nerf' to shields has simply made that more clear to yourself and others.

There is more to it than being good or bad player when talking about mage shielding himself from harm.

A powerful mage can and will protect himself from harm by using various ward spells, this means a mage can stand in place while casting all sorts of spells. Study of arcane arts is often something that takes lots of learning and reading, study and experiment in mages residence, this often leads mages to be fragile, not very fit on physical side, this mean sthey often tend to stand in protectiave wards rather than run around. Casting spells also requires concentration which easily breaks when running around like crazy rabbit.

Therefore the wards or at least some of them should be designed with this in mind. There needs to be another mechanics in place than short duration which though, is easy mechanic to implement.

These wards could be for example, a toggleable skill that requires resource like stamina or magicka to keep up, every damage should also consume resource. This way the ward can be done right both in PVP and PVE. The burst in PVP can dissolve the shield quickly by draining its resource with large damage, this also prevents another shield stacking since there is no resource to cast another ward, in PVE where you attack normal weak enemies, the shield wwill hold for a long time, it has no big consequence in the end result (Enemies dying in PVE), but in side of doing the thing feel right for the mage ttype characters, it has a big impact.

In various fantasy universees, Maintaining a ward has always required great concentration, thus the standing in place and constant cost of resource is much more "realistic" than one time cost with short duration.

KEK

Didn't realise this was an RP thread, thought it was about skills/balance. You should probably have put it in https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/fiction-roleplaying

RP is definitely not my forte so I'll be off

KEK

Didn't realize there were minors in this thread.

Ihatenightblades · February 2017

Tapio75 wrote: »

Why is it, that these wards have such a short duration?

Its somewhat of annoyance to constantly keep up a spell, that feels more like an baseline armor extension that naturally comes with mage class.

It would be much more enjoyable to play if it had double the duration (Both).

I understand that this might be useful with this duration as protection against burst damage in PVP but in the other hand, this is just the reason why i dislike PVP stuff a lot, it tends to mess PVE side and every time PVE side seems to be the one that needs to adapt. Why cant we just have these things work differently in PVE and PVP.

Id just like this to have longer duration so i could concentrate on other things... No, i dont really need it but its more like a flavour thing on mage type character, no self respecting mage lets angry mobs pound fists and swords to his/her face, mage always have a protection spell that can be hold up for long durations.

Would be interesting to have this thing as "Toggle" though.. A toggle that consumes stamina (Mental stamina in story perspective) to keep up, each 2 seconds its up, it consumes certain amount of stamina, each hit you take costs extra stamina per hit but only x hits per 2 secs. This would be something different and interesting to have.

PS: I liked the originsal sound effect of annylment more.

Because of shields lasted any longer everybody would be running light armor magicka .

As of now mag sorc got the number 1 dps in game for end game trials/dungeons.

Only fair that they are 6 seconds.

Im assuming you dont remember the old days where EVERYBODY was a magicka sorcerer for shields and damage. The nerd was definitely needed .