Joy's thoughts on Templars in Morrowind: they just aren't fun anymore

Tabbycat · May 2017

I don't understand why they make all these changes to try to make the small portion of the playerbase that actually plays PvP happy.

Do they have some big data showing that PvPers make up the majority of players?

It honestly does not make sense to make the game less enjoyable for the majority of your playerbase.

When will ZOS learn that it is impossible to balance PvP and that their attempts at doing so make the game less enjoyable for PvE players? When we all quit because the game isn't fun anymore?

Sugaroverdose · May 2017

Tabbycat wrote: »

I don't understand why they make all these changes to try to make the small portion of the playerbase that actually plays PvP happy.

Do they have some big data showing that PvPers make up the majority of players?

It honestly does not make sense to make the game less enjoyable for the majority of your playerbase.

When will ZOS learn that it is impossible to balance PvP and that their attempts at doing so make the game less enjoyable for PvE players? When we all quit because the game isn't fun anymore?

Give numbers of player base separated by content type, you cannot? What a surprise.

Pangnirtung · May 2017

Tabbycat wrote: »

I don't understand why they make all these changes to try to make the small portion of the playerbase that actually plays PvP happy.

This has got to be the biggest downfall of ESO.

Most if not all the balance changes since launch have been because of imbalance in PVP.

I NEVER pvp and yet because of a minority of players the devs seem intent on balancing the game for them at the expense of the majority. You know what is happening? The game is slowly being tuned for a minority and ruining the play experience for the majority.

I just started playing a magplar on live. My other characters have always been stamina NBs or DKs. This new magplar on live is sooooooo much fun and now it is going to be rubbed into the ground? Why? Because of a small percentage of players.

technohic · May 2017

If it was balanced for PvP; I believe they would have just changed CP stuff as a lot of the imbalances only happened there. They even went further and removed CP from battlegrounds explicitly for that reason.

Think they even clearly stated that the focus on high damage to defeat content with no consideration to resource management or mechanics of the fight; was a big reason they are nerfing a lot of this. It's just easy to blame PvP because you do get a lot of complaints flying around while PVE is balanced silently based on the developers intention on difficulty.

alexkdd99 · May 2017

parkham wrote: »

How do you ensure class uniqueness while also maintaining:

Class power balance
PVE and PVP balance
Replayabilty
ZOS profits

Before the champion system over buffed us and the new sets made us to strong it was closer to that goal. But for some reason people don't want that it seems.

They want all classes to have the same effectiveness in all roles. But that is not how the game was designed. Just go through and read the skills and you will see which class was designed for which roles. I'm not saying classes shouldn't be able to fulfill any role, but certain classes should excel at certain roles. After all that is how they designed the classes.

Morimizo · May 2017

100% agree with you @Joy_Division .

I never have minded every class having an OP skill (or three), as long as there are counters that skilled players can employ, it's what makes the game fun.

Why would any of us want to drive the exact same car? ESO shouldn't be a Grand Prix race, it's a Road Warrior sprint (now with low resources!) including all kinds of vehicles; muscle cars, motorcycles, semis, monster trucks, etc. (all of varying armor thicknesses). ZOS wants us all in the gas-guzzling Monster Truck that has to pit-stop every other lap.

Zeuq · May 2017

TL;DR side note who is joy?

Joy_Division · May 2017

Zeuq wrote: »

TL;DR side note who is joy?

Just someone who used to love the game. That's all.

NBrookus · May 2017

Zeuq wrote: »

TL;DR side note who is joy?

Someone you are happy to see bringing heals when the zerg arrives.

technohic · May 2017

I can say Stamplar is still a lot of fun but the increase stam cost, chance of a corpse being used up for repentance, and a class that does not have great stam recovery to begin with; itlll be rough.

Ron_Burgundy_79 · May 2017

Joy_Division wrote: »

Zeuq wrote: »

TL;DR side note who is joy?

Just someone who used to love the game. That's all.

Sounds familiar.

Lucky28 · May 2017

Tabbycat wrote: »

I don't understand why they make all these changes to try to make the small portion of the playerbase that actually plays PvP happy.

Do they have some big data showing that PvPers make up the majority of players?

It honestly does not make sense to make the game less enjoyable for the majority of your playerbase.

When will ZOS learn that it is impossible to balance PvP and that their attempts at doing so make the game less enjoyable for PvE players? When we all quit because the game isn't fun anymore?

there are quite a few players who enjoy PvP. and i'm pretty sure PvPers used to be the "majority" PvP was described originally as being the real end-game content of ESO. unfortunately a lot of these players left because of crap like this very patch in fact.

and make no mistake. PvPers aren't all that happy about these changes either. the thing that used to make PvP the best aspect of ESO was the versatility, the verity of builds and experiences that aren't present in PvE. this patch is a step back not forward.

where they really needed to focus their attention was sword/board and stacking proc sets (still a problem that should go) no idea how they came to this conclusion.

BalticBlues · May 2017

Thanks Joy, your post sums everything up
why the thrill is gone for Templars.

Moreover, this patch is not only killing the fun for Templars.
This terrible patch is killing much of the fun in the entire game.

And with it, this patch is killing the player base.
I do not know anyone in my guilds looking forward to it.

3 years I have played this game exclusively. What to enjoy from June?
Looks like I will probably go out into the sun and wait for ReadDead 2.

Idinuse · May 2017

BalticBlues wrote: »

Thanks Joy, your post sums everything up
why the thrill is gone for Templars.

Moreover, this patch is not only killing the fun for Templars.
This terrible patch is killing much of the fun in the entire game.

And with it, this patch is killing the player base.
I do not know anyone in my guilds looking forward to it.

3 years I have played this game exclusively. What to enjoy from June?
Looks like I will probably go out into the sun and wait for ReadDead 2.

Thank you Joy for all your in depth, well thought out, initiated and intelligent threads, comments, thoughts and suggestions on Templars in particular but also other classes and aspects of the game.

https://youtu.be/81LpJPXo_qs

Prizax · May 2017

My main has been (since the closed beta of the initial game) and it's going to be Templar... between I stopped playing the game for a year and a half and I just got seriously back to play again the game last week (mostly because of the closed beta Morrowind) and oh boy I will be damn I did totally feel how my beautiful Templar is basically naked.

But anyways I will still try to get used to all these changes because I really want to run battlegrounds on live server, but with all due respect I don't know what the *** is ZoS thinking... besides the craziest amount of "get all the money while you can from stupid designs and limiting features" I can see that all these nerfes are mostly related to help the performance of PvP, the problem here is that they are doing it the wrong/easy way (I don't blame them tho if I were working there I would have propably do the same).

Silver_Strider · May 2017

Fun is subjective.

I prefer practicality over uniqueness if that uniqueness is hampering Balance or Diversity in some way. Templars having a complete monopoly on Healer/Support really bugged me as it hampered Diversity. The whole "Holier than Holy" vibe of Templar never struck me as fun and I found their general skills to be too slow for my liking. I tried making other classes work and I did, to an extent, but the gap between Templars and Non-Templar healers was just too large to bridge since Templars had all the tools to fully support the team without bending over backwards to do it. I could wear Sentinel of Rhakugaz and spam Grand Healing for days with a Master Resto but I would always be 2nd Fiddle to Templars just because I could never provide the same level of support as them and I just never found that to be fair from either a practical or balance perspective.

As far as uniqueness goes, I'd argue that was lost a long time ago.

DK chains were copied in Swarm Mother and Talons is just a mildly better version of Encase.
Everyone could get a decent shield via Annulment and up until fairly recently, pets were a joke that no one wanted and most still don't out of the simple fact that, even if Pets aren't prioritized over players, they can and still do "steal" buffs.
Invisibility is a potion away and Vampirism sure made you vanish into stealth pretty damn quickly.
Lava Whip and Veiled Strike are practically the same move with the only differences between the 2 being fairly mild in nature (Fire Damage vs Magic damage, Knockdown vs Stun, etc.)
Grim Focus is only unique in it's methodology but as far as functionality goes, it's similar to Crystal Frags in that they both have a requirement before they can be used and do fairly considerable damage.
Lighting Form and Spiked Armor are fairly similar as well.
Jabs and Flurry
Daedric Curse and Magic Det.

The list goes on and while not the exact same move, the similarities are enough that it doesn't exactly make them feel unique anymore. Also, just because a skill is better than one another does not make it unique either. The only truly unique skill I can even remotely think of is Repentance and that's because there is currently no other skill that interacts with Dead Bodies, at least not yet anyways. The group stamina return is something that I don't classify as unique as a Master Resto can do that to, just not as effectively but again, better skill =/= unique.

Class Defining moves and Uniqueness are a myth in ESO. The only reason classes were even made was for the sake of making the game easier to balance and even then ZOS is having a hard time finding that balance. Imagine the outright horror show if you could get the defensive capabilities of a DK, Healing potency of a Templar, godly sustain of Sorcerer and Ultimate Regen of NBs all on 1 character. A single theorycrafter putting all the best pieces together would make the ultimate build that could not be matched and everyone would just copy it because the "Uniqueness be damned, I want to be the best" mentality trumps everything else in any game with competitive elements.

Ron_Burgundy_79 · May 2017

Also posting this here in hopes that someone at ZOS will read it:

@Wrobel the dev comments are enlightening. The cc options you listed for templars are situational at best, and none of them synergize with our templar house. The change to javelin is horrible. An enemy hit with a javelin at point blank range will be pushed out of the range of puncturing sweeps. This would be fine if you just returned the stun to blazing spear.

Solution: remove the increased damage to blazing spear and re-implement the old hard cc

Justification: Javelin and toppling charge do not synergize at all with the templar house. Javelin pushes enemies outside of sweeps range and toppling charge will force Templars off of our static defensive buff. Blazing spear would allow Templars to control enemies that decide to enter our house.
At this point in time, luminous will be the only morph used because of the new and improved changes to the synergy. Returning the hard cc to blazing spear would make both morphs competitive.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_BrianWheeler

@Joy_Division @utb99 @austinwalter87ub17_ESO @Dread_Knight_N7

GallantGuardian · May 2017

So I like the change to luminous shards but I still want a root for when I tank

I decided to go a different route while asking tho rather then ask for solar barrage to be a root for multiple targets

Maybe make the sun shield morph "radiant ward" do a 360 root to any add surrounding you and remove the damage aspect of it keep the part where it gets stronger with more adds around you tho that way i have time to look around and taunt a bunch of adds who are ranging me while also having a small shield up while I look around giving me as a tank a little breathing room.

I also want rune focus to provide templatrs with major mending

And repentance still either needs to allow multiple people to be able to repent offf the same body or give us a stamina steal

And then I'm set

Frenkthevile · May 2017

Great post, i think we all arrived at this conclusion btw. No wonder why i'm playing 1/10 of what i did before Templar nerfs and class "flat" bonuses were introduced.

utb99 · May 2017

The change to Javelin is idiotic. It was already troublesome before but now it 100% pushes people outside the range of sweeps and jabs. We wanted a longer stun time, not extra knockback.

ZOS really has no idea what they are doing with Templar

Xvorg · May 2017

ArgoCye wrote: »

I would like to sympathise, but as a nightblade I too could list off all the skills that ZoS over the years have neutered or have just left broken. Templars aren't alone in this tampering.

Do you remember haste?

DHale · May 2017

Zeuq wrote: »

TL;DR side note who is joy?

Joy is a professional oiler. He has killed me with ground oil (when that was a thing), and postern oil and front door oil and breech oil. Even when I see him in open field I look around to make sure there is no place where he can put down oil. Anytime I die instantly running into a defended keep I says to my guildies in TS Joy is on oil before I even look at my death recap. I am pretty sure he works for Exxon IRL. Oh I forgot tower oil too cannot forget that.

Fuxo · May 2017

utb99 wrote: »

The change to Javelin is idiotic. It was already troublesome before but know it 100% pushes people outside the range of sweeps and jabs. We wanted a longer stun time, not extra knockback.

ZOS really has no idea what they are doing with Templar

ZOS is making changes nobody wants or expects. Addresses things that have never been a problem. There are skills and passives like enduring rays, healing ritual and light weaver, etc, that are borderline useless or broken and are not updated in months, yet ZOS takes javelin and makes a change that removes any sort of synergy with other class skills. Just so templars can have fun time in battlegrounds. Is this an example of hard data analysis? What is going on ZOS?

Joy_Division · May 2017

DHale wrote: »

Zeuq wrote: »

TL;DR side note who is joy?

Joy is a professional oiler. He has killed me with ground oil (when that was a thing), and postern oil and front door oil and breech oil. Even when I see him in open field I look around to make sure there is no place where he can put down oil. Anytime I die instantly running into a defended keep I says to my guildies in TS Joy is on oil before I even look at my death recap. I am pretty sure he works for Exxon IRL. Oh I forgot tower oil too cannot forget that.

LOL I

my oils

Minno · May 2017

Joy_Division wrote: »

DHale wrote: »

Zeuq wrote: »

TL;DR side note who is joy?

Joy is a professional oiler. He has killed me with ground oil (when that was a thing), and postern oil and front door oil and breech oil. Even when I see him in open field I look around to make sure there is no place where he can put down oil. Anytime I die instantly running into a defended keep I says to my guildies in TS Joy is on oil before I even look at my death recap. I am pretty sure he works for Exxon IRL. Oh I forgot tower oil too cannot forget that.

LOL I my oils

Ron_Burgundy_79 · May 2017

utb99 wrote: »

The change to Javelin is idiotic. It was already troublesome before but now it 100% pushes people outside the range of sweeps and jabs. We wanted a longer stun time, not extra knockback.

ZOS really has no idea what they are doing with Templar

I translated the dev comments regarding templar cc's:

"We don't know what we're talking about so we'll just do stuff and see if that will keep them quiet."

Dread_Guy · May 2017

Ron_Burgundy_79 wrote: »

utb99 wrote: »

The change to Javelin is idiotic. It was already troublesome before but now it 100% pushes people outside the range of sweeps and jabs. We wanted a longer stun time, not extra knockback.

ZOS really has no idea what they are doing with Templar

I translated the dev comments regarding templar cc's:

"We don't know what we're talking about so we'll just do stuff and see if that will keep them quiet."

@Ron_Burgundy_79 that sounds really familiar..I wonder from where...?

Ron_Burgundy_79 · May 2017

Dread_Knight_N7 wrote: »

Ron_Burgundy_79 wrote: »

utb99 wrote: »

The change to Javelin is idiotic. It was already troublesome before but now it 100% pushes people outside the range of sweeps and jabs. We wanted a longer stun time, not extra knockback.

ZOS really has no idea what they are doing with Templar

I translated the dev comments regarding templar cc's:

"We don't know what we're talking about so we'll just do stuff and see if that will keep them quiet."

@Ron_Burgundy_79 that sounds really familiar..I wonder from where...?

Come fight the good fight and I won't have to borrow your line, Dread guy.

Reverb · May 2017

DHale wrote: »

Zeuq wrote: »

TL;DR side note who is joy?

Joy is a professional oiler. He has killed me with ground oil (when that was a thing), and postern oil and front door oil and breech oil. Even when I see him in open field I look around to make sure there is no place where he can put down oil. Anytime I die instantly running into a defended keep I says to my guildies in TS Joy is on oil before I even look at my death recap. I am pretty sure he works for Exxon IRL. Oh I forgot tower oil too cannot forget that.

Perfect, this will be the new profession for my Templar when the patch hits: siege monkey. I'll become one of those people who never comes down off the wall. I wouldn't be able to survive down there anymore, and I no longer provide decent heals or buffs, so siege it is.

tplink3r1 · May 2017

lunalitetempler wrote: »

Disagree, love my templer, even more so now. I think DPS should manage their own resources! No me..

This is a discussion about Templars, not "templer", whatever that means.