What happened to this game? Where did it go wrong?

leepalmer95 · August 2017

Nowdays all the noobs just throw on aids builds and let the builds or stupid mechanics zos brought in to carry them for kills.

Now yeah 1.6 had its problems and there is a few things i'd would keep as it is now, streak change (though less severe), cloak change (purge was Op) etc...

When i started in 1.6 everything had a counter, you could roll dodge most things, cost reflect ults/ purge/ cloak them. You couldn't just spam uncounterable skills for guaranteed damage such as soul assault, birds, beam.

You could block everything including curse, it didn't explode twice and go through block, you didn't just have to accept your gonna to be hit for 4-6k in 3.5s then 4-6k in 8.5s even if the person is dead. You could block it if you got the timing down.

The game didn't punish people for blocking attacks like it does now, if your not a full block reduction build they with the blocking changes to every 0.25s then its not worth blocking most attacks because it hits your stamina too hard. Another zos change which wasn't though't out well and only hurt normal players more than its intended target.

Proc sets were non existent, the only one that existed was skoria and back then it wasn't very good, you could roll dodge it, reflect it and purge it if you managed to get the timing down right. People killed people with skills and not armour.

There was counterplay to everything, you could roll dodge ults, you could reflect them, cloak etc... You could react. If you wanted to land an ultimate on someone you had to be careful you had to make sure your not throwing meteors on dk's without a cc, you had to cc someone to make sure your strong Ult attack hit. A lot of ults didn't cc.

Back them in order to not get trounced i had to learn a lot. Running in a zerg didn't do anything because it was possible for a few players to kill of groups of 10~ if they was good enough.

I had to learn how to animation cancel, i had to learn how to set up burst, i had to learn how to avoid burst from all the characters. Had to learn how to counter some builds, how to know when to use ults. Had to kill people with actual skills because no random armor was going to deal 60% of an enemies hp for me.

Now people just throw ults of because its so easy to get then back, literally light attack anything or get hit, throw out a soul assault and that players is gonna die. Throw out a meteor and that player is forced to stand still and hold block. Beam someone because they can't roll it anymore and if someone else hits them they'll usually die. Throw birds out because it has literally 0 counter, its constant guaranteed damage, no counter. Armor thats dealing damage for players. Entire zergs of tank healers that are near impossible to kill, smart healing, beam, skills like purifying light literally making these 30k hp healers deal like 12k bursts?.

What happened?

Woeler · August 2017

I fell for the clickbait

Unfadingsilence · August 2017

Sounds like yet another L2P post.... jk

#bringback1.6

leepalmer95 · August 2017

Woeler wrote: »

I fell for the clickbait

I deserve a +1 for the click bait

Shadow-Fighter · August 2017

Thank You @leepalmer95

Yes, Update 1.6 was the best ever

hmsdragonfly · August 2017

New dev team took over. Different team, different philosophy.

Beardimus · August 2017

Don't agree with the sensational title, but many of your points are bang on.

Does feel like ur a stam player with a slight bias so nervous it was a nerf Sorc thread in disguise.

But I agree with most. Personally I think the streamers wreck the game. They male this 'meta' BS amd everyone flocks to it for easy mode.

If everyone theory crafted and built they own way game would be way more interesting.....its bending a knee to.the casuals that's wrecked it..

Jim_Pipp · August 2017

Does make some good points, but every patch has people asking for changes to be reversed and getting nostalgic for other patches. (Look at the current moaning about necropotence, or last patch's complaints about sustain.)

I find it funny that 1.6 is being held up as the "good times". Here is a poll from a year ago trying to go back to 1.5! Rose tinted memories about the past; the game isn't grest, but it is getting slightly better each patch.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/290227/would-you-be-willing-to-pay-a-monthly-sub-for-a-1-5-server

Feanor · August 2017

@leepalmer95

I think the philosophy that new players should feel "powerful" as well is to blame. This led to introducing high damage proc sets (so that you can get a kill off a better player regardless of your own skill) and to that "raise the floor" mantra. I don't think this will change, as ZOS seems to target players who stay for some weeks at best as their main audience now.

leepalmer95 · August 2017

Beardimus wrote: »

Don't agree with the sensational title, but many of your points are bang on.

Does feel like ur a stam player with a slight bias so nervous it was a nerf Sorc thread in disguise.

But I agree with most. Personally I think the streamers wreck the game. They male this 'meta' BS amd everyone flocks to it for easy mode.

If everyone theory crafted and built they own way game would be way more interesting.....its bending a knee to.the casuals that's wrecked it..

To be honest i've been on magicka characters mostly this patch apart from the proc blade, mag dk, mag sorc, mag warden and mag templar.

But back then even magicka characters had counters, dk had wings, mag sorc shields where broken back then and ball of lightning worked on meteors and such, templars could purge everything incoming projectiles such as snipes and meteors and nb's could cloak.

leepalmer95 · August 2017

Feanor wrote: »

@leepalmer95

I think the philosophy that new players should feel "powerful" as well is to blame. This led to introducing high damage proc sets (so that you can get a kill off a better player regardless of your own skill) and to that "raise the floor" mantra. I don't think this will change, as ZOS seems to target players who stay for some weeks at best as their main audience now.

Yeah same, the whole making new players feel like they can compete was a stupid idea.

New players should get thrown into the 1-50 pvp campaign. They're new and should play with new players until they aren't.

This is an MMO, the simple fact is new players are not mean't to compete with long term players when they first start. They aren't mean't to get to that level for a while, its a MMO not a moba. The longer term players have experience, gear and level on them. It's not like they won't even be able to get to that level, thats a catchup mechanic on cp, theres a cap on cp. Gear can all be farmed but the experienced needs to be learned.

Zos went about it the wrong way. They should of locked new players without cp into a under 50 campaign which is locked for people with no cp only. Let them learn and compete with new players similar to them. It's way more than what i got when i first started xD You got battle leveled to 50 and thats it, you hit vet 1 and life got hard.

Rohamad_Ali · August 2017

Paul Sage and Nick Konkle left . That's what happened .

Turelus · August 2017

Personally I like the direction, it has a lot of issues to still iron out and there are elements I dislike but... I think many of us remember 1.5/1.6 with some nostalgia and forget the builds we all hated back then.

Rohamad_Ali · August 2017

Turelus wrote: »

Personally I like the direction, it has a lot of issues to still iron out and there are elements I dislike but... I think many of us remember 1.5/1.6 with some nostalgia and forget the builds we all hated back then.

The direction is not the issue in ESO , it is the implementation . The original team had more experience under their belts . They were also more cautious back then of big sweeping changes . That came from experience with DAoC and already learning that pushing things to far can lead to disaster .

hamgatan · August 2017

What happened?

F2P.. that's what.

Valencer · August 2017

Turelus wrote: »

Personally I like the direction, it has a lot of issues to still iron out and there are elements I dislike but... I think many of us remember 1.5/1.6 with some nostalgia and forget the builds we all hated back then.

I dont know, but for me personally every single update I keep wishing it was the previous update because it really feels like PvP gets progressively worse every single update.

Fun and engaging mechanics get dumbed down, completely unfun mechanics get added (often they're zerg enablers). Cyrodiil is currently at the point where the dominant playstyle is a 60+ pug swarm running around the emp ring rolling over keeps and outposts with little stopping them.

It's really only catering to the casual player at the moment and Im pretty sure a lot of the more experienced players in the game are mostly sticking around because of friends or people they know in this game.

Jitterbug · August 2017

Having them trial and error their way to game balance is all well and good, but it's going to take longer since they're trying it for the first time (afaik anyway). Not that I'm in a hurry, but these big sweeping changes are a sign of inexperience to me. I'm probably wrong though, what do I know...

[Edit to remove bashing]

Rohamad_Ali · August 2017

hamgatan wrote: »

What happened?

F2P.. that's what.

B2P but I agree with that being a root cause of some of the major issues . When marketing becomes to prioritized , development always suffers in the process of reaching expectations . We warned of all the problems b2p would parade in and we were not wrong about any of them .

Prioritizing crown store
Implementation of gambling boxes
Smaller expansions or devaluation of the subscription in some way

ZOS has been trying to combat some of these negative effects and still create good expansions but their development team has never caught up to their marketing teams demands in my opinion . That is why we suffer through long periods of bugs and broken mechanics .

kargen27 · August 2017

It went wrong when they listened to new players and made the majority of content easier. That caused most the content to become routine with little chance of an actual challenge. So in an attempt to bring back the challenge they made sustain harder.

So if you look big picture I blame participation ribbons. Players (some players) want something special for no effort and ZoS made the mistake of trying to provide it.

Fodore · August 2017

Well well

Blobsky · August 2017

Beardimus wrote: »

Don't agree with the sensational title, but many of your points are bang on.

Does feel like ur a stam player with a slight bias so nervous it was a nerf Sorc thread in disguise.

But I agree with most. Personally I think the streamers wreck the game. They male this 'meta' BS amd everyone flocks to it for easy mode.

If everyone theory crafted and built they own way game would be way more interesting.....its bending a knee to.the casuals that's wrecked it..

Yo i dont even use procs and make my own meta as a streamer

Sausage · August 2017

hmsdragonfly wrote: »

New dev team took over. Different team, different philosophy.

When did they say this? I havent followed this game much recently. Hopefully, they moved to another project like Fallout MMORPG.

GreenhaloX · August 2017

leepalmer95 wrote: »

What happened?

Nerfing.. is what happened and what went wrong with this game. 'Nuff said..

Sylosi · August 2017

Beardimus wrote: »

Personally I think the streamers wreck the game. They male this 'meta' BS amd everyone flocks to it for easy mode.

Watching ESO PvP streamers just highlights the actual problems with this game.

I mean if I watch streams of a lot of actual PvP video games the streams are about the gameplay to a large extent, be it 'big plays', tournaments, gameplay tips on things like how to practice a certain thing to get mechanically better, showing people various positioning on maps, etc, yet in ESO that is rare, ESO PvP streams can largely by summed up by the words 'What is your build?', that speaks volumes and is down to the game not the streamers.

Zer0oo · August 2017

leepalmer95 wrote: »

What happened?

Developers who do not play their own game happened or are hopelessness over their head with their task.

Mappy2kx · August 2017

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Nowdays all the noobs just throw on aids builds and let the builds or stupid mechanics zos brought in to carry them for kills.

Now yeah 1.6 had its problems and there is a few things i'd would keep as it is now, streak change (though less severe), cloak change (purge was Op) etc...

When i started in 1.6 everything had a counter, you could roll dodge most things, cost reflect ults/ purge/ cloak them. You couldn't just spam uncounterable skills for guaranteed damage such as soul assault, birds, beam.

You could block everything including curse, it didn't explode twice and go through block, you didn't just have to accept your gonna to be hit for 4-6k in 3.5s then 4-6k in 8.5s even if the person is dead. You could block it if you got the timing down.

The game didn't punish people for blocking attacks like it does now, if your not a full block reduction build they with the blocking changes to every 0.25s then its not worth blocking most attacks because it hits your stamina too hard. Another zos change which wasn't though't out well and only hurt normal players more than its intended target.

Proc sets were non existent, the only one that existed was skoria and back then it wasn't very good, you could roll dodge it, reflect it and purge it if you managed to get the timing down right. People killed people with skills and not armour.

There was counterplay to everything, you could roll dodge ults, you could reflect them, cloak etc... You could react. If you wanted to land an ultimate on someone you had to be careful you had to make sure your not throwing meteors on dk's without a cc, you had to cc someone to make sure your strong Ult attack hit. A lot of ults didn't cc.

Back them in order to not get trounced i had to learn a lot. Running in a zerg didn't do anything because it was possible for a few players to kill of groups of 10~ if they was good enough.

I had to learn how to animation cancel, i had to learn how to set up burst, i had to learn how to avoid burst from all the characters. Had to learn how to counter some builds, how to know when to use ults. Had to kill people with actual skills because no random armor was going to deal 60% of an enemies hp for me.

Now people just throw ults of because its so easy to get then back, literally light attack anything or get hit, throw out a soul assault and that players is gonna die. Throw out a meteor and that player is forced to stand still and hold block. Beam someone because they can't roll it anymore and if someone else hits them they'll usually die. Throw birds out because it has literally 0 counter, its constant guaranteed damage, no counter. Armor thats dealing damage for players. Entire zergs of tank healers that are near impossible to kill, smart healing, beam, skills like purifying light literally making these 30k hp healers deal like 12k bursts?.

What happened?

.........
The game didn't punish people for blocking attacks like it does now, if your not a full block reduction build they with the blocking changes to every 0.25s then its not worth blocking most attacks because it hits your stamina too hard. ..
....
100 % I agree with you ! well done ! I think the same !

Maryal · August 2017

I remember when I first started playing in Cyro ... such a noob. When face to face with enemy forces, I was lucky to fire off 1 or 2 skills before getting killed (because I sucked).

Back then I kept making small goals, like stay alive for 30 seconds before I died, or get the enemy player's health down below 50% before I died ... etc., The armor I wore back then was nothing but a mish mash of rewards for the worthy ... but hey ... at least some of the pieces were purple!

When I finally got to VR-1, I decided it might be helpful to have a 5-piece set of (matching) armor. But, I was always broke, and I didn't have much AP (what little AP I had was spent on siege, repair kits, soul gems, etc.,). Well, IC had just come out and it had this thing called Telvar stones that you could use to buy the new armor sets with.

Hmmm, as a solo player who sucked at fighting, how could I go about getting Telvar stones? Ahhh Haa! I was good at sneaking, and there were treasure chests! Problem solved (or so I thought). Unbeknownst to me, lurking in the shadows, were ... GANKERS (sigh). Bye-bye Telvar stones (sniff sniff). Did I give up? Did I whine and complain? NO and NO! New plan: sneak--> treasure chest -->-mob suicide, wash, rinse and repeat (back then you only lost a fraction of your Telvar stones if killed by a mob). About 2 months later, I finally had enough Telvar stones to buy my very first 5-piece gear set (VR rank, purple quality

). Oh happy day!

Although it may be difficult for some of you to believe, but when IC was first released there were actually buttloads of people there every day, 24/7 (was so fun back then). Shortly after I got my new armor, I ventured into the districts. The districts turned out to be way better than the sewers.

Why? For some reason the sewers attracted a fair number of 'gankers' ... you know the type ... players that lay-in-wait, well hidden in the shadows ... happy to kill anyone they think is weak and defenseless.

On the other hand, players in the districts didn't hide in no stinking sewer shadows, noooo, they stood in the open ... sure, they were ready to kill you as soon as they saw you, but hey, at least in the districts you had options ... you could:
a.) stand and fight, or
b.) run away like a scared little girl. (Yea, I usually opted for #b.)

Fast forward --> Thankfully, my fighting skills have improved greatly since back then. While I'm a far cry from the top tier players, I certainly can hold my own. Nothing happened overnight, progress was so slow that I hardly noticed it. The first time I realized that I had actually become a 'decent' player was about 6 months ago when I won my first 1 v 3.

I consider myself fortunate because while I was 'learning how to fight,' there were relatively few 'proc' sets (skoria, shield breaker, .... can't think of any others ATM), ganking was mostly confined to the sewers, and the 'unkillable' builds of the day were shield stacking sorcs (no sorc offense intended). Much of what I learned was as a result of being constantly exposed to highly skilled and knowledgeable players. I guess you could say I 'grew up' in Cyro .. I went there for the first time at level 12 and didn't leave until I was VR-3, roughly 10-11 months later.

Not too long ago, I mentioned that I could solo 4 man dungeons ... and, in response, I was accused of using a 'cheese build' (I wasn't). That was when it occurred to me what a disadvantage (skill wise) newer players are at who started this game after 1-Tamriel (when the flood of proc sets was released). Once proc sets became the meta (along with how easy they are to obtain), there has been little to no incentive to learn how to fight without them. It has gotten to the point that many of these newer folks believe a 'good player' is only a 'good player' because of their (cheesy) 'build'. Sad.

Yea, I am being a bit nostalgic. But, still, it is an interesting reflection on how things have changed.

Riptide · August 2017

You've been making these kinds of posts for years now. All someone has to do is look at your post history or have been around to see them.

It gets a lot of agrees and so forth, but the sky is falling tone is funny. Two years ago the sky was falling and the game being ran into the ground to you too.

The biggest problems of the day are always the biggest problems of the day. Thats all. This game is still fun, the problems shift. The sky is still right where it always was.

Pops_ND_Irish · August 2017

ill take all gold and mats from those who want to leave

QuebraRegra · August 2017

if you don't like the current state of the game's combat, take your complaints to WROBEL!

Ah nostalgia for previous iterations of the game... I'd like to roll back to 1.5 or there abouts, I think softcaps made for far better build diversity, where it was no advantage to simply stack a single stat. Every character invested into both skill pools to be effective. More variety.

Oh there were issues to be sure, but it seemed more about playing a character, than playing a gearset.

A design decision for balance should have been struck YEARS ago... to separate PVE/PVP balance changes. Instead we have halfazed, where in a few things (crit dmg, etc.) differ between PVE/PVP currently. Since WROBEL has chosen to go i that direction, it;s time to go all the way and separate balance changes between PVE/PVP.

For switching between PVE/PVP this game needs a proper "loadout" system.

SanTii.92 · August 2017

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Beardimus wrote: »

Don't agree with the sensational title, but many of your points are bang on.

Does feel like ur a stam player with a slight bias so nervous it was a nerf Sorc thread in disguise.

But I agree with most. Personally I think the streamers wreck the game. They male this 'meta' BS amd everyone flocks to it for easy mode.

If everyone theory crafted and built they own way game would be way more interesting.....its bending a knee to.the casuals that's wrecked it..

But back then even magicka characters had counters, dk had wings, mag sorc shields where broken back then and ball of lightning worked on meteors and such, templars could purge everything incoming projectiles such as snipes and meteors and nb's could cloak.

Sounds like well tuned balance Bro.