Heavy attacks: a 100 millisecond breakdown of the breakdown of combat

Flameheart · June 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Elsterchen wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

This mechanic (heavy attack) is used by every player, yet its now 1 month without a single note from you or a DEV on wether this is intended (no scaling of heavy attacks), not intended (it should scale but you cannot figure out how to make it work), unintentional but bugged (you do not understand the problem), intentional "bc of" (unintentional behavior, but you are not interested in fixing).

I feel this issue and wether or not you intend to change something should be communicated with the playerbase.

Responds are welcome.

You would think that they would have something to say about it given that it appears that:

1) Their reduction of heavy attack damage to compensate for resource return effects only partially charged heavies that return no resources.

2) Their reduction of duration for a fully charged heavy attack did not include a reduction in damage effectively buffing fully charged heavy attack damage per second instead of nerfing it as stated.

3) Neither this latest, nor past, reductions in full heavy attack charge time were accompanied by any animation scaling such that a heavy attack now launches itself automatically at 2.2 seconds but gains no additional damage from just over 1.6 seconds onward.

It is, in short, a counter-intuitive mess and as you mentioned, effects everyone due to their complete insistence on fully charged heavies as the only functional resource management strategy. I continue to be deeply unsatisfied with the results that this plot of attack duration has on combat. Changes need to be made. I suggest the plot below in which partially charged heavies return partial resources, damage for a full attack is brought back on the linearly scaling line with other heavy attacks, and, importantly, the animation is rescaled to the proper duration.

In this suggested scenario, both resource return and damage scale linearly with charge time such that resource management could be handled dynamically by varying the length of charge depending on damage needs and resource status. Furthermore, a full heavy that had to be interrupted to block or dodge a mechanic would no longer be a total loss. This scenario also eliminates the brutal punishments for a light that goes a little too long or a full heavy that comes up short. Lastly, it preserves the clear desire of ZOS to lower casts / second and require some player block downtime that were presumably the reason for the changes with an eye to PVP server load and PVP combat goals.

Here is too hoping they address this mess soon. Their PVE raiding community has certainly seen a massive decline due to the unpopularity of the required left mouse button holding.

I damned like that suggestion. It would not just make damage dealing more dynamic again and give you the feeling preMorrwind back, it would be so much better for tanking and healing too. Ever tanked axes and tried to get ressources back by heavy attacks? Ever used a fully charged HA to get ressources back as a healer ?

To be honest, something has to change. I am actually pretty pissed about the combat system in its current form...and I know that I am not the only one. Look at vMA scores and the total number of rankings, look at vet raiding in total.

In addition the "heaving the floor and lowering the ceiling"-doctrine turned out into the opposite. The elite wasn't bothered at all, they maybe had a dps decrease of a few k, the total noobs and blatant game mechanic ignorers are as bad as usual and now even more a major pain for every PUG and the average / casual player who likes to do some vet stuff and vet trials got the stick.

humpalicous · June 2017

Yeah, ZOS really screwed everyone over in this patch. Clunky, slow and not at all as fun as it was previous to this patch. Hope they realize this and apply the appropriate changes...

Izaki · June 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Elsterchen wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

This mechanic (heavy attack) is used by every player, yet its now 1 month without a single note from you or a DEV on wether this is intended (no scaling of heavy attacks), not intended (it should scale but you cannot figure out how to make it work), unintentional but bugged (you do not understand the problem), intentional "bc of" (unintentional behavior, but you are not interested in fixing).

I feel this issue and wether or not you intend to change something should be communicated with the playerbase.

Responds are welcome.

You would think that they would have something to say about it given that it appears that:

1) Their reduction of heavy attack damage to compensate for resource return effects only partially charged heavies that return no resources.

2) Their reduction of duration for a fully charged heavy attack did not include a reduction in damage effectively buffing fully charged heavy attack damage per second instead of nerfing it as stated.

3) Neither this latest, nor past, reductions in full heavy attack charge time were accompanied by any animation scaling such that a heavy attack now launches itself automatically at 2.2 seconds but gains no additional damage from just over 1.6 seconds onward.

Dual Wield, 2H and Shock Staff (and SnB for that matter) didn't get their time-to-charge changed. They only took the damage nerf and the resource buff. So what you're saying only applies to Fire/Ice Staffs and Bow heavy attacks. I'm fairly certain that no one uses those for DPS. Much rather they use them for an opening burst on a mob or in PvP, and in that scenario, they were also nerfed.

I don't see your point.

Izaki · June 2017

ToxicPAWS wrote: »

And here I was wondering that sometimes when i animation cancel the HA with a Skill on my Stamina Night-blade/ Dragon Knight/ Sorcerer , why some times I see no stamina return at all and run dry. On stamina characters, the combat as it is already very slow weaving every skill with HA, now no Resource returns on Partial Heavies is cherry on top. LA damage buff anyway is no use for stamina builds except where it can only be done on the bow bar, on main dual wield or 2 Hander, it's always HA weaving.

What do you mean light attacks are no use for stamina builds aside from Bow attacks? I do 1 Heavy Attack per 11 sec rotation in total with the rest being Light Attacks, I am running bi-stat food, I'm not running any recovery/cost reduction gear or mundus or enchants. Yet I pull 47.4k on my Stamblade.

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/lI Izaki Il/screenshot/6739197

And no, I don't have any resource problems even on the 25mil dummy.

The light attack damage buff has played the biggest part in the DPS increase for NBs this patch. The other important factor being Grim Focus. Plus DW heavy attacks are still the fastest in the game and frankly they are barely noticeable in a raid.

Flameheart · June 2017

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

ToxicPAWS wrote: »

And here I was wondering that sometimes when i animation cancel the HA with a Skill on my Stamina Night-blade/ Dragon Knight/ Sorcerer , why some times I see no stamina return at all and run dry. On stamina characters, the combat as it is already very slow weaving every skill with HA, now no Resource returns on Partial Heavies is cherry on top. LA damage buff anyway is no use for stamina builds except where it can only be done on the bow bar, on main dual wield or 2 Hander, it's always HA weaving.

What do you mean light attacks are no use for stamina builds aside from Bow attacks? I do 1 Heavy Attack per 11 sec rotation in total with the rest being Light Attacks, I am running bi-stat food, I'm not running any recovery/cost reduction gear or mundus or enchants. Yet I pull 47.4k on my Stamblade.

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/lI Izaki Il/screenshot/6739197

And no, I don't have any resource problems even on the 25mil dummy.

The light attack damage buff has played the biggest part in the DPS increase for NBs this patch. The other important factor being Grim Focus. Plus DW heavy attacks are still the fastest in the game and frankly they are barely noticeable in a raid.

Stamblades work fine, exactly as you mentioned it. My concerns are pointed to magicka HA builds, they are boring as hell. Actually his suggestion would not make any difference to stamblade playstyle, but it would help magicka HA builds, especially Sorcs.

...and as long Zos hasn't acknowledged that the Flame Lash proc costing zero/nada magicka is working as intended and not a bug, the magDK's world can change a lot.

Izaki · June 2017

Flameheart wrote: »

IzakiBrotherSs wrote: »

ToxicPAWS wrote: »

And here I was wondering that sometimes when i animation cancel the HA with a Skill on my Stamina Night-blade/ Dragon Knight/ Sorcerer , why some times I see no stamina return at all and run dry. On stamina characters, the combat as it is already very slow weaving every skill with HA, now no Resource returns on Partial Heavies is cherry on top. LA damage buff anyway is no use for stamina builds except where it can only be done on the bow bar, on main dual wield or 2 Hander, it's always HA weaving.

What do you mean light attacks are no use for stamina builds aside from Bow attacks? I do 1 Heavy Attack per 11 sec rotation in total with the rest being Light Attacks, I am running bi-stat food, I'm not running any recovery/cost reduction gear or mundus or enchants. Yet I pull 47.4k on my Stamblade.

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/lI Izaki Il/screenshot/6739197

And no, I don't have any resource problems even on the 25mil dummy.

The light attack damage buff has played the biggest part in the DPS increase for NBs this patch. The other important factor being Grim Focus. Plus DW heavy attacks are still the fastest in the game and frankly they are barely noticeable in a raid.

Stamblades work fine, exactly as you mentioned it. My concerns are pointed to magicka HA builds, they are boring as hell. Actually his suggestion would not make any difference to stamblade playstyle, but it would help magicka HA builds, especially Sorcs.

...and as long Zos hasn't acknowledged that the Flame Lash proc costing zero/nada magicka is working as intended and not a bug, the magDK's world can change a lot.

Don't really see any reason for Flame Lash being a bug... Its always been that way if I recall correctly. Yeah most DKs already use Flame Lash and its still possible to keep close to 90% Off-Balance uptime with a few Sorcs running Blockade of Shock on top of the Healers (at least 4 is enough).

IZZEFlameLash · June 2017

I am confident in that ZOS not fixing this for a long time. If earlier, probably next big "update" that will destroy our performance even more and introduce more glitches and bugs. If later, it'd be a year or more. In short, I am not confident that ZOS will do anything in timely manner. No matter how serious, or how easy to fix things are. At the most, they will put a bandaide on instead of properly treating the problem. Then ends up creating more problems because new things conflicting with those fixes.

And no, please don't give them ideas on "fixing" things like flame lash procs on off balance targets. They will "fix" anything that works into problem states and call it "fixed" until they are tired of forum posts about it. Please, no.

old_mufasa · June 2017

Its not a bad idea to have all attacks return resource based on how long you waited to release the attack gaining full potency on auto cast full heavy attacks... I kind of like that idea.

QuebraRegra · June 2017

technohic wrote: »

I noticed on the bow that there is a little bit of time between where it is fully drawn and when it now auto releases. I just assumed it was accounted for and if I did my old release I wouldn't get resources but maybe it's the old animation. Also thought I might just be out of practice because my light attack weave was off and I missed some abilities following a LA.

It just feels clunky

clunk as f@wk.

illuminousflux · June 2017

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks combat feels more clunky sluggish lately...

Jamascus · June 2017

God damn, they really *** suck at this.

Toc de Malsvi · June 2017

QuebraRegra wrote: »

technohic wrote: »

I noticed on the bow that there is a little bit of time between where it is fully drawn and when it now auto releases. I just assumed it was accounted for and if I did my old release I wouldn't get resources but maybe it's the old animation. Also thought I might just be out of practice because my light attack weave was off and I missed some abilities following a LA.

It just feels clunky

clunk as f@wk.

It speeds up after the first attack if you just hold down the button. It appears that the initial attack on the bow was not reduced in speed but only in damage, the successive heavy attacks are sped up but its worthless because skill casts reset you back to the slow timer.

f047ys3v3n · June 2017

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

It speeds up after the first attack if you just hold down the button. It appears that the initial attack on the bow was not reduced in speed but only in damage, the successive heavy attacks are sped up but its worthless because skill casts reset you back to the slow timer.

Well that is an interesting theory. I wonder if that is so and further, if staves also speed up after the first attack. As you say, it would not be useful in practice. However, it would be even more broken and, since I am now having more fun trolling ZOS on the forums for their gross ineptitude than actually playing their clunky combat, I might enjoy testing it and then beating them over the head with the results. Maybe, if I get a few hours of boardum. Of course, I've been playing Fallout 4 so those hours may just never come.

f047ys3v3n · December 2017

I have updated the charts on this post (the file host used to be photobucket) to a new file host as I believe this nonsensical and broken heavy attack scaling is still one of the biggest problems in ESO. I rank it second behind the continuing popularity and viability of cheat engine.

kaithuzar · December 2017

Dumb question but was a bug report filed on this?
It might've slipped through the cracks as a not-so-important-issue without a big report to help track.

Did you have any trouble completely missing any of your attacks even though you were near or even may have tab targeted the test dummy?

Malitias · December 2017

Wow.. I can confirm that if you charge just "right" you will deal less dmg than a normal light attack.

I really like the suggestion about how heavy attacks could return resources in proportion to how long it was charged.

f047ys3v3n · December 2017

kaithuzar wrote: »

Dumb question but was a bug report filed on this?
It might've slipped through the cracks as a not-so-important-issue without a big report to help track.

Did you have any trouble completely missing any of your attacks even though you were near or even may have tab targeted the test dummy?

All attacks hit and I tracked each using an add on. Each data point is an average (mode in this case) of 10 or so attacks as ping makes them vary slightly. As for reporting it, I did not file a bug report as I don't believe anybody reads them but I'm reasonably sure I have raised enough ruckus that they are well aware of the way theses scale (I'm honestly not sure they were before as I don't think they looked into what they were doing very closely when they wrecked combat with morrowind.) I do think it is a very important issue, second only to cheat engine and perhaps the Cyr long load screen bug. Heavy and light attacks underpin all combat and having them work in this very broken way seriously hampers peoples ability to adjust to changing conditions in combat.

I should note here that in ZOS community talk last week they mentioned something about fixing heavy attacks with the next update. They elaborated only that this did not mean shortening the destro staff one (one of the big reasons for stam dps dominance is a short full heavy though the ~30% cheaper skills with Vicious Ophidian and better group debuffs are also big.) My hope is that the heavy attack scaling and animation is what is being addressed and that it will go something like I have suggested. I would be much happier and would resub and enjoy the combat much more with it allowing more fluid resource management.

I would also be happy to go back to PVE as they apparently plan to break PVP hard with their whole nerf organized grouping and roles garbage. I'm sure the cheat engine guys who like to 1vX are rolling on the floor laughing as the only thing that was really a threat to them was organized groups of skilled players with well defined roles. To make PVP better 2 things must be done. End cheat engine, and fix the load screen bug. Anything else, like say a rational way to do defensive ticks, really should be on the back burner.