The ceiling and the floor

Thorstienn · April 2018

This is a concept that comes up a lot. Reducing the difference between the top of the top players and the lowest of the low.
A great game always brings these closer. Not so much that a "filthy noob" can beat a "hardcore elitist" but enough that they can play together in the mid level content of a game.

Summerset kills this idea.

This isn't about "weaving/AC is bad"!

This is about the focus on LA in SS. So many change to buff LA (empower, imbue weapons etc) plus the scaling bonus from max stat is completely the wrong direction.

Well known youtubers (feel free to link them as I am new to the forums) have done parses on PTS that show LA weaving becoming upwards of 25% of a parse.

That's ridiculous!

My opinion... LA should be scaled to give an increase of 5% in a perfect parse. Abilities should always be our focus; LA (auto attack in some MMOs) should be that little bit that separates the best of the best, from the best.

Just my opinion, from PTS and watching people that are better (and always will be) at the game than me.

Edit: Well patch 4.0.2 is out:

"Decreased the damage done by all Light Attacks by approximately 20%.
Decreased the damage done by all Heavy Attacks by approximately 13%."

Personally would of loved a bit more of a reduction, but glad to see this change.

Guess someone out there agreed with me.

MasterLenman · April 2018

This raises the floor, as the "Left-Clicks-With-Bow" kind of players will now do a lot more damage.

Juhasow · April 2018

The game has already bringed floor and ceiling close enough to the point there is few hard modes left that average players cant complete with more or less effort.

It is not like You need that top of the top DPS to complete every content in the game. Most of the time half of it is more then enough.

Chilly-McFreeze · April 2018

If you can't click the left mouse button between using your abilities you shouldn't expect to be anywear near a the parses of a competent player.
Right now every content is manageable. After the light attack buff even bad players will be able to pull higher dps as on live. This means they will push through harder content easier than now.

I don't understand why you want to bring the ceiling down while you completely ignore that this change will bring the floor up. Seems like you don't care about "difficulty" in general but about dps parses in comparison to top players.

HuawaSepp · April 2018

As the others stated above this patch will raise the ceiling and the floor. The floor more than the ceiling because LAs have a 0,67 sec cooldown.

The next problem is that all the good dps changes for the floor are always negated by movement.

FakeFox · April 2018

You can currently do 30k+ with just light attacks on the PTS. How is that for raising the floor? Or is spamming one button still too much?

Princess_Ciri · April 2018

clicking is hard guys

Thorstienn · April 2018

Your points are fair. Granted I do not think of the LA Spammers as the floor, that's the basement, and SS is buffing that style of play which is an error.
As we level we clearly unlock new abilities to be used, so a player not using any should be punished not rewarded. Hitting any spammable should significantly deal more damage than LA.
Abilities give damage/utility, HA resources (for some reason), LA are free.
All I'm saying, is that the difference in damage should not be determined by so heavily determined by LA. LA Spammers should be the absolute bottom (by a mile), the "norm" is a nice rotation of abilities (of course using LA and HA for resource management), and then the too players.
Overall, my hope is that content is not scaled to LA Spammers (face roll easy) or perfect weaving/AC. But instead knowing mechanics and correct use of abilities.
I just wanted others opinion, hopefully this has explained my meaning better. However if everyone disagrees thats fine.

VaranisArano · April 2018

The Level Up Advisor has a tip about using a light attack in between every skill for,maximum damage.

So we cant claim they aren't telling new players about it officially (took them long enough!).

Thorstienn · April 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

The Level Up Advisor has a tip about using a light attack in between every skill for,maximum damage.

So we cant claim they aren't telling new players about it officially (took them long enough!).

Agree it took them a while to fully embrace it. Had heard this was in there now, but didn't notice it when I levelled a new character: probably because it's at lvl 41 and I stopped reading them around lvl20. (Not the greatest tutorial on weaving I've ever seen)
And I still think a LA should be used for maximum damage, just not that they should constitute such a high percentage of our damage.

HuawaSepp · April 2018

Thorstienn wrote: »

Your points are fair. Granted I do not think of the LA Spammers as the floor, that's the basement, and SS is buffing that style of play which is an error.
As we level we clearly unlock new abilities to be used, so a player not using any should be punished not rewarded. Hitting any spammable should significantly deal more damage than LA.
Abilities give damage/utility, HA resources (for some reason), LA are free.
All I'm saying, is that the difference in damage should not be determined by so heavily determined by LA. LA Spammers should be the absolute bottom (by a mile), the "norm" is a nice rotation of abilities (of course using LA and HA for resource management), and then the too players.
Overall, my hope is that content is not scaled to LA Spammers (face roll easy) or perfect weaving/AC. But instead knowing mechanics and correct use of abilities.
I just wanted others opinion, hopefully this has explained my meaning better. However if everyone disagrees thats fine.

Wait the basement should be people who use abilities because they usually do less than 50% of the damage that LA spammers do.
So the casuals are the basement imo because they are the most common eso players with the highest population.

An example would be:

https://youtu.be/j1HrHCQ19MY

But buffing skills to be as viable as spamming LAs will break every content.

Or am I misunderstanding you cause you mean
good players and very good players?
Because then I think the best way to do that is bringing medium weaves back.

Thorstienn · April 2018

@HuawaSepp well that is just a sad video to watch. 100% HP execute!
I understand what your saying, but it's one of those round about arguments. Yes the ability spanner is worse because LA spam is stronger, but I'm saying it should be the other way around.
All I'm trying to say, is that the difference between the best and the good players should not be some MASSIVE amount due to the power of LAs and the use of them in a perfect weave rotation; still better/higher, just not as big a gap.

HuawaSepp · April 2018

Thorstienn wrote: »

@HuawaSepp well that is just a sad video to watch. 100% HP execute!
I understand what your saying, but it's one of those round about arguments. Yes the ability spanner is worse because LA spam is stronger, but I'm saying it should be the other way around.
All I'm trying to say, is that the difference between the best and the good players should not be some MASSIVE amount due to the power of LAs and the use of them in a perfect weave rotation; still better/higher, just not as big a gap.

Ah okay.
Yeah what you want is reducing the damage of LAs, DOTs and burst combos.
That should solve the problem.

ZeroXFF · April 2018

I said it before, and I say it again: put light attacks on the same global cooldown as skills. This is really the one change that will end this discussion forever and will also make the combat system make sense to new players.

IAVITNI · April 2018

ZeroXFF wrote: »

I said it before, and I say it again: put light attacks on the same global cooldown as skills. This is really the one change that will end this discussion forever and will also make the combat system make sense to new players.

It would also ruin the combat system by making it incredibly clunky. May as well just play FFS or Fire Emblem if you're going to change combat to be so turn based.

Turelus · April 2018

Juhasow wrote: »

The game has already bringed floor and ceiling close enough to the point there is few hard modes left that average players cant complete with more or less effort.

It is not like You need that top of the top DPS to complete every content in the game. Most of the time half of it is more then enough.

Erm... what? The new hard modes have been some of the hardest they've done. The last three DLC dungeon packs, Asylum and the Summerset trial are not things average players are getting any more.

Elsterchen · April 2018

@Thorstienn That ceiling and floor theme is last years motto, we are done with it.

The new motto is we want all roles to be viable for endame content... and we succeeded as long as all roles play magica.

Get used to it, we had a new motto every year (groupplay, alliances playing together aka levelscaling, endless sustain (or gettin rid of it) etc etc ). Maybe next years motto is more of your liking.

Elephant42 · April 2018

FakeFox wrote: »

You can currently do 30k+ with just light attacks on the PTS. How is that for raising the floor? Or is spamming one button still too much?

You're trying to tell me that it's possible to keep up a long term average LA damage of 20k per hit!!!!!

Do you have any _objective_ evidence to back this claim up? Unless you do I consider this to be pure hyperbole...

Rhyono · April 2018

As a stamDK, if he does have a guide on maintaining 30k dps with pure light attacks, I'd be willing to forget everything I currently know and embrace the left click.

Toc de Malsvi · April 2018

Elephant42 wrote: »

FakeFox wrote: »

You can currently do 30k+ with just light attacks on the PTS. How is that for raising the floor? Or is spamming one button still too much?

You're trying to tell me that it's possible to keep up a long term average LA damage of 20k per hit!!!!!

Do you have any _objective_ evidence to back this claim up? Unless you do I consider this to be pure hyperbole...

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/8ez8oh/summerset_magsorc_30k_rotation/

It's pretty clear the player was using the VMA staff to boost dps, most likely other sources of light attack buffs as well. Probably with Queens Elegance and Undaunted Infiltrator, could easily put retraited Undaunted Infiltrator on Jewelry and Main bar weapon while VMA is on back bar. Then use Molag Kena Monster helm.

This kind of setup would be very hard to maintain if you cast more than a few skills, but you would get much more out of light attack spam. Given virtually everyone is hitting much higher with the changes, 30k does not seem all to high of a mark in Summerset. I'm breaking 41k on my bow builds which is a solid 4k improvement from last PTS and there are others out there with disgustingly high parses.

FlamingBeard · April 2018

Elephant42 wrote: »

FakeFox wrote: »

You can currently do 30k+ with just light attacks on the PTS. How is that for raising the floor? Or is spamming one button still too much?

You're trying to tell me that it's possible to keep up a long term average LA damage of 20k per hit!!!!!

Do you have any _objective_ evidence to back this claim up? Unless you do I consider this to be pure hyperbole...

On PTS, my magicka Nightblade's light attacks are averaging 13.5k hits in a 43k DPS result:

PTS damage results:

The only way they hit for 30k is IF the Mechanical Acuity/Master Architect procs line up at the same time as one another which is obviously quite rare.

On PTS, Light Attacks account for 26.4% of my magicka Nightblade's DPS and on Live server they account for 22.6% of my magicka Nightblade's DPS.

Overall, I feel like the Light Attack upscale is a reasonable buff to any players who have become good at weaving by now.

Live server damage results:

Juhasow · April 2018

Turelus wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

The game has already bringed floor and ceiling close enough to the point there is few hard modes left that average players cant complete with more or less effort.

It is not like You need that top of the top DPS to complete every content in the game. Most of the time half of it is more then enough.

Erm... what? The new hard modes have been some of the hardest they've done. The last three DLC dungeon packs, Asylum and the Summerset trial are not things average players are getting any more.

Erm..what ? It would be nice to not take piece of someones comment out of context and commenting it. You basicly proved my point by the way. First I want to clarify that by "average player" term I mean player that is doing average DPS since this thread is about DPS changes. Like I said there is only few hard modes in the game that avegare players cant complete even if they'll hard try. I would reduce Your list of dungeons because lets be honest even new dungeons are doable on Hard More if average players will hard try it and same goes for all previous DLC dungeons. Except few of them You can have DD's that are doing 20k DPS and You'll be more then fine.

As for trial goes atm only ones that average players cant handle are vMoL , vAS and maybe vHoF. Craglorn trials are doable for them even with hard modes. For vHoF if group will pass 4th boss which is tough but still doable hard mode on last boss is just the same thing as veteran but with boss having more health basicly.

Also I wouldnt agree that new trials hard modes are the hardest ones there was. Cloudrest is still on PTS so we dont know how it'll look at the end and vAS HM difficulty is nothing compared to vMoL hard mode difficulty when it was released. Side note and funny fact is that many average players that completed vMoL lately without HM dont even know what lunar phase means which is very high proff that floor was raised. As for new content goes time that it takes for those things to be completed by general population is shorter with each update since power creep is going up faster then scaling of this content. Even if cloudrest will be different that is still 1 exception confirming the rule.

Also lets not forget that up to 3 average players can join those 3 impossible to do hard modes and be carried by the rest of the team that is above the average and those will still be smooth runs.

So adding things up 32 dungeons hard modes 6 trial hard modes and only 3-5 out of those 38 hard modes are impossible to accomplish for average players.

Gilvoth · April 2018

Thorstienn wrote: »

Just my opinion

not many people agree with your opinion.
a Good Game is where everyone can play with equal damage and defence making it fun for Everyone not just a few people.
eso is making it so we can All Have Funand i strongly support and agree with them and thier work here in eso.

please keep up the good work eso devs.
your doing a Good Job.

Elsterchen · April 2018

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

Thorstienn wrote: »

Just my opinion

not many people agree with your opinion.
a Good Game is where everyone can play with equal damage and defence, but not with the same variability or number in abilities to use. Making it fun for Everyone playing a magica toon not just a few people especially not those few left playing stamina melee.
eso is making it so we can All Have Fun as long as we play ranged and/or magica and i strongly support and agree with them and thier work here in eso.

please keep up the good work eso devs.
your doing a Good Job.

Fixed the obviously forgotten parts for you. You are welcome.

Septimus_Magna · April 2018

Light attack dmg is buffed enough to practically replace a spammable. You can basically cast dots/buffs and spam light attacks until you have to recast the dots/buffs. With decent gear this will result in 25-30k dps which is enough for most vet dungeons and even some vet trails.

If thats not raising the floor I dont know what is.

adriant1978 · April 2018

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

Thorstienn wrote: »

Just my opinion

not many people agree with your opinion.

It can be difficult for people to speak up in threads like this, because it carries the implication that your performance is a lot closer to the floor than the ceiling.

Elsterchen · April 2018

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Light attack dmg is buffed enough to practically replace a spammable. You can basically cast dots/buffs and spam light attacks until you have to recast the dots/buffs. With decent gear this will result in 25-30k dps which is enough for most vet dungeons and even some vet trails.

If thats not raising the floor I dont know what is.

Sure, that is raising the floor, i agree. However the build diversity is still quite one-sided when looking at abilities. Don't you think with basic combat mechanics even out (evenso magica will be prefered with SI already, as they already have the ability to stack their main ressource higher) that abilities and skills should be evened out as well?

Currently only magica chars can make effective use of basic combat changes, their LA/HA can be pushed higher (via main ressource pool) AND they can choose from plenty class abilities how to shape their build. Stamina users don't have either option so they are completely dumped, not raised or lowered at all.

ZeroXFF · April 2018

IAVITNI wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

I said it before, and I say it again: put light attacks on the same global cooldown as skills. This is really the one change that will end this discussion forever and will also make the combat system make sense to new players.

It would also ruin the combat system by making it incredibly clunky. May as well just play FFS or Fire Emblem if you're going to change combat to be so turn based.

No, it wouldn't. It would just be treated like another skill. I don't see anyone claiming that not being able to use a million skills in a second is somehow making combat "clunky". You wouldn't be able to light attack weave, and it's a good thing. Some skills would need rework, but overall this would be the best change for the combat system that there could be.

VaranisArano · April 2018

ZeroXFF wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

I said it before, and I say it again: put light attacks on the same global cooldown as skills. This is really the one change that will end this discussion forever and will also make the combat system make sense to new players.

It would also ruin the combat system by making it incredibly clunky. May as well just play FFS or Fire Emblem if you're going to change combat to be so turn based.

No, it wouldn't. It would just be treated like another skill. I don't see anyone claiming that not being able to use a million skills in a second is somehow making combat "clunky". You wouldn't be able to light attack weave, and it's a good thing. Some skills would need rework, but overall this would be the best change for the combat system that there could be.

Aside from the fact that, you know, ZOS is now teaching new players to light attack weave in the Level Up Advisor.

fuzzbunnies · April 2018

MasterLenman wrote: »

This raises the floor, as the "Left-Clicks-With-Bow" kind of players will now do a lot more damage.

i mean zos must have got sick of the reports and complaints about them and from them respectively.
IE we all hate them and from them why cant i play my own way and do the content

ZeroXFF · April 2018

VaranisArano wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

I said it before, and I say it again: put light attacks on the same global cooldown as skills. This is really the one change that will end this discussion forever and will also make the combat system make sense to new players.

It would also ruin the combat system by making it incredibly clunky. May as well just play FFS or Fire Emblem if you're going to change combat to be so turn based.

No, it wouldn't. It would just be treated like another skill. I don't see anyone claiming that not being able to use a million skills in a second is somehow making combat "clunky". You wouldn't be able to light attack weave, and it's a good thing. Some skills would need rework, but overall this would be the best change for the combat system that there could be.

Aside from the fact that, you know, ZOS is now teaching new players to light attack weave in the Level Up Advisor.

That is the most irrelevant statement in regards to this conversation that there could be. Yes, of course they are teaching new players how to do it, because that's the way the system works now. If it worked the way I'm suggesting, you wouldn't need to teach anyone, because it would be intuitive. Removing a single line from the level-up advisor that nobody except people looking for it ever saw would hardly be a dramatic change.