More Skills = Better.....but we need more slots - or a new philosophy of game balance.

tnanever · May 2018

It's great to see new skills being continuously added. I especially liked the thieve's and dark brotherhood passives (and story, and new lands, etc.).

The problem with adding more active skills (as with Summerset Isle) is that we're very limited on how many skills we can have on our skill bars. There is a de-facto limit to the number of skills in the game, regardless of how many new skills are created, because:

Various popular and traditional builds have well-known best-in-slot skills. There are too many must-have bonuses to allow for real flexibility. The only way around this is to add new skills that are outright superior, which would eliminate lower-tier skills from use and essentially erase them from the game.

It would be great if the game was truly designed to allow players to play the way they want, stylistically. In the old (I mean REALLY old) system, where we had soft caps, creating the character you really wanted, thematically, was much more possible while staying viable. Back then, min-maxing one type of attack or defense would make you the best at it, but only marginally so. The sacrifice of breadth of capability was real. Now, you need to hyper-specialize in being a "hybrid" character just to do something even remotely like that - including getting only certain type of bonuses and using certain full equipment sets. The very few "hybrid" equipment sets were just a band-aid fix to the loss of breadth in builds, ever since it became optimal to focus purely on one stat and attack type.

Maybe additional skill slots would allow more viable variety of builds, because you could make the character you really wanted while having the essential skills on the same bar (like major spell and major weapon crit). Maybe we need a third bar or weapon slot (not counting sorc's pseudo-third bard). Maybe we simply need soft caps again (or some type of diminishing return system on primary stats - just like with champion points). If I had to pick, it would be diminishing returns.

DanteYoda · May 2018

I wish they'd add more skill slots.. honestly i feel starved for skills in this game.. I have so many skills i'd use but i can't so i don't..

ADarklore · May 2018

Funny, I feel I have too many skills and do not have the coordination to constantly rotate between them so I find myself relying on a few specific skills so I don't become frustrated with too many options.

MLGProPlayer · May 2018

We need less mandatory skills.

With a magicka character, I currently need a destruction staff ability (for Ancient Knowledge passive) and Inner Light (for the extra magicka and crit chance) on BOTH bars.

That leaves me with just 6/10 ability slots for everything else. Some classes can use destro ultimate to proc Ancient Knowledge, but not everyone (wardens are forced to double slot bear ult, for example).

I don't mind the limited ability slots. I just wish we'd be able to take full advantage of what we have.

newtinmpls · May 2018

ADarklore wrote: »

Funny, I feel I have too many skills and do not have the coordination to constantly rotate between them so I find myself relying on a few specific skills so I don't become frustrated with too many options.

Yup, me too.

I like variety, and I will never stop missing softcaps and I will never stop hating tying damage to stats.

lygerseye · May 2018

Ever play a TCG, like Magic: The Gathering? (Or maybe The Elder Scrolls: Legends?)

I look at this game and think of it like a TCG, where you’re limited to the number of cards (skills) you can have on the field, or in your hand, or in your deck. They continually add new cards to the game, but there’s still a limit to the number of cards you can use. Based on your preferred play style, you have to build your deck within those limitations and hope you picked the right combination to out-play your opponent.

DanteYoda · May 2018

I have a whole keyboard why can't i actually use it..

Avran_Sylt · May 2018

@lygerseye

I think you and @ZOS_RichLambert would find some common ground on that sentiment.

One that I agree with too. Having too many options at the same time lends to even more unbalanced scenarios and a greater number of permutations that need to be considered when balancing.

Aliyavana · May 2018

Yes but make it pc only, console players would be offended probably

Tasear · May 2018

Would love a fourth bar...but... there is diversity in limitations too.

tnanever · May 2018

lygerseye wrote: »

Ever play a TCG, like Magic: The Gathering? (Or maybe The Elder Scrolls: Legends?)

I look at this game and think of it like a TCG, where you’re limited to the number of cards (skills) you can have on the field, or in your hand, or in your deck. They continually add new cards to the game, but there’s still a limit to the number of cards you can use. Based on your preferred play style, you have to build your deck within those limitations and hope you picked the right combination to out-play your opponent.

That general concept is fine (and expected, for pretty much any type of RPG game), however, 6 is just too few. As another poster said, there are too many mandatory skills, which mean even fewer options for the player. Soft caps made 6 slots much more tolerable.

RobZha · May 2018

This is definitely my main issue with the game. I won't even go into details on how it bugs me in pvp with having to slot things for defence/buffs then having such a limited amount of attack variation, but I think they should add at least two more on each bar. They can of course be whatever they want button/keyboard-wise for most pc users, but for console/gamepad users we could use y+b (same as vamp bites) and x+a.

With two extra slots on each bar we could slot stuff we find essential for defending/buffs and then have more variety for attacking. Because at times it can often seem repetitive the way things are now. That's not to say it puts me off playing, but I don't feel like I'm into the combat/strategy aspect of the game as much as I could be, not when there's so many skills to choose from and only 10 slots.

Seyser_Koze · May 2018

The variety of platforms this game is available on is what dictates how many abilities you'll be able to have slotted.

It unfortunately doesn't matter if you play on PC, you're still weighed down by the limitations of a console controller.

They have to treat all customers the same regardless of what tools they individually have.

"You are only as fast as the slowest man."

I'm just talking out of my ass but this is what makes sense to me. It happened to my favorite gaming franchise too, Diablo.

ResTandRespeC · May 2018

It'd be pretty tight if they could just rework some of the necessary buff skills like mages light, bound aegis, etc. as passives. Either that or give us a "utility slot" for a buff skill that keeps it active.

CaineCarver · May 2018

ResTandRespeC wrote: »

It'd be pretty tight if they could just rework some of the necessary buff skills like mages light, bound aegis, etc. as passives. Either that or give us a "utility slot" for a buff skill that keeps it active.

A slot or two that are not active but just for buffs would be a great idea! And doable on the limited consoles as well!

jcm2606 · May 2018

My interpretation of the game's approach to skills and the action bar is that unlike other MMO's, you're not meant to cram every skill you'll ever need on your bar. You are meant to make decisions on which skill is appropriate for the current situation. And to be quite honest, I actually enjoy that about the game. It makes you prioritise certain setups over others. Do I want to be an off healer, in case I'm running dungeons with friends and one of them is going down constantly? Or do I want some more protection whenever the tank loses agro? Then I have to sacrifice some of my damage.

Some skills and passives go against this philosophy, namely skills like Inner Light and the requirement of slotting a destruction ability to activate 3 of the passives, and I would absolutely love if these weren't required, or would be moved to a new slot that only served to be a passive buff slot, like suggested. But an even bigger addition to the game would be an official loadout selector, where you can bind bar loadouts to hotkeys, to switch bars based on the current situation. PC has this already through addons, and I have different bar and gear loadouts for questing / overland play, single target DPS, and AOE DPS. Unfortunately console doesn't have this, but it would be a great addition.

Jameliel · May 2018

The whole bar swap idea was bad in the first place. Especially when the game often lags for many players.

Mayrael · May 2018

Maybe I'm alone on that but I like things like it is. For PvE you don't need tons of skills to be effective, even now some have problems with rotations and avoiding red circles. In PvP on the other hand it would create chaos. Balancing more skills would be a nightmare. Imagine you can have DD, tank, healer and utility skills at the same time. Currently it's a game of choices and it's good as it is, you can't have all.

SixVoltCar · May 2018

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

We need less mandatory skills.

With a magicka character, I currently need a destruction staff ability (for Ancient Knowledge passive) and Inner Light (for the extra magicka and crit chance) on BOTH bars.

That leaves me with just 6/10 ability slots for everything else. Some classes can use destro ultimate to proc Ancient Knowledge, but not everyone (wardens are forced to double slot bear ult, for example).

I don't mind the limited ability slots. I just wish we'd be able to take full advantage of what we have.

This. There shouldn't be more ability slots.

CaineCarver · May 2018

I seriously doubt ZOS would make this level of change to the UI so we are probably beating a dead horse but...

The casual players are more than happy with what many consider the limited options. More options only provide more stress as to what to slot and when to use it.

The players who like to study builds, gear and rotations find the current limitations a huge factor in lack of diversity in characters and a cause of cookie cutter builds.

Is this type of change needed to fix a major issue? No. Could it be done? Yes of course. Should it be done? Depends on which camp your in. Arguments about game balancing are moot since almost all games for PCs have always had more options and balance was achievable. In addition having more active skills doe not mean you must use more skills. Many games allow almost unlimited skill use and you still end up using a core set but just have the option to toss in something else on the fly without a need to get out of combat and change a skill on your bar.

I have bad arthritis so I use a 12 button programmed controller with the keyboard interface to play. Sort of a mix of both the PC and Console worlds but I would love to see more traditional flexibility in the options of my play and builds.

raj72616a · May 2018

there are only so many buttons on console controllers

so how about creating some new "skills" that are optional replacement for light attack, heavy attack, bash, block, and roll dodge?
that would be 5 more skill slots for us to play with.
for example, frost staff heavy attack taunt should totally be a heavy attack replacement skill that you can put on and put off.
bow and staves could be given an optional ranged bash that consume extra amount of stamina/magicka (currently it looks stupid to bash attack with a bow).
frost staff already has a block that behave differently. and psijic skill line also kind of alters the behavior of block (damage shield pop up on block). it would be interesting if we can get a few more choices.

ArchMikem · May 2018

We could have bigger bars if the xbox elite controller became standard, and Playstation had their version of that. But our limited buttons requires limited gameplay.

Digiman · May 2018

Honestly this games combat system was designed for console so it would be ineffective for standard controllers, and to OP for the game design to have so many skills available and would change the dynamic.

Bigevilpeter · May 2018

One more skill slot on each bar would be nice, but it would be a huge power spike in the game making alot of content easier and making pvp even more annoying, also the gap between those who can pay attention to exact timings and effects and those who don't will be even bigger making huge dps gaps

munster1404 · May 2018

Aren't gamepads responsible for the whole "lack of ability slots" issue?

Uviryth · May 2018

The limit wouldnt be so bad ...........if there wherent that many mandatory skills.

Seriously, when was the last time you saw a competetive staminabuild without
EH/RC/RT/PI Bowbar

Oh that friggin DoTs. I hate DoTs, yet they are the dominant damagefactor in ESO.
Even worse, groundbased DoTS......

srfrogg23 · May 2018

I think the point to limiting the action bars to a relatively small number of skills to put players into a position where they have to make strategic decisions about which skills should go into a build. I think there’s also something to be said about balance in there.

Let’s be honest here, there are aspects of the game where we’re already 2-shotting everything in sight, if we were able to combine more abilities than we already do, we would just end up being obscenely overpowered for the content.

All in all, I agree with the decision to keep the number of active skills limited. It makes building a character a bit more of a puzzle, especially when it comes to figuring out how to make the non-META builds more viable.

munster1404 wrote: »

Aren't gamepads responsible for the whole "lack of ability slots" issue?

Not necessarily, no. There are plenty of games out there without gamepad support that limit active skills for the player. It’s about pushing players to make strategic decisions with which abilities to include in their builds.

Kagukan · May 2018

Just one more slot would be nice. I don't really care for the bar swap thing either. It feels clunky and cumbersome. I wouldn't mind seeing both bars active without having to swap. Or maybe have a buff bar or something with skills that you don't often use but like to have slotted for the buff it gives.

josiahva · May 2018

tnanever wrote: »

It's great to see new skills being continuously added. I especially liked the thieve's and dark brotherhood passives (and story, and new lands, etc.).

The problem with adding more active skills (as with Summerset Isle) is that we're very limited on how many skills we can have on our skill bars. There is a de-facto limit to the number of skills in the game, regardless of how many new skills are created, because:

Various popular and traditional builds have well-known best-in-slot skills. There are too many must-have bonuses to allow for real flexibility. The only way around this is to add new skills that are outright superior, which would eliminate lower-tier skills from use and essentially erase them from the game.

It would be great if the game was truly designed to allow players to play the way they want, stylistically. In the old (I mean REALLY old) system, where we had soft caps, creating the character you really wanted, thematically, was much more possible while staying viable. Back then, min-maxing one type of attack or defense would make you the best at it, but only marginally so. The sacrifice of breadth of capability was real. Now, you need to hyper-specialize in being a "hybrid" character just to do something even remotely like that - including getting only certain type of bonuses and using certain full equipment sets. The very few "hybrid" equipment sets were just a band-aid fix to the loss of breadth in builds, ever since it became optimal to focus purely on one stat and attack type.

Maybe additional skill slots would allow more viable variety of builds, because you could make the character you really wanted while having the essential skills on the same bar (like major spell and major weapon crit). Maybe we need a third bar or weapon slot (not counting sorc's pseudo-third bard). Maybe we simply need soft caps again (or some type of diminishing return system on primary stats - just like with champion points). If I had to pick, it would be diminishing returns.

The whole psychology behind this is wrong. We don't need more skill slots, they are limited by the number of buttons on a controller after all. More skills are what is needed...but ones that are DIFFERENT, not superior. They don't even have to be new skills, a 2nd morphing of existing skills would do the trick as well. The idea here is to make people choose an equal but different option, not to give them a clear choice as to which is superior. If it were me, the first morph of a skill would be a stamina or magicka morph(regardless of whether its a class skill or even a weapon skill...imagine a magicka morph of a 2handed sword which would allow you to use magicka for the abilities and give you magicka effects for that weapon, or a stamina morph of a staff, which would turn that skill line into a martial-arts type line instead) and after that morph, the next morph in each skill would give you two options that were roughly equal. I would also add morphs to the passives...of course an expansion of skills like that would require many more skill points...so each skyshard would need to give you a full point instead of a 3rd.

Kiralyn2000 · May 2018

ADarklore wrote: »

Funny, I feel I have too many skills and do not have the coordination to constantly rotate between them so I find myself relying on a few specific skills so I don't become frustrated with too many options.

Yep. I don't bar swap, really. Keeping track of which bar you're on, etc..... ick.

(even in MMOs where you could have a million skill bars on screen - WoW, STO, etc - I'm a 'clicker'... I can only manage hotkeys for 6-8 skills, the rest I click with my mouse as needed. Needless to say, it means I react slower, and can't generally always to the best thing at the best time. But I'm aware of that limitation and generally avoid any group content, so as not to be a drag on the other players. /shrug)

...actually, thinking about it, I run into the same issues with console action games that have millions of button/action combos. Like all the SSX snowboard tricks, or all the different attack combos in Darksiders or fighting games. I can't remember & do them all, so I tend to find a few that I can do reliably, and stick with them. Played Darksiders II when it was free on PS+ this past spring, there's like a dozen combos for every weapon type (including air combos, gah!), and I only used like 4 of them. That's just not something I've ever been good at.

Ah, well.

Revokus · May 2018

tnanever wrote: »

It's great to see new skills being continuously added. I especially liked the thieve's and dark brotherhood passives (and story, and new lands, etc.).

The problem with adding more active skills (as with Summerset Isle) is that we're very limited on how many skills we can have on our skill bars. There is a de-facto limit to the number of skills in the game, regardless of how many new skills are created, because:

Various popular and traditional builds have well-known best-in-slot skills. There are too many must-have bonuses to allow for real flexibility. The only way around this is to add new skills that are outright superior, which would eliminate lower-tier skills from use and essentially erase them from the game.

It would be great if the game was truly designed to allow players to play the way they want, stylistically. In the old (I mean REALLY old) system, where we had soft caps, creating the character you really wanted, thematically, was much more possible while staying viable. Back then, min-maxing one type of attack or defense would make you the best at it, but only marginally so. The sacrifice of breadth of capability was real. Now, you need to hyper-specialize in being a "hybrid" character just to do something even remotely like that - including getting only certain type of bonuses and using certain full equipment sets. The very few "hybrid" equipment sets were just a band-aid fix to the loss of breadth in builds, ever since it became optimal to focus purely on one stat and attack type.

Maybe additional skill slots would allow more viable variety of builds, because you could make the character you really wanted while having the essential skills on the same bar (like major spell and major weapon crit). Maybe we need a third bar or weapon slot (not counting sorc's pseudo-third bard). Maybe we simply need soft caps again (or some type of diminishing return system on primary stats - just like with champion points). If I had to pick, it would be diminishing returns.

I agree completly that’s why I’m in no way excited about a new skill line unlike another class. Class fantasy is already limited and with this skill line even more so. And already most of my characters won’t make room for those skills because there is better options. There is a reason legion expansion for WoW was very successfull they finally gave class fantasy back that player have always wanted and more with class mount and specific skills animation changed to be more in line with each specialization.