Isn't it about time you stopped BSing us?

Mureel · July 2018

Really pve and PVP skills should be separated utterly. However, If wishes were fishes...

Tandor · July 2018

Stovahkiin wrote: »

I lol’d hard when OP claimed that Zeni is only catering to pvp players.

Reality check: Cyrodiil performance has been going downhill for years, and Zeni hasn’t even gone as far as lifting a finger to fix it. You only need one hand to count the number of substantial updates that pvp players have gotten since launch.
1. Imp City
2. Battlegrounds
3. Towns (barely counts, tbh)
4. Removal of doors from towers?...
5. Uhh

Dueling doesn’t count since it’s something that should have been included at launch, and is a feature found in basically every other mmo.

The fact remains that most of the skill balancing changes that have been introduced since launch were as a result of PvP complaints, and yet they impacted severely on PvE while of course they were often rejected by those who had asked for them, as we see now with the number of PvPers who've asked for action on sloads but don't like it when they get it.

Matthew_Galvanus · July 2018

Tandor wrote: »

The fact remains that most of the skill balancing changes that have been introduced since launch were as a result of PvP complaints, and yet they impacted severely on PvE while of course they were often rejected by those who had asked for them, as we see now with the number of PvPers who've asked for action on sloads but don't like it when they get it.

as I have said, the reason why they are unhappy still is because the minor damage nerf does not fix the underlying problem of Sload's in PvP, which is the fact it can be stacked on one target by multiple players. that kind of damage (especially oblivion) is very much an issue for the balance of PvP. it is a change that needs to be made to the way Sload's works while in PvP

Irylia · July 2018

Wait until next patch for another sload tweak and perhaps....
Dare I say.. another frag nerf to soothe your cry of disdain over rc.

Absolutely ludicrous.
Should never have messed with frag and instead put the stun through block back on streak if they wanted that type of stun. At least you’d have to be within range and also aim it.

Took them a year to fix the first proc meta (viper/velidreth/tremor/red mountain/Selene)

It’s been a year of rc changes just walking in a circle
Patch 1. Frag nerf + rc unblockable stun
Patch 2. Rc dmg buff (despite complaints)
Patch 3. Rc 20% dmg nerf (despite the stun being talked about)
Patch 4.??? Another frag nerf. Don’t worry, zos is listening.

“Be patient, they are listening/have a small team/trying their best”. That’s a load of crap.

Zos:
https://goo.gl/images/HpB6KU

Sparr0w · July 2018

Matthew_Galvanus wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

The fact remains that most of the skill balancing changes that have been introduced since launch were as a result of PvP complaints, and yet they impacted severely on PvE while of course they were often rejected by those who had asked for them, as we see now with the number of PvPers who've asked for action on sloads but don't like it when they get it.

as I have said, the reason why they are unhappy still is because the minor damage nerf does not fix the underlying problem of Sload's in PvP, which is the fact it can be stacked on one target by multiple players. that kind of damage (especially oblivion) is very much an issue for the balance of PvP. it is a change that needs to be made to the way Sload's works while in PvP

Yep but if they removed stacking then only one person in a group (PvE) could run the set. Granted it's far from BiS but being crafted there are people that would run it.

Second part is a big yes from me. Changing how things worked in PvE and then separately in PvP would be the solution, however not sure that will happen anytime soon.

Tandor · July 2018

Matthew_Galvanus wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

The fact remains that most of the skill balancing changes that have been introduced since launch were as a result of PvP complaints, and yet they impacted severely on PvE while of course they were often rejected by those who had asked for them, as we see now with the number of PvPers who've asked for action on sloads but don't like it when they get it.

as I have said, the reason why they are unhappy still is because the minor damage nerf does not fix the underlying problem of Sload's in PvP, which is the fact it can be stacked on one target by multiple players. that kind of damage (especially oblivion) is very much an issue for the balance of PvP. it is a change that needs to be made to the way Sload's works while in PvP

So people need to post their constructive feedback in an angst-free way on the PTS forum. At least there it will be seen by developers rather than just moderators.

DenMoria · July 2018

Is it really "BSing" when no promises have ever been made? Many things have actually been met with silence.

FPS, PvP and group areas have always been troublesome in this game, but, then again, the often are in many MMOs.

Obviously, as all of this has been going on for years, there is no easy fix for it.

I agree that there should have been separate PvE and PvP servers from the onset, but I doubt if Zeni even realized these things would come up. This is their first MMO, after all. They are doing their best (which is obviously not quite good enough).

I am sure it comes down to money. You don't make money from this sort of thing when it costs so much to actually do the fix in the first place. You don't make money off of PvP since, in general, according to statistics, PvP players tend to be shorter term and tend to move from game to game (I know, I know, we have a lot of PvPers here that have been here a long time - why, I don't know. Y'all must have the patience of Saints).

Regardless - Zeni will do what Zeni does and no amount of tirades or complaining will make them change things. There is no BSing involved here. No company would open themselves up to that kind of liability.

Solariken · July 2018

Sorry OP I don't really agree with your points, except that I also expected more fruit from the class rep meeting. There are barely any meaningful changes to speak of.

Sload's should stack though just like any DoT, saying it shouldn't is silly IMO.

IMO the only way to deal with Rune Cage is to make the offensive morph have some counterplay - probably an unblockable projectile that is dodgeable. Then sorcs will have Streak to deal with rollers and and Cage to deal with blockers.

W0lf_z13 · July 2018

Sylosi wrote: »

W0lf_z13 wrote: »

i think OP, when claiming Zeni is "catering to the PvPers" is basically looking at it skill wise... with all the nerfs and such .... which in a sense i understand. However... when it comes to PvE... NO-ONE is going to be complaining about killing an NPC too fast, i mean... that IS the whole point in DPS... killing things as fast as possible.... It isn't until you are actually playing against another player that uses X skill until you realize ... wow that skill possibly hits harder than it should....

BUT... that's about where the line is drawn in terms of PvPers being "catered to" Cyrodiil has been a mess for over a year now... and its just been getting worse and worse with each major update

Except, some of the actual good PvE players do complain, for example back before Morrowind there were people in trial guilds (good ones) who were pointing out the powercreep had reached such a level that mechanics in the supposed hardest PvE content in the game were being trivialised or even bypassed (let alone the joke that most dungeons had become), this was one of the reasons that sustain was nerfed back then.

Yet you still had clueless PvE players complaining that the sustain nerf was down to PvP...

But yes as a broader point PvE players don't complain about something doing more DPS however broken it is, which is why most of them should be ignored when it comes to balance because they have zero interest in the gameplay as the Skinner Box zombies most are that just want their little shiny things as fast as possible, they are the cancer on this genre and why it is in the state it is.

VERY true, i DO remember the bolded part happening, the majority of players though i think don't complain about killing things too fast, it was mainly the "Elite/Hardcore" end gamers that were

Rohamad_Ali · July 2018

All the class representatives program gave us was another group to ignore our rants

Rohamad_Ali · July 2018

BTW Who is the Lag Representative ? You add the amount of Lag to these two issues and they are twice as bad . No way to escape or counter play these skills in this laggy game .

DenMoria · July 2018

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

All the class representatives program gave us was another group to ignore our rants

Hasn't slowed down the ranting though. A shame really.

Rohamad_Ali · July 2018

DenMoria wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

All the class representatives program gave us was another group to ignore our rants

Hasn't slowed down the ranting though. A shame really.

When people stop ranting that's a bad sign my friend . That indicates a decline in interest usually . A healthy amount of bickering is expected in a game people love to play .

Merlin13KAGL · July 2018

You realize there are two possible answers to your thread title?

Yes
No

Either of which is equally likely to be more BS'ing...

DenMoria · July 2018

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

DenMoria wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

All the class representatives program gave us was another group to ignore our rants

Hasn't slowed down the ranting though. A shame really.

When people stop ranting that's a bad sign my friend . That indicates a decline in interest usually . A healthy amount of bickering is expected in a game people love to play .

I don't rant. I don't complain. I don't whine. I just let 'em tie me up and abuse me and enjoy the experience.

Matthew_Galvanus · July 2018

Solariken wrote: »

Sorry OP I don't really agree with your points, except that I also expected more fruit from the class rep meeting. There are barely any meaningful changes to speak of.

Sload's should stack though just like any DoT, saying it shouldn't is silly IMO.

IMO the only way to deal with Rune Cage is to make the offensive morph have some counterplay - probably an unblockable projectile that is dodgeable. Then sorcs will have Streak to deal with rollers and and Cage to deal with blockers.

if an item set (like sload's) is so effective in Player Vs Player than it becomes almost a necessity in certain situations, that is not balanced, that is a huge problem. Add to this that i have stated more than once that not letting it stack should be something exclusive to PvP only, you'd still be able to have multiple players running it in PvE.

Checkmath · July 2018

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

All the class representatives program gave us was another group to ignore our rants

Hmm this seems so far away from the actual truth. The class reps worked hours per day collecting your „rants“. The time since program start is short, the same goes for the time ZoS had to make some changes. Thats why we had to start with the biggest class pain points and why we saw only a few changes last monday. The reps were told to present the biggest pain points and most people agreed on what we presented to the devs. But Zos didnt have the time till now to change everything and cant change everything thoughout the next weeks of pts. This program will need more time and a supportive community to florish.

Violynne · July 2018

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

This places ZOS in an awkward situation where they must consider greater reworks to the set.

No, it doesn't, and frankly, I'm getting wary of people defending the levels of foolishness coming out of ZoS lately. Just how many more years are we going to have to wait for them to "figure it out"?

The issue of Sloads was reported during the last PTS run, and ZoS released it anyway. This set should have never been released. Stop and think how this looks "ZoS can't fix their own game to prevent stacking from a set which procs the stacking". Genius!

ZoS cannot test their changes in house. They simply don't have the setup to do so. So, they rely on the players, and only a fraction of those for PTS (and we are long overdue for a console PTS). From this, they take only a handful of feedback from players and ignore the rest.

This entire setup is frustrating beyond words and shows no one at ZoS has a clue what they're doing.

To get a team together to point out the flaws is proof of this. Helpful? Time will tell, but I'm not expecting any PvE fixes. The latest notes shredded the NB class, because of the PvP "issues" (read: sorcs who want to cast immobilizing spells from 50 miles away and not get ganked while doing so).

Why allow only a few of the top 1% continue to make decisions for those who should know what they're doing after 4 years? Why not the other players, who aren't in it for the top 1%?

Anyone from ZoS, feel free to chime in and defend this level of frustration plaguing the game for 4 years.

It's the same song and dance again:
Release "change" notes.
Run changes on PTS
Ignore 90% of feedback and roll out changes anyway
Spend weeks "fixing" bugs
Repeat

At some point, this frustration gets to people (and it's getting to me now as well), and they leave the game. The guild I'm in has half of its members inactive for 3+ months. They're not coming back.

@ZOS_MattFiror stated during E3 there were over 11 million registered users.

How many of these registered users are still playing the game?

Or are we expecting this in our future:

This game MUST separate PvE and PvP if it's going to improve, and maybe, just maybe, bring players back who left because of this unnecessary frustration ZoS puts on its players.

Rianai · July 2018

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

As for those two changes, consider the situation. Sload's and Rune Cage sit atop complex underlying issues, and only a month and a half has passed since our first class rep meeting. That is very little time. I suspect that ZOS intends to further rework both, but has not yet decided on the best means of doing so. Therefore, they gave each a love tap to indicate that they are working on both and to relieve some pressure from us in the meantime and put off further reworks for later patches.

Sloads and current Rune Cage were deemed op by many experienced players since they got introduced on the last PTS. Which was almost 4 months ago. That should be more than enough time for ZOS to think and do something about those issues. Especially in case of Sloads it can't be hard to just reduce the numbers to bring it more in line with the dmg of other DoT proc sets.

Swimguy · July 2018

honestly just let ZOS kill there own game. its sad to see and it sucks because it WAS the best game of it genre now its just broken and the devs dont seem to care at all.

Matthew_Galvanus · July 2018

Swimguy wrote: »

honestly just let ZOS kill there own game. its sad to see and it sucks because it WAS the best game of it genre now its just broken and the devs dont seem to care at all.

how about we don't? if you love something you have to fight for it, not let it wither and die

itscompton · July 2018

Waffennacht wrote: »

Lol, ok make runecage's duration 2 sec, I'm all for it

(Spoiler: it won't change a thing)

Total BS, if Rune cage only last 2 seconds the sorcerer using it has to actually have skill to line their burst up with that window. The five-seconds allows much lesser skilled players to get kills they would never get if the player they were fighting wasn't helpless for such a ridiculously long amount of time.

Rohamad_Ali · July 2018

Checkmath wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

All the class representatives program gave us was another group to ignore our rants

Hmm this seems so far away from the actual truth. The class reps worked hours per day collecting your „rants“. The time since program start is short, the same goes for the time ZoS had to make some changes. Thats why we had to start with the biggest class pain points and why we saw only a few changes last monday. The reps were told to present the biggest pain points and most people agreed on what we presented to the devs. But Zos didnt have the time till now to change everything and cant change everything thoughout the next weeks of pts. This program will need more time and a supportive community to florish.

If pulling the stun from NB "Incap" ultimate ability and lowering the stun from Fear , even after it was nerfed last patch , is any clue to what this program can be expected to achieve ... I'm not interested . This system created forever ago by Nick Konkle was founded in class identity with skills unique to each . Now we see cries for nerfs and homogeneous suggestions that everyone should have some form of equivalency . The gutting of every class since Wrobel's indoctrination has left Us with precariously lopsided builds patch after patch . An instead of pointing out to him what was lost in these decisions the representatives only chime in to support what new tweaks will fully compromise a class to be balanced with another when rock paper shotgun was a part of The Konk's initial design and intended to keep classes different from others .

I believe the only smart thing ZoS did was hire @Gilliamtherogue as a dev . He at least understood this system the way it was originally intended and was brave enough to speak out against those nightblade changes and the lack of support given to DK's and Templars . So we ended up with another Sorc heavy patch and further gutting of NB because of over looked faults in their system even though warned . The grim focus for dummies change was going to put dps over the top . Nerfing Magblade sent most to stamina and on a revisioned light attack meta with broken break free mechanisms left unfixed brought everyone to scream for even more nerfs instead I'm f fixing things . It just gets old assuming a class rep will make anything better . To me it's just a PR play an they are running out of rabbits to pull from their hats at ZoS . They need to fix the bugs and treat the classes with respect . No more reinventing the wheel so to speak .

Vahrokh · July 2018

@Rohamad_Ali

True Gospel!

ESO 2014 class concept >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ESO 2018.

When I returned back to the game I could not believe how bland and pointless the class system had become.

And did all of this "common lowest denominator" streamlining made the game better or more balanced?

N-O

Yolokin_Swagonborn · July 2018

We need to continue to place high visibility and high pressure on the class rep program. No it hasn't borne much fruit yet, and yes, we have been badly burned in the past by previous ineffective community outreach programs, but lets keep the pitchforks stowed for now. And you are hearing this from me of all people. Every forum star I have represents a warehouse full of pitchforks. I will pass them out if necessary but lets look at the successes of the program first.

What has the Class Rep program accomplished so far?
Although the program had its flaws, I feel like at least 75% of my concerns were directly addressed to ZOS through the program. That's pretty damn good considering the signal to noise ratio of the discords. Though I feel that some of the stamina variants of a few classes (namely stamplar and stamDK) were underrepresented, all in all ZOS got to hear directly what we wanted and we have a record of them hearing it.

Also I don't really agree with OP's two examples being that relevant to the Class Rep program. The program was intended to identify class pain points. I.E Things that are annoying when playing a given class. Not things that are annoying about other classes that kill you (i.e. class nerf points). Sloads isn't a class skill and rune prison/incap aren't class pain points for their respective classes. As others have said, they are symptoms of imbalance, not the cause. Although balance is important, I felt the program was more about improving the experience of playing each individual class rather than nerfing overperforming skills per se. When a class has broken, nerfed, or ineffective skills, it pressures them to use more effective ones. Then those skills that work are overused in PvP and generate complaints. For example, How often did sorcs use run prison back when frags could stun? If Crystal Frags wasn't brutally nerfed, sorcs wouldn't rely so much on rune prison, then it would be reserved for countering block and dodge builds instead of sorcs needing to spam it to get kills. But when your class toolbox gets nerfed to hell, the one thing you have that works will get overused.

So what we really should be doing is measuring the Class Rep program against how well they improve how the individual classes play.

So what do we do from here?
What we need to do now is an effectivity chart. We need to track the suggestions delivered to ZOS vs the current patch notes.

Did we get even 10% of what we asked for? How many changes (i.e. templar channeled focus) made it worse? If the game is even 10% better, then that is progress. Slow but now we can ask for the next 10%.

Lets keep the pressure up on this instead of calling it a failure yet.

Aesthier · July 2018

Violynne wrote: »

@ZOS_MattFiror stated during E3 there were over 11 million registered users.

How many of these registered users are still playing the game?

And how many of them are just Bot accounts?

DenMoria · July 2018

Aesthier wrote: »

Violynne wrote: »

@ZOS_MattFiror stated during E3 there were over 11 million registered users.

How many of these registered users are still playing the game?

And how many of them are just Bot accounts?

According to a thread last week, there are currently 2.3 million active users. Given how hoppin' Vulkel Guard is on a Saturday morning, I'd guess that about a million of 'em were there!

AuldWolf · July 2018

Matthew_Galvanus wrote: »

PvE and PvP should have been entirely separate from one another from the very start.

Sing it.

Guild Wars 2 got this right. It's honestly sad.

And let's not forget how they ignored werewolf fans, too! They supposedly had a werewolf class rep, but what happened? Werewolf fans got nothing they actually wanted, and a lot of things they didn't want and wouldn't have asked for.

I'm also tired of the patch notes doublespeak with trying to sell nerfs as buffs. It tells me that they know they're being incompetent, that they know PvE players want fun over balancing, but they can't stop themselves. It's like some sort of horrific addiction that'll end with their game on life support.

It's... I don't know. It's fascinating, I guess? Sad. It makes me sad. I have a lot of emotions. Furious, too, maybe. Helpless. I see this pattern repeat in every contemporary MMO I've loved.

I didn't think I'd see it in ESO.

But here we are.

I've been seeing it for a while but I've been trying to hold onto a glimmer of faith. They really faked me out with the class representatives. I thought that meant it was all going to be okay. I thought that werewolves would finally get what they deserved. I thought finally they'd stop being out of touch and listen.

Nope. Just another game on its way to being on life support.

You do you, ZOS. I can't watch a trainwreck.

Edit: So...

Things ZOS would do if they were smart:

- Make resource nodes/chests/et cetera player-instanced;
- Have trials scale to the number of people playing them (dynamically, in case anyone joins/leaves);
- Add difficulty settings to trials (including a casual difficulty);
- Add rewards to all trial difficulties, not just hard;
- Actually listen to the class reps, swap them out for new ones if you think they aren't listening;
- Separate PvP from PvE balancing;
- Focus on FUN for PvE over balancing;
- Make werewolf a toggle;
- Add a cosmetics system for werewolf players, with new werewolf forms (like the behemoth, and others) on the crown store.

I could go on...

There's so much this game could do to become the most popular online RPG.

Not like that'll ever happen, but I can dream.

DanteYoda · July 2018

That Wobble guy doing the balance stuff needs to go.. hes a detriment to Zos and a insult to its customer base..

Matthew_Galvanus · July 2018

Bump