Joy_Division wrote: »

People who use the Restoring Focus morph seem to like the change because they don't care about the magicka regen.

People who use the Channeled Focus morph don't seem to like the change because they do care about the magicka regen.

Well, looks like half the templars are not going to be happy.

Just because it's a choice between two things doesn't mean it will affect half the people.

Only StamPlars use restoring focus effectively and then only really in PvP.

Every other spec uses channeled focus (or not at all as PvE stamPlar) and I am intentionally ignoring the tanks that think 2k more resistances is better than mRec.

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

NobleX35 wrote: »

I was afraid this was going to happen...the dev teams response to underperforming skills is to buff them in a certain aspect, but then nerf them in another EVEN THOUGH THE SKILL WAS UNDERPERFORMING WHICH MEANS IT ONLY NEEDS THE BUFF...I swear they do this all the time and it is ridiculous...

They only do this to wardens and templars (and DKs sometimes). Sorcs and NBs get straight buffs all the time.

I think Wrobel secretly just wants everyone to delete their tenplars and wardens.

I think they are deathly afraid of tanky/survivable builds. Nightblade and Sorcerer were obviously built with damage in mind when they were created. I think its an issue of the Devs mentality despite the fact that Sorcerer for instance actually can produce higher heals than a Templar, for instance.

Not sure what you are trying to say since healing in this game isn't about how strong the heals are, pretty much the same way how tanking isn't about stacking as many resistances and HP as possible. This change rather helps with survive ability of templars because they can move more freely.

Considering that this is largely a PvP change, the idea for a "house" combat style but added mobility doesn't really require a longer duration. 8 seconds is ample time to dish out damage. After that 8 seconds, most people are going to swap to their back bar to reapply x buff or vigor/cleanse etc.anyways.

Having to rebuff every 8 seconds isn't that big of a deal offensively. Stam sorcs do it every 13 seconds. Templars trade that time for greater potential uptime.

I'd consider keeping Rune as it is on live right now and simply having it passively grant Major defensive buffs while slotted. Casting the rune does the same thing it does now. The only difference is that now you don't have to cast it every time you reposition, only when you choose to gooffensive. A good PvP player is going to spend upwards of half their time on their back bar (depending on situation--1vx,1v1 etc.) anyways. Templar offensive rotation would look a little more like magicka sorcs with this change but the effective magicka sustain should go up considerably

Rune->dmg->dmg->dmg->dmg->defensive rotation->Rune->repeat

This change maintains the "house" playstyle but gives templars a lot of combat mobility. If you're repositioning on your offensive bar you're doing it wrong anyways. Would have to test if the morph buffs should be granted passively as well but imo they should still be restricted to being in the rune.

Xuhora wrote: »

for me this is just another proof that the devs never or rarely see the whole picture of a class.. which is kinda sad.
I mean, the talk was about the "house" identity of the templars, but we were not happy with it, since the benefits were small and the PVE and PVP playstile demmanded mobility. So allright, devs go and say "mates, they need mobility, screw the rune thing, make it stick to player, thats what the reps sad!"

Yeah, the devs say "Alright, they need mobility" TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER

We didn't ask for a significant cost increase and lower skill cap regarding the skill and it's usefulness/duration. For anyone who consciously stayed in the rune for 2-3 seconds, or touched it at some point, this is a hit to their sustain.

NupidStoob wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

People who use the Restoring Focus morph seem to like the change because they don't care about the magicka regen.

People who use the Channeled Focus morph don't seem to like the change because they do care about the magicka regen.

Well, looks like half the templars are not going to be happy.

Just because it's a choice between two things doesn't mean it will affect half the people.

Only StamPlars use restoring focus effectively and then only really in PvP.

Every other spec uses channeled focus (or not at all as PvE stamPlar) and I am intentionally ignoring the tanks that think 2k more resistances is better than mRec.

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

NobleX35 wrote: »

I was afraid this was going to happen...the dev teams response to underperforming skills is to buff them in a certain aspect, but then nerf them in another EVEN THOUGH THE SKILL WAS UNDERPERFORMING WHICH MEANS IT ONLY NEEDS THE BUFF...I swear they do this all the time and it is ridiculous...

They only do this to wardens and templars (and DKs sometimes). Sorcs and NBs get straight buffs all the time.

I think Wrobel secretly just wants everyone to delete their tenplars and wardens.

I think they are deathly afraid of tanky/survivable builds. Nightblade and Sorcerer were obviously built with damage in mind when they were created. I think its an issue of the Devs mentality despite the fact that Sorcerer for instance actually can produce higher heals than a Templar, for instance.

Not sure what you are trying to say since healing in this game isn't about how strong the heals are, pretty much the same way how tanking isn't about stacking as many resistances and HP as possible. This change rather helps with survive ability of templars because they can move more freely.

Right, and the classes which have historically been nerfed the most are the more resilient classes. I'm not sure what is confusing about that. DK was just too OP when the game started and I think that experience scared the hell out of them. I'd go deeper into my point but I'll be frank I don't really want to flesh it out enough to have a debate about it. This is just my overarching view on how they look at the classes. They are scared of making Templar and DK become too strong because of the built in survivability. Warden is falling in line with that as well now. Meanwhile Sorcerer and Nightblade continue to become more and more scary, which was in my view fairly predictable. Sorcerer has never been a poorly performing class either. They are more comfortable making adjustments with the classes that were historically built with damage as the primary focus, that is simply my opinion.

Joy_Division wrote: »

Elsterchen wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

Elsterchen wrote: »

As far as i understand only the duration of the buff seems to be a problem with channeled focus.

Is that correct?

So its not the main aspect of the skill, the now finally moving with target Major Defence buff, but the secondary effect that needs some more tweaking to account for the increased cost?

@Joy_Division, now don't you think someone could persuade someone working on combat design to just do some "tweaking" during the PTS cycle ? After all the channeled focus morph ONLY has the magica sustain linked to it, and not 2 minor buffs like restoring focus or a group utility and a minor buff like wardens and sorcs, at least the only minor buff should reflect new duration of the ability (18s on PTS / 15 s on live) as well as the increased costs.

Someone can try

I'd very much prefer the original way but looks like we're stuck with this method

Really, you are not in for mobile defence ?
Then just ask them to change channeled focus back, but leave the changes to restoring focus and base skill.

Can't be much of a problem to do it.

Old as in 4 years ago original Restoring Focus

^I honestly doubt that:

DoonerSeraph wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

Right, and the classes which have historically been nerfed the most are the more resilient classes. I'm not sure what is confusing about that. DK was just too OP when the game started and I think that experience scared the hell out of them. I'd go deeper into my point but I'll be frank I don't really want to flesh it out enough to have a debate about it. This is just my overarching view on how they look at the classes. They are scared of making Templar and DK become too strong because of the built in survivability. Warden is falling in line with that as well now. Meanwhile Sorcerer and Nightblade continue to become more and more scary, which was in my view fairly predictable. Sorcerer has never been a poorly performing class either. They are more comfortable making adjustments with the classes that were historically built with damage as the primary focus, that is simply my opinion.

You're 100% right. Nightblades and sorcerers are very selfish classes that bring little else to the table whereas templars and dks become exponentially more useful in groups. It's kind of hard to balance individual performance as a result of this, especially when you consider that they want all classes to be able to play all roles. Buffing templar or DK strengths will cause them to monopolize tanking and healing and cause them to over perform (even more than live) in large zergs/co-ordianted ball groups. BoL is literally the reason templars lost major mending.

Given BOL was nerfed, can we have major mending -back- please?

Of course not, but still.

Nah, that would ruin the Argonian warden called "Has-Major-Mending"

"Has-Major-Mending"

"Stole-Major-Mending"

fixed

In ESO Live yesterday, Eric Wrobel said:
Rune Focus will remain on the player, but has been increased to 20 seconds, and the cost changes have been reverted because Magicka Templars were struggling for resources.

@dodgehopper_ESO

It seems they're afraid of tanky builds that put out average damage whilst being able to sustain themselves. This might allow people to run raid content with a lower player count, and that's where it largely comes from. They're mortified by the very idea that 2 skilled people might be able to do a dungeon which is meant to be force-grouped to 6. It's a very typical old guard mentality that I've seen in a lot of MMO development. It's also why I tried hard to not let myself get too invested in ESO, though I did despite myself (bloody good writing and memorable characters).

Essentially, they think an MMO has to be this or that in order to be successful. It's something I talked about in the MMO post-mortem linked in my signature. They're still in a place where they see forced grouping as an important source of income. Which hasn't been true for the last decade or more. This is why MMOs are dying out and being replaced by co-op games. Titles like Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Stardew Valley will be hugely more popular than any MMO due to the aforementioned old guard's outdated way of thinking.

Ultimately, it all comes down to this:

They know they have to keep a certain amount of content easy in order to appeal to the casuals, but they still can't reconcile that with the way they've been educated on how to actually develop MMOs. It would take a great deal of self awareness and introspection to actually overcome these old habits and this prior education to create a contemporary MMO that would be appealing to a larger group of people. There is some push within ZOS (which is why we haven't seen open world content become more hardcore, even though most other content has), but it's not enough.

They don't understand that:

- Most people play a game for escapism and to relax, they don't want to feel overly stressed by having to deal with weird difficulty spikes and watching their character die over and over, that's why stuff like Dark Souls is a niche interest (and even when a game of that genre is developed it has to be the entire focus of the game);
- Most people want to settle into a character and have the security to build upon it and tell memorable stories with that character without being forced to abandon it/remake it every patch or so (the average person doesn't want to have to dread patch notes, and with most modern games they don't feel as though they have to);
- Most people don't respond well to the carrot-on-a-stick approach to design any longer, they're becoming savvy to what's going on there and the pattern is building in their minds that the carrot-on-a-stick only leads to disappointment (people are getting to the point where they feel conned by the very presence of a carrot-on-a-stick approach to rewards);
- Most people don't want to be forced to group, they'd rather just group as the want to with however few or many friends as they can, so content should scale to that rather than making demands of the player which is only alienating and stressful (and serves to lock people out of content);
- Most people want to feel competent without having to rely on a group, the 'holy trinity' has been dead and buried for quite some time now but old guard developers keep falling back on it as though it's some kind of gold standard when really it just limits how wide you can cast your net to appeal to customers (Skyrim doesn't have a holy trinity);
- Most people don't want classes, they just want the freedom to be whatever they want and they'll make their own fun, this is why open world games like Grand Theft Auto V, Skyrim, and Saints Row IV are so popular versus MMOs (you can see that they don't understand this everywhere in ESO, such as how werewolf still isn't a toggle).

The old guard doesn't understand any of this and they can't be educated as to what's popular now. That's why we keep getting MMOs with levels, classes, forced grouping, and worse. The best MMO in donkey's years was The Secret World as -- aside from forced grouping, as nothing's been perfect, yet -- it dropped most of the problematic elements. No classes, no levels, et cetera. It was good times. My partner and I played that game to death. Honestly, the only thing that ESO had over TSW was that one could be a werewolf; I wanted to be a werewolf so badly in TSW (their werewolf models are incredible). With us having played out TSW's content many times over, it was time for a new game so we came to ESO.

ESO in the writing department has been sublime. Everywhere else, it's been a disappointment. I really wish I could get MMO developers to read my post-mortem for them to understand just where they're going wrong. A lot of it is that they shouldn't be making Everquest any more. That doesn't work. No, it doesn't matter how many instances of 'Lite' you affix to it. You could be making Everquest Lite Lite Lite Lite Lite Lite Lite with everything watered down, but it still has all of the underlying problems that people these days despise about MMOs. The way to make a good MMO is to toss out the Everquest mentality and just start over. Look at what made Skyrim's gameplay so popular and do that.

What most people want from ESO is basically co-op Skyrim with better quest design and better writing. ESO has the better writing down pat. The quest design is at least on par, for the most part. The gameplay, however? It's just Everquest Lite Lite Lite Lite Lite, rather than Skyrim multiplayer. That's the problem. And they're terrified to embrace what ESO needs to be to move forward.

That's why they hate sustain. They don't want godly characters like you'd get in Skyrim. The problem is is that the old guard doesn't understand that most people aren't bothered by feeling overpowered. Most would prefer that. They'd rather that over their character being a frail, stress-inducing little baby where they're not sure what they can handle or not. See: Saints Row IV and how the open world was far, far more popular with players than the side missions that took powers away.

Contemporary game development is different. In contemporary game development, godlike sustain is okay! But we're dealing with people who can't stop developing Everquest, people who think if they add one more Lite, it'll be okay.

It's depressing. And now I'm worried I'll get banned with every post I make just not for singing praises.

I mean, I've had plenty good to say about ESO's writers. I'd be happy to try to fund a damned good night out for all of ESO's writers as they've never dropped the ball. It's just a shame that because ESO is trying so hard to be Everquest Lite Lite Lite Lite Lite, the rest of the game doesn't live up to it. And it's frustrating, I mean, it's what MMOs have been doing since Everquest. WoW was Everquest Lite and every MMO since has just been adding more Lites without divorcing themselves from the Everquest design bible as much as they desperately need to.