Do not nerf shields because some people think it negates the reason healers are around. They do not. In every trial, in almost every dungeon, in pvp, healers are needed. They are the backbone of any good group. I have heard from healers that they actually appreciate that magicka dps use their shields to help ease their workload in trials and stuff. The healers can't always focus on the dps being careless and not using shields. 98% of the time, the tanks are the focus of the healers, as they're taking the most damage.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Below you'll find the topics we discussed with the Class Reps during our meeting yesterday, with the notes compiled by the Reps themselves. In this meeting, we discussed some of the goals we have for Update 20 and beyond, making sure they're hitting on the larger pain points currently in-game. Usual caveat: This is not a list of everything that will be changing, and may not include every piece of feedback that was received.

---

Beforehand, we [Class Reps] sent ZOS a bunch of documents, videos, and charts covering previous pain points, community feedback since our last meeting, observations on the PTS process and launch of update 19, and DPS/resource management comparisons. Tasear also has a list of bugs that is being kept up to date.

ZOS’s high-level goals and things actively being worked on for update 20

• Smaller number of high impact changes
• Harness Magicka and Conjured Ward skills are overshadowing and diminishing the role of healers
• Light and Medium Armor do not compare favorably to Heavy Armor (mostly in PvP: it’s easier to get good damage, sustain, and mitigation from heavy)
• Duel Wield is an end-game PvE requirement because of the Blade Cloak skill
• Want to get class DPS and resource regeneration more in tune with each other

Sorcerers:

• Bound Armor needs to be more worthwhile
• The Overload skill is awkward with the class kit: it’s either a gank gimmick or not used much
• Crystal Fragments needs to be more cost effective

Well ZOS once again is heading in the right direction. I for one am glad we have class representatives at ZOS. Light armor needs to be more competitive!! Overload should preform less clunky (I feel like there is always a delay in the light attack and heavy attack of overload) -- Honestly, I would love for the heavy attack in the instance of Overload to be more powerful. Anyways just my thoughts.

Wow, just wow... Poor mNB's, amirite?

Low burst, low defense, low sustain, low CC options... ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME!?!?!?

The problem here is most mNB's suck and don't know how to play the class effectively.

And Mark is fine like it is. Live by stealth, die by stealth. I contest every one of these metrics in regards to mNB PvP performance. @NightbladeMechanics what are you even doing here, you are not being honest about your own class if you agreed with these ratings. Best toolkit in the game that has smooth animation cancels allowing for supreme fight control. But it looks like mNB is getting set up for a round of buffs. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS, and yes, I do have a mNB, I mained it for ~2 years. I play all classes with a preference for Sorc and Templar. Low defense options for mNB? If you can control the fight to that degree you have the best defense, period. What, is mNB gonna get a better class version of resto ult now???

Cripple, shade, fear, cloak. These all check multiple boxes in your cute little categories. mNB CC options are THE BEST OF ALL CLASSES. And yeah, Magplars totally have better sustain than mNB's???? I'm just gonna stop here, this is an outrage.

The best advice Class Reps could give to ZOS is to stop reinventing the wheel every ******* patch.

**Edit**: Look, I'm not trying to come across as overly combative. But it's very frustrating seeing some of the conclusions the balance team and class reps comes to. I'm not going to tone down what I said with this edit because I legitimately felt that way and still do. Sorcerers got screwed, Templars still need work, and now I see mNB's being rated low in every discernible category?? Yeah that ticked me off. I don't want NB's nerfed or buffed, I want the other classes to have fantastic versatility and effectiveness like NB's do.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

They know players want the “Ice Mage” theme

That's cool and all, but uhm...

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Frost staff is intended to be a tanking/control element as opposed to a DPS element.

Why?

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Wardens:

• Better ability to control opponents in PvP
• High DPS too reliant on Bear
• More fluid rotation rather than buff spamming
• Needs a unique buff to offer groupmates

Although I'm personally rather fond of having the Warden be reliant on the Bear (would make for a niche type of DPS: the Warden and his Bear companion), I think the other 3 points here are the biggest issues with the class currently. Especially the Magicka Warden (Lack of control in PvP)

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

The class minor buffs that they are currently providing (such as minor sorcery and minor savagery) are too small. It’s better just to load up on the “BiS” DPS class

Wardens really lose out here. ZOS knows this and said they will give something else for Wardens to offer.

Good

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• ZOS is firm in their stance that high burst damage skills combined with stuns are undesirable and is looking to get away from that.

I'm still fuming over Deep Fissure losing its stun. OK, I do understand that you're following this rule of seperating high damage and stuns from each other but you could've at least taken a look at the Warden class beforehand and given us other options for a stun.

WreckfulAbandon wrote: »

Wow, just wow... Poor mNB's, amirite?

Low burst, low defense, low sustain, low CC options... ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME!?!?!?

The problem here is most mNB's suck and don't know how to play the class effectively.

And Mark is fine like it is. Live by stealth, die by stealth. I contest every one of these metrics in regards to mNB PvP performance. @NightbladeMechanics what are you even doing here, you are not being honest about your own class if you agreed with these ratings. Best toolkit in the game that has smooth animation cancels allowing for supreme fight control. But it looks like mNB is getting set up for a round of buffs. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS, and yes, I do have a mNB, I mained it for ~2 years. I play all classes with a preference for Sorc and Templar. Low defense options for mNB? If you can control the fight to that degree you have the best defense, period. What, is mNB gonna get a better class version of resto ult now???

Cripple, shade, fear, cloak. These all check multiple boxes in your cute little categories. mNB CC options are THE BEST OF ALL CLASSES. And yeah, Magplars totally have better sustain than mNB's???? I'm just gonna stop here, this is an outrage.

The best advice Class Reps could give to ZOS is to stop reinventing the wheel every ******* patch.

**Edit**: Look, I'm not trying to come across as overly combative. But it's very frustrating seeing some of the conclusions the balance team and class reps comes to. I'm not going to tone down what I said with this edit because I legitimately felt that way and still do. Sorcerers got screwed, Templars still need work, and now I see mNB's being rated low in every discernible category?? Yeah that ticked me off. I don't want NB's nerfed or buffed, I want the other classes to have fantastic versatility and effectiveness like NB's do.

You'd be surprised to know that Magplars have one of if not THE BEST magicka sustain skills in the game. Most numbers on these charts are inflated due to exposure but when you view them as ballparks and not exact numbers most of the ratings are exactly incorrect

GawdSB wrote: »

As expecting, us DKs are bottom tier in everything but tanking. And yet all we ever see are more nerfs.

"Also want to move away from high burst+stun mechanics" -> This placed specifically under DK has me frightened, especially when there is no mention of improving mobility within the class as high timed burst plus stun is literally the only way we're getting anywhere on anybody in PVP.

Hey man! Thanks for your concerns, @GawdSB .

That was simply a misunderstanding.

ZoS doesn't want to have hard hitting skills to have a stun factor added to them - thus the changes to frags, shalks and incap in the past. They don't want to touch or nerf burst potential, they simply want to remove the stun component.

The 'move away from high burst + stun mechanics' is supposed to be a general overview of the game mechanics as a whole, and not necessarily DKs - but during the meeting we just happen to be talking about whip and that mechanic at the same time, and Joy does this amazing job of writing these notes down, listening and talking all at the same time - so it just ended up being together in the notes.

Hopefully I was able to clarify some of it, man!

NyassaV wrote: »

WreckfulAbandon wrote: »

Wow, just wow... Poor mNB's, amirite?

Low burst, low defense, low sustain, low CC options... ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME!?!?!?

The problem here is most mNB's suck and don't know how to play the class effectively.

And Mark is fine like it is. Live by stealth, die by stealth. I contest every one of these metrics in regards to mNB PvP performance. @NightbladeMechanics what are you even doing here, you are not being honest about your own class if you agreed with these ratings. Best toolkit in the game that has smooth animation cancels allowing for supreme fight control. But it looks like mNB is getting set up for a round of buffs. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS, and yes, I do have a mNB, I mained it for ~2 years. I play all classes with a preference for Sorc and Templar. Low defense options for mNB? If you can control the fight to that degree you have the best defense, period. What, is mNB gonna get a better class version of resto ult now???

Cripple, shade, fear, cloak. These all check multiple boxes in your cute little categories. mNB CC options are THE BEST OF ALL CLASSES. And yeah, Magplars totally have better sustain than mNB's???? I'm just gonna stop here, this is an outrage.

The best advice Class Reps could give to ZOS is to stop reinventing the wheel every ******* patch.

**Edit**: Look, I'm not trying to come across as overly combative. But it's very frustrating seeing some of the conclusions the balance team and class reps comes to. I'm not going to tone down what I said with this edit because I legitimately felt that way and still do. Sorcerers got screwed, Templars still need work, and now I see mNB's being rated low in every discernible category?? Yeah that ticked me off. I don't want NB's nerfed or buffed, I want the other classes to have fantastic versatility and effectiveness like NB's do.

You'd be surprised to know that Magplars have one of if not THE BEST magicka sustain skills in the game. Most numbers on these charts are inflated due to exposure but when you view them as ballparks and not exact numbers most of the ratings are exactly incorrect

Oh trust me I understand the Templar toolkit. But a lot of what affects combat are not measurable on paper. mNB can Cloak to relieve pressure and get a regen tick in every now and then. Templars are stuck in the middle of the fight, with high costing skills, especially our burst heal. When Templars get put on the defensive we burn thru magicka quickly. Whereas NB's can duck out of pressure much easier and get off the defensive onto the offensive, alleviating sustain issues. Templars have to constantly react to combat conditions where the NB can often control the flow and pace. There is so much at play here that is not reflected in a 2d bar graph.

I’d like to repeat what others have said: Baby Steps. How much is this program worth if all these proposed changes don’t see the light of the day until – let’s say – Update 37?

Every time Zenimax is speaking to us, I keep hearing “We have plans for the next update, the update after, and the update after that.” By the time we get there, we’ll have another new class, new skill lines, a dozen new sets and the limbo starts all over.

Incremental Updates that happen almost every week need to be used to also address balance issues – way faster than now. No one expects huge changes from week to week, but at least town down issues that have a big and clear impact on the overall game and lead to a cancerous meta.

Masel92 wrote: »

King_Thelon wrote: »

I've lost all faith in this program. It's clear that Zenimax doesn't know how to balance Mag Sorc and the reps have little impact or useful feedback to provide on this issue.

Your PvP mag Sorc "ratings " are just lol. Like please. Mag Sorc has more mobility than Mag Blade? Sure bud. Better defense than Mag Blade, Mag DK, Mag Warden and Mag Plar??? Lol sure bud. Mag Sorc has best sustain of all Mag classes? Wow. Just wow.

Did the Mag Sorc class rep resign? Who in the program actually plays this class in outnumbered PvP? Surely they didn't provide input onto those "ratings"...

The class does not function without an effective stun. Period. Right now, our only viable stun is blockable, dodgeable, reflectable,requires DSA farming, and still is worse than old frags, a skill that was nerfed so "people will try the other morph". How is that acceptable? How does ZOS plan to address that? It's no where in the notes. No where

And these are old issues fellas. You've had months to address it. You're getting nowhere. That's failure. Plain and simple.

I've been as constructive as I can. I'm not bashing or baiting anyone. But you've got to call it like you see it. This is failure personified.

Ratings are based on community feedback as the entries are done by players, so they're not "ours", they're more yours than ours for example. You could've entered your own opinion to counter what you disagree with.

Your opinion apparently does not match the majority of feedback we received, otherwise they'd be on there

What do you mean "yours" vs "ours". You're one of us still, right? Or has the ego of your role confused you? Thanks for your service, but if it comes packaged with that sort of attitude I feel ZoS needs to reconsider their decision. Because now you have "representatives" of the company telling other players that their input isn't valued.

Can we make wrecking blow an instant cast? Pvpers take the other morph for the cc and the instant spammable will be another option to make 2h more competitive in pve and the speed meta in pvp

Great post! So many good points made here.

The only one that sounds slightly concerning is this “Harness Magicka and Conjured Ward skills are overshadowing and diminishing the role of healers.” Any reduction in the effectiveness of damage shields would primarily hurt solo players in PVE and PVP. Healers certainly have a place right now, and yes their emphasis is on buffing and support more than just being heal-bots, but most groups enjoy this. From what I’ve seen, the only healers that feel their role is diminished are the ones that refuse to slot things like combat prayer and elemental drain because “increasing DPS isn’t my job, I’m here to heal”.

I agree with just about every other point in the meeting notes.

Have there been any thoughts of actually separating PvP and PvE?

For example, a simple, temporary fix for mag sorcs in PvE would be to lower the cost of liquid lightning, which would improve their sustain, and in turn make their rotations less clunky. I don't post much on the forums, but I've been playing for 3 years, have held emp in vivec, and have had #1 trials scores on multiple platforms. In most SUCCESSFUL games, there's some sort of variance between PvP and PvE skills. If that's not do-able at this point in the game, perhaps looking into ways to buff characters in PvE without effecting them in PvP and vice versa could be do-able. The game has gotten far more unbalanced as of late, stam isn't relevant in either vAS or VCR, yet 5-6 stam are doable (and almost preferred) in every other raid. I'm honestly not sure where to take this conversation, as there's so many things to change, but it will take multiple inputs rather than just my own... Perhaps you could making purifying light return magicka to improve PvE templar sustain? My main concerns are PvE, where the most imbalance is seen currently (8 NB DPS, 1 healplar, 1 heal sorc, 2 DK tank meta)

@Checkmath
Well since we are not at those meetings we have to rely on the meeting notes to relay on the information. I don't know how much time ZOS gives you to discuss things with them but these notes communicate that the class representatives are not doing a good job. Maybe you guys should release the notes you provided ZOS so players can see the work of the class representatives and what ZOS is doing with the information they are given. Or ZOS should release a comprehensive list with all the feedback they received.

These notes also suggest that minor points were addressed at the meeting while many major points were neglected. If that's not true then ZOS is throwing your Class Reps under the bus.

It would also be nice if the Sorc Representative could be bothered to show up in the sorc feedback and discussion threads in the forums .... the NB Representative is doing his job for him.

All the notes say about streak is that they want to make it work better on uneven terrain. That's by for not the only issue that skill has. Unfortunately, it seems to also be the only (partial) pain point that has been addressed at that meeting.

As for the KPIs, I think they opened Pandora's box. People will take these subjective values as objective facts and call for changes. They might literally interpret these numbers at face value and demand for e.g. damage multipliers that make the numbers between classes equal.

The problem is:
1) the KPIs are not meaningful
2) they are based on subjective feedback rather than objective data
3) they are easy to manipulate

I appreciate the effort, I really do. And I don't blame you class reps for this, since you are all pretty new to all of this. But ZOS should know better. And the way it is done, it is doing more harm than good.

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

Masel92 wrote: »

That's not what I meant. It was thelon who said it was "our" or "my" ratings that were just "lol". I don't have any ego issues, but literally anything we say on here triggers someone. Where did I say that input isn't valued? Thelon said his opinion is worth more than the opinion of newer players, and I just told him to enter his opinion to counter what he disagrees on. I made the charts as additional information our of interest how classes are perceived by the playerbase, not more, not less.

I would value a veteran seasoned players opinion about a class they've been playing since beta. I definitely wouldn't dismiss their thoughts with a wink and I wouldn't allow anyone that worked for me to do that either. But then again, I'm not the one that chose you as a representative. You might be very good at crunching numbers and building charts, but you're delivery and customer service is lacking.

Isn't it understandable that I don't just accept it if I do something in my free time, spend hours developing it and think: "bet this will be interesting for people to see", and get the reactions I've seen here?

If you owned a restaurant and had customers who behave very badly and insult the food without tasting it, you wouldn't expect the chef to just take it would you?

The confusion that occurred here is that people think that the charts were the basis for feedback, which they weren't. I wrote that in capital letters above, and even though I did that, the comments on the same topic still arise.