Gameplay Slowing to a Traditional MMO

Kova · October 2018

This isn't fun.

Controls aren't responsive anymore, you slide off of absolutely everything as if it's coated in oil, you get stuck in several different animations if you attempt to animation cancel sometimes, movement speed has been nerfed to a shell of its former self, global cooldowns are now running combat, half of our game's history was plagued by armor sets doing passive damage that constituted most of a player's burst, and cast/travel times are being added every. single. patch...

Remember when you could do this on sorc?

Dodge roll in the middle of a bolt escape to maneuver around turns and obstacles.

The game became slow and clunky to play at some point and never recovered. Here are some changes we've kept track of:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/258827/eta-on-broken-movement-speed-has-zos-even-acknowledged-it/p1

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/322642/another-speed-nerf

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/289376/movement-speed-fix

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/387848/combat-animations-prioritization-issue-not-working-since-dark-brotherhood

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/269046/light-attacking-is-broken-and-animation-priority

Some of those discussions point out that the movement speed nerf wasn't intended but as of this infamous patch it became a feature: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4099244/#Comment_4099244

I guess actually fixing the issue was harder than making it part of the game.

It used to be that players and monsters were obstacles, not patches. The game just doesn't feel unique anymore, and it certainly doesn't feel as fun as it used to. It's starting to feel dangerously close to a traditional, tab-target based mmo.

Pops_ND_Irish · October 2018

Seems fine to me

Facefister · October 2018

Blame PvP.

Kova · October 2018

MoTeets wrote: »

Seems fine to me

Not surprising. Your history shows a good amount of acceptance for the game in whatever form it takes.

Edited for me typing something dumb and snobbish.

Ohtimbar · October 2018

Someone on the design team seems to have a fetish for slowing the game down. Unfortunate, and it dampens my enthusiasm.

Facefister · October 2018

Ohtimbar wrote: »

Someone on the design team seems to have a fetish for slowing the game down. Unfortunate, and it dampens my enthusiasm.

Again, blame PvP. PvPers even want to roll dodge getting nerfed, not to mention they demand a nerf for literally everything else. They call PvP "complex" yet they fail to play it, thus the nerf outrages.

Kova · October 2018

Facefister wrote: »

Ohtimbar wrote: »

Someone on the design team seems to have a fetish for slowing the game down. Unfortunate, and it dampens my enthusiasm.

Again, blame PvP. PvPers even want to roll dodge getting nerfed, not to mention they demand a nerf for literally everything else. They call PvP "complex" yet they fail to play it, thus the nerf outrages.

Isn't that the truth? I still see posts saying we should be campaign locked so people can't "spy" on the enemy. The mental hurdles these players jump through to justify a loss is amazing.

Jeremy · October 2018

Kova wrote: »

This isn't fun.

Controls aren't responsive anymore, you slide off of absolutely everything as if it's coated in oil, you get stuck in several different animations if you attempt to animation cancel sometimes, movement speed has been nerfed to a shell of its former self, global cooldowns are now running combat, half of our game's history was plagued by armor sets doing passive damage that constituted most of a player's burst, and cast/travel times are being added every. single. patch...

Remember when you could do this on sorc?

Dodge roll in the middle of a bolt escape to maneuver around turns and obstacles.

The game became slow and clunky to play at some point and never recovered. Here are some changes we've kept track of:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/258827/eta-on-broken-movement-speed-has-zos-even-acknowledged-it/p1

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/322642/another-speed-nerf

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/289376/movement-speed-fix

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/387848/combat-animations-prioritization-issue-not-working-since-dark-brotherhood

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/269046/light-attacking-is-broken-and-animation-priority

Some of those discussions point out that the movement speed nerf wasn't intended but as of this infamous patch it became a feature: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/4099244/#Comment_4099244

I guess actually fixing the issue was harder than making it part of the game.

It used to be that players and monsters were obstacles, not patches. The game just doesn't feel unique anymore, and it certainly doesn't feel as fun as it used to. It's starting to feel dangerously close to a traditional, tab-target based mmo.

This game has never functioned well as a speed-based action game. It was not intended that way - the game's core design doesn't accommodate it - and this is by name a MMORPG - which means it needs to appeal to actual RPG players. Not to mention the server simply can't keep up with super fast-paced combat (and it never could).

So I actually support slowing the combat down. There needs to be much less focus on twitch game play and a lot more on the strategic elements of role-based combat that make RPGs appealing in the first place. There are plenty of action games out there for players who want that kind of gameplay (and who do it with far superior results). But I'll agree with you the server lag as it relates to responsive controls needs to be fixed. But your post seems to assume this is a new problem when it isn't. This has been a problem since the game's launch. The severity of it comes and goes but its never been wholly fixed.

Mr_Walker · October 2018

Kova wrote: »

you get stuck in several different animations if you attempt to animation cancel sometimes,

That's because, despite assertions by zos, it's actually a bug, not a feature, and expecting it to work reliably is unrealistic.

Kova · October 2018

Mr_Walker wrote: »

Kova wrote: »

you get stuck in several different animations if you attempt to animation cancel sometimes,

That's because, despite assertions by zos, it's actually a bug, not a feature, and expecting it to work reliably is unrealistic.

Seriously though. I love animation cancelling, and I like pushing technical limitations, but this just isn't working anymore.

Waseem · October 2018

That's right for some reason they thought its nice to sneak a global movement speed reduction and since the community accepts, defends and swallows anything there wasn't a much of objection to result in reverting the named change

Walking in general (without sprinting) is extremely mind numbing right now, the characters are so slow, open world questing is immerse breaking due to the slowness of moving from an objective to another in this huge world called "Tamriel"

Also in Cyrodiil, players rather not play that travelling from keeps to another unless there is an outpost between them,
Example: from glademist to aleswell,, faregyl to alessia or arrius to chalman, if the latter keep is captured by opposing alliance, players simply stay in the keep chatting to some friends or watching some stuff on other tab than actually travelling to start a fight

The global movement speed reduction affecting everything with no exception
regular character movement speed, which also affected spriniting
mounted movement speed has also been reduced, 60 in movement speed for a mount right now is like 45 before the reduction, which also include mount sprinting.

This slowness in such a huge open world environment is mind numbing! People quit because of that! it simply feels uncomfortable to be so slow in such big environment

Every major announcement they talk about selling 10 or 20 million copies of ESO as a success, but players log in for couple hours and feel like they are under a permanent hindrance potion and drop the game without looking back, that's a failure to not capture a player who stays for long, its a fail for zenimax to sell a game with hundreds of hours content but players drop it playing it with less than 10 hours played

Movement speed has to be balanced with the size of the surrounding environment, that's a known fact in video games industry

* this is not a biased opinion- for some reason many players talking in forums have biased opinions rather than their own opinions which gets us nowhere but to a dirties route for our preferred videogame, if i didn't care i wouldn't be here.

Ermiq · October 2018

Is it my eyes lying to me, or FOV in the video is bigger than the game settings max value (130)?

Jameliel · October 2018

Most of those traditional tab target mmos perform way better than eso. Crap design is crap design.

idk · October 2018

Kova wrote: »

MoTeets wrote: »

Seems fine to me

Not surprising. Your history shows a good amount of acceptance for the game in whatever form it takes.

Edited for me typing something dumb and snobbish.

Maybe if you provided actual examples of what you are speaking of vs an over generalization. Heck, you do not even state what platform you are on which can make a very big difference. I am pretty sure you are on PC based on the UI but not everyone would know what a Console UI looks like.

Also, other factors can be in play starting locally, so the person you make this snide reply to may be having a better experience than yourself.

With that, I have only been stuck in the Lightning HA which was a known issue for awhile, but seems to have been replaced with a smaller targeting window for lightning basic attacks.

Over approximately two years Zos has made some changes that may be affecting your game play outside of anything local to your PC and such (yes, I know, everyone's PC works perfectly).

1. Zos moved more checks server side due to the game cheat engine issue. Those with slightly high ping probably experience this more. What used to be an instant check locally at the client now has to hit the server.
2. Issues with some attacks have forced an increase in protection of the servers. For awhile some players experienced their path took a detour due to the security implemented which increased their ping significantly.

While I expect you submitted a ticket specific to your issue before hitting up the forums, just in case here is a link to the support page. https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/

idk · October 2018

Jameliel wrote: »

Most of those traditional tab target mmos perform way better than eso. Crap design is crap design.

Hate to disappoint you but more recent releases and pretty much everything in development that may be interesting has ditched the tab targeting. Yes, I know some who found it difficult to adjust and went back to WoW and SWTOR, but combat on rails seems to be in the past.

Tandor · October 2018

I can't say that I've noticed any change but then these are all performance-related matters and I've never had any performance issues with the game being a solo/cooperative and non-competitive PvEer on PC without addons.

Reistr_the_Unbroken · October 2018

Yesterday on Xbox NA I’ve noticed that my mount was a bit slower than usual, and so far mount speed for me is at 32%

wolfxspice · October 2018

I remember those days, roll dodge and streak didn't have scaling cost increase, combat felt faster and their was almost no proc sets, and the ones that were in the game were limited to monster helms so you couldn't stack them. I wish they gave the other class tools to deal with that sort of stuff, and similar mobility, instead of nerfing those mechanics, and the animation reworks with the dark brotherhood update, the game hasn't felt right ever since. i hope they do a overhaul to combat and it's approached make it smoother, faster paced, more rewarding for people who put in the time to learn their class and how it interacts with the game as a whole, i don't think that's gonna happen though.

ATomiX96 · October 2018

Facefister wrote: »

Blame PvP.

blame not having seperate pve and pvp balancing like pretty much every other MMO

Pops_ND_Irish · October 2018

Kova wrote: »

MoTeets wrote: »

Seems fine to me

Not surprising. Your history shows a good amount of acceptance for the game in whatever form it takes.

Edited for me typing something dumb and snobbish.

"Whatever Form" is not giving me any issues worth hollering about !

Elsonso · October 2018

Kova wrote: »

MoTeets wrote: »

Seems fine to me

Not surprising. Your history shows a good amount of acceptance for the game in whatever form it takes.

Yeah? So what if his history shows that? Mine shows that, too. It is called adapting to the current conditions. Not every change is a good one, but the forums tend to focus on the bad ones. I just adapt to the good, and the bad. ZOS does not listen to me, so I pretty much have to follow what they do.

Personally, I want them to be rolling out minor buffs and nerfs each update. We aren't quite there yet. They are still making grand statements, although not as grand as they have in the past. My feeling that this is happening because they are trying to drive the combat using numbers and spreadsheets. That is not going to work.

DanteYoda · October 2018

Facefister wrote: »

Blame PvP.

^this and dummyhumpers ruin everything.

Kova · October 2018

lordrichter wrote: »

Kova wrote: »

MoTeets wrote: »

Seems fine to me

Not surprising. Your history shows a good amount of acceptance for the game in whatever form it takes.

Yeah? So what if his history shows that? Mine shows that, too. It is called adapting to the current conditions. Not every change is a good one, but the forums tend to focus on the bad ones. I just adapt to the good, and the bad. ZOS does not listen to me, so I pretty much have to follow what they do.

Personally, I want them to be rolling out minor buffs and nerfs each update. We aren't quite there yet. They are still making grand statements, although not as grand as they have in the past. My feeling that this is happening because they are trying to drive the combat using numbers and spreadsheets. That is not going to work.

I understand your argument of futility, but the fact that the recent shield nerf change was reverted and altered is evidence that discourse is effective in isolated terms.

Examining poster history let's you know who you're having a conversation with, and considering MMO forums are ripe with trolls, it's not a foolish notion to read previous posts to ascertain if the user habitually posts unfounded claims and inflammatory troll posts. I'm sorry it bothered you enough to bring it up. Hopefully you can adapt to this in the future.

Kova · October 2018

idk wrote: »

Kova wrote: »

MoTeets wrote: »

Seems fine to me

Not surprising. Your history shows a good amount of acceptance for the game in whatever form it takes.

Edited for me typing something dumb and snobbish.

Maybe if you provided actual examples of what you are speaking of vs an over generalization. Heck, you do not even state what platform you are on which can make a very big difference. I am pretty sure you are on PC based on the UI but not everyone would know what a Console UI looks like.

Also, other factors can be in play starting locally, so the person you make this snide reply to may be having a better experience than yourself.

With that, I have only been stuck in the Lightning HA which was a known issue for awhile, but seems to have been replaced with a smaller targeting window for lightning basic attacks.

Over approximately two years Zos has made some changes that may be affecting your game play outside of anything local to your PC and such (yes, I know, everyone's PC works perfectly).

1. Zos moved more checks server side due to the game cheat engine issue. Those with slightly high ping probably experience this more. What used to be an instant check locally at the client now has to hit the server.
2. Issues with some attacks have forced an increase in protection of the servers. For awhile some players experienced their path took a detour due to the security implemented which increased their ping significantly.

While I expect you submitted a ticket specific to your issue before hitting up the forums, just in case here is a link to the support page. https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/

I literally provided links to other posts with videos. Those are the examples, they haven't changed.

I do appreciate the genuinely honest attempt to help though.