Wifeaggro13 wrote: »Part7:ZOS has always stated that they have all this Data about how many people are completing dungeons, what their DPS is, how often are they running, etc. etc. They need to be looking at this data and referring to it. How many players are running VHof or VCR +2-+3? How many are on the leader boards for these? Are those characters currently on the leader boards, owned by the same players? If so, how many? How many players are completing this content, and then NEVER STEPPING IN IT AGAIN??
They need to take the time and speak with a couple of these Middle Tiered Progressive Raid groups and their leaders to hear first-hand, what their pain points are, and why they are not having fun, or running the new content again after they complete it.
What can be done to help balance the game and to alleviate some of these pain points?
- Power Creep needs to continue in this game, but it does need to be Capped (say, 45-50k).
It’s time for ZOS to put a roof over the Highest Ceiling. All players should be able to eventually complete all content they paid for. Even if it takes them 7yrs of eventual power creep through any system; they’ll eventually get there.
In PvP, this could mean setting the max DPS at a certain level as well, or having all NO CP campaigns.
But, if I’m not going to progress in power for the foreseeable future, why should I bother buying the new DLC, or the New Chapter?? The story isn’t enough. I can watch someone else play and get the story without paying.
- With Capped DPS, then a pure horizontal progression begins, where CP can be spent on quality of life items rather on points that provide more power. Ie: Increased bank space. A fourth CP tree can be created for this, or allowing players to put points into the trees, say into resistances for Trials so they don’t have to keep changing them all the time.
- Third tier of difficulty between Normal and Vet Dungeons and Trials needs to be created. Raising the difficulty of Normal is not acceptable, as you will again be locking a vast majority of your casual players out of that content. An intuitive middle tier of difficulty that allows your players to learn the mechanics without being overwhelmed in required.
- Mechanics that allow for room of error. Players shouldn’t have to be on point 100% of the time, or wipe the run. Those type of mechanics are not Fun and players are less likely to repeatedly run content that had mechanics like this.
I would like to build more on this conversation. Posting trolling comments like git gud, or L2P is not providing constructive feedback or discussion, but are considered trolling. I would like to hear others thoughts on this, from those who both agree or disagree.
Tam one is responsible for this. It was really a response to two issues phasing which was huge. And stale blocked of content.I think level scalling could have been better thought out. Wanting to make the game more like the tradtional single player franchise was the goal. Allowing people to play with friends no matter the level all good ideas . but there are other way of doing that. Tam one has done no favors for the body of the community that is now entering or wants to enter end game group activities. because you actually have learned none of the games finer points of combat, nor the roles how the function or how to play in a group setting.
Not really I felt as you progressed through the dungeons you had a good idea of mechanics builds and how stats effected builds. Though imagine veteran tanking in this game back then was very very different from other mmos. The dev's they took from funcom really showed . I dont think tam one was horrible it was a response to them making money with out reguard to a long term game play impact.same with cp it was a bandaid for VR and an easy way to extend life of old content.you need to remember the game did not see any content additions for loonnnnmmg time after craglorn. It was all hands on deck for the console port. But I do agree that Dps is a whole other ball of wax. Its primarily due to two factors. There is no explanation about animation canceling or weaving. Animation canceling was actually ta bug that they couldn't fix with GCD .early launch game play only the long term beta in house knew about it. Some builds like early magical dk with banner could solo all the vanilla dungeons. Due to animation canceling and light armor passives being so OP. The game at this time was called the elder dresses on line. Now content is designed with animation canceling as part of the meta and learning rotations with it has a curve for those that hit the dungeons and trials.VaranisArano wrote: »Wifeaggro13 wrote: »Part7:ZOS has always stated that they have all this Data about how many people are completing dungeons, what their DPS is, how often are they running, etc. etc. They need to be looking at this data and referring to it. How many players are running VHof or VCR +2-+3? How many are on the leader boards for these? Are those characters currently on the leader boards, owned by the same players? If so, how many? How many players are completing this content, and then NEVER STEPPING IN IT AGAIN??
They need to take the time and speak with a couple of these Middle Tiered Progressive Raid groups and their leaders to hear first-hand, what their pain points are, and why they are not having fun, or running the new content again after they complete it.
What can be done to help balance the game and to alleviate some of these pain points?
- Power Creep needs to continue in this game, but it does need to be Capped (say, 45-50k).
It’s time for ZOS to put a roof over the Highest Ceiling. All players should be able to eventually complete all content they paid for. Even if it takes them 7yrs of eventual power creep through any system; they’ll eventually get there.
In PvP, this could mean setting the max DPS at a certain level as well, or having all NO CP campaigns.
But, if I’m not going to progress in power for the foreseeable future, why should I bother buying the new DLC, or the New Chapter?? The story isn’t enough. I can watch someone else play and get the story without paying.
- With Capped DPS, then a pure horizontal progression begins, where CP can be spent on quality of life items rather on points that provide more power. Ie: Increased bank space. A fourth CP tree can be created for this, or allowing players to put points into the trees, say into resistances for Trials so they don’t have to keep changing them all the time.
- Third tier of difficulty between Normal and Vet Dungeons and Trials needs to be created. Raising the difficulty of Normal is not acceptable, as you will again be locking a vast majority of your casual players out of that content. An intuitive middle tier of difficulty that allows your players to learn the mechanics without being overwhelmed in required.
- Mechanics that allow for room of error. Players shouldn’t have to be on point 100% of the time, or wipe the run. Those type of mechanics are not Fun and players are less likely to repeatedly run content that had mechanics like this.
I would like to build more on this conversation. Posting trolling comments like git gud, or L2P is not providing constructive feedback or discussion, but are considered trolling. I would like to hear others thoughts on this, from those who both agree or disagree.
Tam one is responsible for this. It was really a response to two issues phasing which was huge. And stale blocked of content.I think level scalling could have been better thought out. Wanting to make the game more like the tradtional single player franchise was the goal. Allowing people to play with friends no matter the level all good ideas . but there are other way of doing that. Tam one has done no favors for the body of the community that is now entering or wants to enter end game group activities. because you actually have learned none of the games finer points of combat, nor the roles how the function or how to play in a group setting.
To be entirely fair to One Tamriel, the game before that didnt really teach how to mechanics either. And a rotation? Hahaha.
See, people like to go all "Man, those were the days when we had Doshia to teach noobs how to play!"
Uh, that was Blaze and Ragebinder for my level 9 MagDK. Know what that taught me? To level up to 11, come back, and kick their butts.
We've still got bosses like Doshia (see complaint threads about K'torra) intended to teach players about the value of food buffs and AOE DOTs. But because ESO never actually teaches those things, the value is often lost until they come to the forums asking how to beat that boss.
Or to put it another way, back before One Tamriel, I was in Coldharbor before I learned to interrupt harvesters. I was in vet ranks before I realized that food buffs make fighting so much easier. I really don't remember pre One Tamriel doing a good job of preparing me and my friends for harder group content.
On the whole, ESO is and always as been very opaque about how to actually do endgame content. Want to do decent DPS for group content? You will not learn that from the game itself. You'll learn it from other players, videos, build sites, or the forums. Want to tank? ESO is like "Here's a taunt. Have fun!" And so we see plenty of people asking about how tanking works in ESO compared to other games. The Skills Advisor is a small improvement in this regard, but far more needs to happen if ESO is actually going to prepare players.
In short, I think this problem pre-dates One Tamriel. Content added after One Tamriel just makes ESO's lack of preparing players all the more apparent.
Part6:
Catering to the Elite Tier of the game while completely ignoring the progression of the Middle Tiered players is not healthy for the game.
Why?
Due to the vast majority of this game is made up of Casual and Average Moderate ability players. Systems should not be balanced in a way that requires
the use of Animation Cancelling, which a majority of the player base is unable to accomplish, and is not intuitive game play. There isn’t even a system
in the game that teaches you how to animation cancel, you have to go to Youtube for that. Attack weave –Yes. Animation Cancel – No.
Part3:
ZOS had obviously seen the issue. The Power differential between the Floor’s casual players and the Ceiling’s High End Elite gamers, and they tried looking at ways to “Lower the Ceiling and raise the Floor”.
This was actually an epic failure. You can’t lower a ceiling by nerfing skills all players use. All that was accomplished was the change in Meta. Casual players didn’t bother to notice any difference because they didn’t care or were not at a level they would notice. The higher Elite players just changed up the Meta, as they could work within the systems to compensate much easier than everyone else to proc the new armor sets more effectively. It’s the Middle Tiered players who found themselves nerfed again and again and again.
With these changes to “lower the ceiling and raise the floor” over the last couple of years, I’m now sitting at 10k less DPS than I began; All because ZOS decided to spearhead
the Light Attack weave and Animation Cancelling Meta. A form of gameplay that is highly affected by server lag, player internet connections, whether a player uses a keyboard,
mouse or Controller. These are things Middle Tiered players are unable to compensate for. Only Power Creep, no matter how insignificant would allow these players to eventually
compensate for what they were unable to physically accomplish through regular skilled game play.
Part3:
Those players who use Controllers, rather than Mice and Keyboards are handicapped in this game on PC, especially if you have to use an additional third party program because of the type of controller you use.
There are some players who say that Power Creep is an illusion. And to some players, it may be. But for those who need the creep. It’s certainly no illusion. 1% improvement is still an improvement. It might give them that very slight edge to once again be included in certain guild runs, or to finish VMA where they couldn’t before. Psychologically, people need to feel like they are improving to be able to continue to do something. They need to feel rewarded.
I do not understand how some (very few) think ESO has power atrophy instead of power creep.
It has been very obvious the game has had power creep as challenging or even somewhat challenging instances are so much easier today than a year or two ago. vMA is a great example as their scores have increased over time, not decreased as would occur with power atrophy.
I do not understand how some (very few) think ESO has power atrophy instead of power creep.
It has been very obvious the game has had power creep as challenging or even somewhat challenging instances are so much easier today than a year or two ago. vMA is a great example as their scores have increased over time, not decreased as would occur with power atrophy.
BooPerScOOper wrote: »I do not understand how some (very few) think ESO has power atrophy instead of power creep.
It has been very obvious the game has had power creep as challenging or even somewhat challenging instances are so much easier today than a year or two ago. vMA is a great example as their scores have increased over time, not decreased as would occur with power atrophy.
Exactly; All scores have increased over time
KhajiitFelix wrote: »Power creep is already significant
There were times were 30k dps was top tier, then short after 40k was the new standard. Then surely enough it was 50k and slowly creeping towards 55k plus
Not to mention support sets increasing this even more significantly where good dps are parsing 70k plus and stamina nightblades well over 80k
Pve dps is already pretty insane and the gear to get that dps is very easy to farm or straight up buy from traders or other players
It really isn't hard to hit 40k which already clears a lot of vet content with relative ease
Following the years of eso. It has catered a lot to casual players, it really has. Heck, look at that new dungeon skin that you can get if you just clear it on vet. Not very special if a lot of people can now obtain it
New trials come out once maybe twice a year, and that's really all the hardcore players get out of new content. Maybe the dlc dungeons too.
With the current max cp of 810. You can spec a lot of points into recovery, damage, and mitigation. Making clearing older content a lot easier
Also. Most of the vet trial content are years old, theres tons of guides on the internet and on YouTube. If people cant clear the older vet trials, then that group needs to work on dps, mechanics, communication and teamwork. Cause hitting that 40k plus dps is not that hard at all, theres tons of videos and guides on rotations to hit those numbers
I agree that there should be power creep as more updates happen, but overall, the mid tiered players can work on becoming better players and not relying on power creep to get by content.
Lol most players can't get past 15k. If you can do it, it doesn't mean everyone can do it.
VaranisArano wrote: »I do not understand how some (very few) think ESO has power atrophy instead of power creep.
It has been very obvious the game has had power creep as challenging or even somewhat challenging instances are so much easier today than a year or two ago. vMA is a great example as their scores have increased over time, not decreased as would occur with power atrophy.BooPerScOOper wrote: »I do not understand how some (very few) think ESO has power atrophy instead of power creep.
It has been very obvious the game has had power creep as challenging or even somewhat challenging instances are so much easier today than a year or two ago. vMA is a great example as their scores have increased over time, not decreased as would occur with power atrophy.
Exactly; All scores have increased over time
I think people see power atrophy on an individual level and power creep on a global scale.
While old content is easier now and overall leaderboard scores have increased, that's global power creep. But individual players, especially the medium tier players who struggle with the current weaving/animation cancel meta and unforgiving mechanics may find themselves worse off than before when you account for nerfs.
For example, who did the Sorc ward nerfs hit hardest? The elite players who easily adapted to the new meta? Or the mid-tier players who needed the cushion of those shields in order to complete their current level of content?
Now, part of that is by design. ZOS periodically nerfs the meta so that players of all tiers have to regrind in order to be back in fighting shape.
And part of that is simply the need to adapt. The more ESO leans towards light attack weaving being necessary for good DPS, the more players who can't LA weave well (for many reasons) are going to be left behind. That's simply how it is. And then as progression groups require more DPS of their members because of unforgiving mechanics, again, more players get left behind.
So I guess my point is that power creep in ESO is an uneven thing. A rising tide that doesn't lift all boats. And the more ZOS creates unforgiving mechanics and trials/dungeons with low margins for error, the greater the demand for high DPS is going to be, resulting in more people being left behind as their individual power creep has just not kept pace with the pace of development or DPS increases among top-tier players.
Part5:
Systems should not be balanced in a way that requires the use of Animation Cancelling, which a majority of the player base is unable to accomplish, and is not intuitive game play. There isn’t even a system in the game that teaches you how to animation cancel, you have to go to Youtube for that. Attack weave –Yes. Animation Cancel – No.
They’ve already said they’re aware of power creep issues and that the CP system is getting an overhaul. I’m not even sure what power atrophy means in this game. I can understand if you have a physical or mental disability that prevents you from reach a certain level of play, in that case I have no ideas, but for everyone else reaching high DPS or being a good tank or healer it’s just practice and grinding. It’s really not that hard. A correct but sloppy rotation with just basic LA weaving in second best gear should easily net you 25k dps self buffed on a class that doesn’t have access to fracture. And that is enough for any vet content except maybe some of the harder vet trials. And this should really be in reach for anyone, even with higher ping of 250-350. If you bother to min max and practice your rotation, then higher tiers should be relatively easy to reach. So I’m not sure how mid tier players are atrophying. And you can always mix it up with some PvP. It’s hard to reach a stale spot in PvP unless it’s down to game performance.
Emma_Overload wrote: »Power creep is a myth. What you guys are talking about is DPS creep. I remember when Vet COA2 was the hardest dungeon in the game. It took me several attempts with various pugs to finally complete it, but it WAS puggable. It was hard, but nothing about it was so complicated that you couldn't explain it in one sentence in chat.
Now we have these ridiculously complicated DLC dungeons. They are effectively unpuggable and impractical to explain without voice comms. My DPS may be hundred times higher than the pre-DLC era, but it doesn't matter because the difficulty of the top content has far outstripped DPS.
I don't think it should be required to watch hours of Alcast videos to complete content. I liked the difficulty of the old ESO, and I suspect many, many players would agree with me.
They’ve already said they’re aware of power creep issues and that the CP system is getting an overhaul. I’m not even sure what power atrophy means in this game. I can understand if you have a physical or mental disability that prevents you from reach a certain level of play, in that case I have no ideas, but for everyone else reaching high DPS or being a good tank or healer it’s just practice and grinding. It’s really not that hard. A correct but sloppy rotation with just basic LA weaving in second best gear should easily net you 25k dps self buffed on a class that doesn’t have access to fracture. And that is enough for any vet content except maybe some of the harder vet trials. And this should really be in reach for anyone, even with higher ping of 250-350. If you bother to min max and practice your rotation, then higher tiers should be relatively easy to reach. So I’m not sure how mid tier players are atrophying. And you can always mix it up with some PvP. It’s hard to reach a stale spot in PvP unless it’s down to game performance.
Yes, they are aware of the Power Creep issue in relation to the CP.... but my essay has nothing to do with the need to remove the power creep. It is the need to KEEP the Power Creep for the Middle Tiered and lower players who need it. They need to CAP the max achievable DPS to prevent the the DPS gap from getting any wider, while allowing lesser players to catch up.
There are various reasons why Middle Tiered players are unable to achieve anything over 25k dps, which I had noted in my essay.
- Server Lag
- Internet Latency/Ping - My own isp stated outright that I'll always have 10ms of latency.
- Hardware use: IE.. Keyboard/Mouse vs Game Controller. Game Controllers are not nearly as fast in response time when buttons are pressed like a mechanical keyboard is.
- Physical disability or age reduces reaction time.
- Nerfing of skills, ability or DOT times can significantly effect rotation where those who need a basic rotation (12-15sec), such as we had with the Heavy Attack Meta, can no longer compensate now that certain skills had their DOT time reduced and we have a light attack meta.
- With light attack meta, a 133 latency in game for me, means abilities don't reliably fire off, bar swapping doesn't happen when it should. Light attacks themselves won't even fire off if a skill immediately follows. All of these combined significantly hinders the rotation on a player who doesn't have the best of the best setup, hardware, physical reflexes, skill, nor Internet connection.
What the Middle Tier players are finding now, that ZOS has been going through Nerfing abilities, Nefing DOT times, Changing over to a Meta (Animation Cancelling and Light Attack Weaving) that's not only NOT TAUGHT by the mechanics or tutorials in the game (Sorry, a mention on a load screen doesn't count), and is not intuitive to use, cannot be reliably accomplished by a majority of the playerbase, because server performance and Internet latency is a huge factor in a players ability to take advantage of it and was proven to be a BUG that ZOS didn't know how to fix, is something they can't overcome to allow them to bypass the required 35k+ thresholds not required to allow them to run this content at Vet with others.
3 patches ago I was able to get 28-32k on my Stamsorc. Now I'm getting between 20-25k self buffed because of these changes. I'm weaker now than I was previously. Despite having the meta gear, and the meta abilities and following the rotations, because I can't fire them off fast enough now to keep all the dots up.
I can't reliably light attack weave with animation cancel. Once my in game latency reaches 133, and because I use a controller, my light attacks will be ignored outright by the information going back and forth to the servers and my skill will be the priority. Additionally, with the latency, the game seems to make playing the animation a priority, and in many cases will not allow a Bar Swap, until the animation has completed. This gets worse in group situations as more abilities are being fired off.
This all significantly slows down any rotation. There are many occassions where you have to press the button 2-3-4 times before an ability will fire off.
Hell, ever since the PTS has started, my in game latency is now sitting at 150-166 for 98% of my play time.
These are all the types of issues that Middle Tiered players have to play around, and unfortunately, most of these type of players don't have 3-8+hrs in a day to stand a target dummy to try to work around a significantly flawed system. They have families, they have a job, and other more important responsibilites. They shouldn't have to all because elite end game players to do the content.
It is because of this change over to the Light Attack Animation Cancelling Meta, that can't be done by the majority of players, nor compensated for now in any other system within the game, that Most of the Middle Tiered players feel like their characters and Progression in the game has Atrophied. They have either lost Power Progression of their Characters, or through some changes, have been able to stay the same, but they certainly haven't improved.
And these players are at a skill level where normal content is far too easy for them, but some, especially the newer verteran content is too hard, due to the skill level they were created for. When you have players who can reach 35-45k+ DPS complaining that the content is not fun. Abusive. That they just don't want to do it, despite the rewards. There's an issue.
Mind you, there are a bunch of players maybe getting 25-30k DPS that would love to do this content, but soooo many players have either left or taken breaks because of where things are, and because of the mass of unforgiving mechanics they have thrown into this content, they never get to do it. beyond boring Normal.
This is why, it is felt by many that Power Creep needs to continue for these players, so that they have a way to progress further in the game, to continue to challenge themselves with content, so they can eventually complete what they paid for. Even if it takes them 2 or 3years after the release of that content. At least they would eventually be able to do it.
But, balancing content and capping the Power Creep because of the highly skilled elite players can do it, is not healthy for this game at all. ZOS had stated previously that they didn't intend for the huge power gap between players in this game, but they refuse to do the only thing that is going to keep that gap from getting any wider, while allowing lower skills players to eventually catch up.. and that is to put a CAP on DPS and continue to allow Power Creep for all other players.
Players shouldn't have to make a full time job out of parsing off a target dummy to squeak out a rotation that is going to end up changing on ZOS' whim. This is a game. It's suppose to be fun. If people don't progress in games, or feel like they are getting more powerful. They start loosing that sense of fun, and loose the drive to challenge themselves in harder content.
The Elite Tier players will always have the experience and bragging rights for being the first to run and complete the content far ahead of everyone else like they already do. They will just be forced to eventually deal with the mechanics of the dungeons instead of getting their DPS so high, they can bypass them. And ZOS can then come up with a skill tree where these players can spend their points towards quality of life items or something else.
When this update goes live. If you haven't noticed it already. I'm sure you are going to see a significant increase in the number of players switching over to Healers or Warden Tanks by those who used to DPS Vet Trials.
Emma_Overload wrote: »Power creep is a myth. What you guys are talking about is DPS creep. I remember when Vet COA2 was the hardest dungeon in the game. It took me several attempts with various pugs to finally complete it, but it WAS puggable. It was hard, but nothing about it was so complicated that you couldn't explain it in one sentence in chat.
Now we have these ridiculously complicated DLC dungeons. They are effectively unpuggable and impractical to explain without voice comms. My DPS may be hundred times higher than the pre-DLC era, but it doesn't matter because the difficulty of the top content has far outstripped DPS.
I don't think it should be required to watch hours of Alcast videos to complete content. I liked the difficulty of the old ESO, and I suspect many, many players would agree with me.
I do not understand how some (very few) think ESO has power atrophy instead of power creep.
It has been very obvious the game has had power creep as challenging or even somewhat challenging instances are so much easier today than a year or two ago. vMA is a great example as their scores have increased over time, not decreased as would occur with power atrophy.
I'm one of those middle tier players.
The thing is, even after a lot of practice I can really only really sustain 30-35K dps maximum. I have no idea how people do 70K dps.
madarame_77 wrote: »Part5:
Systems should not be balanced in a way that requires the use of Animation Cancelling, which a majority of the player base is unable to accomplish, and is not intuitive game play. There isn’t even a system in the game that teaches you how to animation cancel, you have to go to Youtube for that. Attack weave –Yes. Animation Cancel – No.
This 100%.
Emma_Overload wrote: »I do not understand how some (very few) think ESO has power atrophy instead of power creep.
It has been very obvious the game has had power creep as challenging or even somewhat challenging instances are so much easier today than a year or two ago. vMA is a great example as their scores have increased over time, not decreased as would occur with power atrophy.
VMA is actually an example of power atrophy. Thanks to the massive nerf to damage shields, VMA is harder than ever for some Magicka classes. Doesn't matter how much DPS has creeped up, the content is harder overall because of reduced defensive capabilities. Sustain has also been nerfed severely since VMA launched. Where is the creep?