Additional Context on U23 Combat Changes

ZOS_BrianWheeler · July 2019

Heyo gang!

We wanted to quickly provide some additional context for many of the combat changes in this update so that everyone has a better idea of our goals.

In Update 23 our main focus was to ensure there was an ultimate point of reference for abilities to properly match up against one another in their respective categories. This provides us with a solid baseline, where all abilities fit within a set of standards/power levels and allows future balancing passes to be much easier and timely.

We're aware that some content has been designed around old functionality of abilities that existed beyond our standards and might need some sort of compromise in regards to how you engage with it and/or how we balance it. This is something we will be watching closely, however we are not averse to the idea that players might need to adjust their current builds such as running more defensive Ultimates rather than offensive ones, or running more survival enhancing sets, rather than pure damage or buff oriented ones. Please also remember that we've introduced some new abilities to help offset the loss of things such as Healing Springs stacking, with abilities like Ring of Preservation, or the large increase to Cleansing Ritual.

As always, we will be monitoring feedback about all the balance changes during this PTS cycle, however we wanted to let everyone know that in a future PTS patch, the synergy from Orbs will not cause the Orb to vanish and can be activated multiple times by anyone not on synergy cool down.

Lord_Eomer · July 2019

As Orb will not vanish after activating but will it stay around for specific duration or number of times synergy activation?

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · July 2019

@ZOS_BrianWheeler thanks for the update, anything on Cyro performance and content you can share?

Specifically the 3 major issues in pvp:
1. Combat bug - you keep allowing (good) then removing (bad) ability changing which worsens the frustration
2. Crashing coming near to keeps with high number of player characters due to player loading and view distance.
3. Desyncing on player locations during combat due to knockbacks and stuns.

CP5 · July 2019

Nice to hear an idea of what the patch is aiming to do, but a few things come to mind. First off changing all the fights that really hinged on high healing output phases in many vet trials would all need to be reworked which isn't reasonable given the scope of updates, and making pieces of content needlessly difficult for several patches isn't an option either. Some skills, like orbs and springs, have no equal and being altered to fight the standards of skills unlike them doesn't make much sense. And while you did buff ritual for templar healers, you nerfed the dk aoe heal (which is also pitifully small) and what of other classes who want to heal in trials?

Seems an aoe heal is now mandatory for healing over time, which means healers will now have 2 skills essentially doing the same thing but worse than springs was doing before. Also orbs being slower is garbage for any situation where you're far from your group (vAS healing, vCR kite healing, exc.) and with those two changes cuts back on viable class choices for the role and makes playing a healer there a chore. Dps are going to have to re-do most everything for some builds definitely, but as someone who enjoys healing, this audit seems to have its standards completely off from what the game is currently requiring.

Also, things like the werewolf pack leader being the 'utility' morph only providing maim (while losing the dot and heavy cleave) or the clannfear being slightly weaker while the sorc tank spec hasn't really gotten much utility to help the group, some areas need help and while balance comes from buffing lesser things and nerfing over performing things, this patch just feels like a cleaver was taken to most everything. Btw, why did flare get uber nerfed?

code65536 · July 2019

So for those classes without Cleansing Ritual...

RogueShark · July 2019

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Heyo gang!
Ring of Preservation, or the large increase to Cleansing Ritual.

Explain to me like I'm five how this is supposed to help a sorc healer?
A high-cost stam heal and a Templar heal. Awesome.
What about everyone else?

CP5 · July 2019

Oh, and another thing, the major/minor aegis buff is laughed at by most of the community when running HoF since half of the sets there are decon-fodder for featuring it. Are there plans on making defensive utility sets and skills a bit more impactful with this vision of moving away from such a damage focus?

Maura_Neysa · July 2019

Well, this maybe pushes things to believable, instead of outlandish.
Still forcing people to stack, when its been clear the goal has been mobile fights. Can only cover 2 points like this, one were Springs is, One where Orbs is. Yes Templar have Ritual, but that leaves Cinder, Refreshing, Budding, Life amid Death all out in the cold, with their tiny Area of Effect in comparison

idk · July 2019

As for the future change to orbs. The caster still needs to be able to cast another orb if needed. The first orb would disappear if another orb is cast but this is needed in case the orb is going in the wrong direction.

code65536 · July 2019

And the point of coordinated group content on a MMO--trials specifically--is role specialization. Yes, you can have DDs run defensive sets and slot more self-healing while also nerfing the incoming damage. But then what does that do to the role of the healer?

This isn't a "consistency" balance. This is a "let's re-imagine the existence of certain roles" balance. Either you are not being straight with us and calling it just a "consistency" pass, or you don't realize just how radical these changes are. And I'm not sure which of those two is worse.

leepalmer95 · July 2019

code65536 wrote: »

So for those classes without Cleansing Ritual...

Vigor?

pattyLtd · July 2019

Maybe you are not averse to having your customer change their playstyle but if the majority of us think otherwise then what?

Most players dont visit forums or read patch notes amd when they suddenly feel they went backwards so much that they cant beat content they could do easy before most just quit.

Maybe its bit too lte after 5 years to suddenly come up with an idea where you want the game to be?

leepalmer95 · July 2019

[Quoted post has been removed.]

Why is that dumb lmao.

Is doing anything other than going 100% pure dmg really so stupid to you? Have some dd's slot a aoe heal?, have some slot some type of defensive ult for heal checks? A permafrost would be very useful with its aoe protection.

Anti-fun = not hitting 100k dps anymore?

Sanguinor2 · July 2019

leepalmer95 wrote: »

Vigor?

Yeah gonna be real effective on magdk, magsorc, magnecro, magden and magblade Right?

Jaimeh · July 2019

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Heyo gang!
Please also remember that we've introduced some new abilities to help offset the loss of things such as Healing Springs stacking, with abilities like Ring of Preservation, or the large increase to Cleansing Ritual.

Because healers have big stamina pools and are all templars...

Also, adjusting builds to be more defensive will not work well against fights that have dps check components. The change to springs and orbs, still has no proper justification, besides this so called standardization, which shouldn't have been players' concern in the first place.

colexxtrain · July 2019

any comments about fixing the current bugs in the game that i see literally every time i go into a trial or dungeon?

DJfriede · July 2019

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Heyo gang!
with abilities like Ring of Preservation, or the large increase to Cleansing Ritual.

I will totally use those on my magicka warden healer. /s

Onefrkncrzypope · July 2019

leepalmer95 wrote: »

[Quoted post has been removed.]

Why is that dumb lmao.

Is doing anything other than going 100% pure dmg really so stupid to you? Have some dd's slot a aoe heal?, have some slot some type of defensive ult for heal checks? A permafrost would be very useful with its aoe protection.

Anti-fun = not hitting 100k dps anymore?

Less DPS mean more time in the mechanic that less healing can't heal through. I am neither for or against changes until numbers but that's what I am seeing as a possible outcome.

Sordidfairytale · July 2019

Can someone point out these Skill Standards? Are they published somewhere we can review them and better understand them?

coop500 · July 2019

Sounds like a bunch of BS and lip service to me.

Seraphayel · July 2019

I like the direction that your going with the changes, especially for healing.

1. What I find questionable is referencing a class based healing skill like Cleansing Ritual to counter the changes made to Healing Springs. Not every class has an ability like that to compensate for the loss and classes that do, outside of the usual healing classes, got nerfed, e.g. Dragon Knights’ equivalent of Cleansing Ritual (cost increase, healing decrease by a whooping 30%).

2. Due to scaling Magicka can’t all of a sudden use Echoing Vigor or Ring of Preservation efficiently, neither can Stamina use Restoration Staff heals as they’re not scaling with their main resource. Could you either adjust scaling for healing skill so that they always scale with your highest stat instead of solely Magicka or Stamina?

3. After all the changes made to healing, please reconsider the Elsweyr changes for Mend Wounds. This skill has become useless after the changes, the healing output is laughable and the skill overall has no use. I have two suggestions for this: return the HoT for the Light Attack and make the Heavy Attack a splash heal around your focused target, e.g. it acts like a channeled HoT around the tank for example. Even decrease the healing for secondary targets or whatever but this would make it a useful tool for group and single target healing after the changes to Grand Healing and Mystic Orb.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

leepalmer95 · July 2019

Onefrkncrzypope wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

[Quoted post has been removed.]

Why is that dumb lmao.

Is doing anything other than going 100% pure dmg really so stupid to you? Have some dd's slot a aoe heal?, have some slot some type of defensive ult for heal checks? A permafrost would be very useful with its aoe protection.

Anti-fun = not hitting 100k dps anymore?

Less DPS mean more time in the mechanic that less healing can't heal through. I am neither for or against changes until numbers but that's what I am seeing as a possible outcome.

Less dps means you can't burn bosses past mechanics and will have to do them.

If you slot more healing then you can heal it, this is a counter to power creep and overhealing carrying people and its a good change. You'll need less healing if you aren't all 18k hp glass cannons, even just swapping pure dmg ults in certain situations for a DD to instead use something like nova or perma for 30% dmg reduction will make it possible.

Recremen · July 2019

I wholly support the idea of having a solid, mathematically-tested baseline to work with when it comes to balancing, as that's something this game has sorely needed. That's a huge step in the right direction and will doubtless help the game into it's future.

I am, however, very concerned that the nature of these changes as they stand is going to critically hinder low-end, midrange, and high-end PvE players, leaving only the most elite groups capable of completing more advanced content. I'm sure your business intelligence team can give exact figures, but it is common knowledge that a huge portion of players struggle to complete even base game dungeons. I know those of us with higher-tier PvE chops might like to laugh and say to "git gud" and all that, but at some point I think we should have an honest concern about the accessibility of content for the general population. Based on the messaging from the dungeon and trials teams, as well as the work they've done to separate tiers of difficulty with normal, veteran, and veteran hard mode fights, I think it's safe to say that this is a point they've been working hard to address.

WIth that concern in mind, a lot of these changes are straight up high-impact nerfs to current builds, and it looks safe to assume that there will be some pretty significant DPS and healing losses across the board, both for single-target and AoE scenarios. How will that affect people still struggling just with base game dungeons? How will that affect higher-tier players working on progression? Veteran trials can already be (and should be) a significant step up in challenge from normal mode ones, but these nerfs seem like they'll have the effect of only increasing that disparity, if not making it outright impossible for the groups that are already struggling with that level of performance.

So with all of that said, I have a few questions to ask. Have all the trials already been given a run through with the current PTS build to ensure the special mechanics, high damages phases, and execute phases of all bosses are still reasonably achievable? If not, are there any planned adjustments ready to roll out should the community find that these fights are edging out of completion range? And more generally, if abilities in general look like they'll need some readjustment to maintain any semblance of parity between pre- and post-patch damage/healing capacity, is there time within the scope of this PTS run to make those adjustments?

usmcjdking · July 2019

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Heyo gang!

We wanted to quickly provide some additional context for many of the combat changes in this update so that everyone has a better idea of our goals.

In Update 23 our main focus was to ensure there was an ultimate point of reference for abilities to properly match up against one another in their respective categories. This provides us with a solid baseline, where all abilities fit within a set of standards/power levels and allows future balancing passes to be much easier and timely.

We're aware that some content has been designed around old functionality of abilities that existed beyond our standards and might need some sort of compromise in regards to how you engage with it and/or how we balance it. This is something we will be watching closely, however we are not averse to the idea that players might need to adjust their current builds such as running more defensive Ultimates rather than offensive ones, or running more survival enhancing sets, rather than pure damage or buff oriented ones. Please also remember that we've introduced some new abilities to help offset the loss of things such as Healing Springs stacking, with abilities like Ring of Preservation, or the large increase to Cleansing Ritual.

As always, we will be monitoring feedback about all the balance changes during this PTS cycle, however we wanted to let everyone know that in a future PTS patch, the synergy from Orbs will not cause the Orb to vanish and can be activated multiple times by anyone not on synergy cool down.

Players are averse to running defensively oriented anythings because of enrage timers. Little reason else.

You don't really need to do much mechanically to these pieces of content outside of either removing or otherwise significantly increasing the enrage times.

code65536 · July 2019

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We're aware that some content has been designed around old functionality of abilities that existed beyond our standards and might need some sort of compromise in regards to how you engage with it and/or how we balance it.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler Quite frankly, I would prefer giving healers strong heals and keeping the incoming damage in content strong, so that it gives the healer role a reason to exist. You already see this erosion of the role in 4-man PvE content, where so many groups run 1T/3DD.

Nerfing the healers' ability to heal and then subsequently lowering the damage in the content (while also boosting self-heals... I can't help but notice that Resolving Vigor as a self-heal is now 55% stronger) is taking things in the completely wrong direction.

If the problem is PvP balance, then Battle Spirit exists for a reason. Use it. Reduce healing done to allies with Battle Spirit. But this approach of gutting healer output and then asking the dungeon team to rebalance content is just driving the role into further irrelevance and is absolutely the wrong direction to be taking the game.

I had further thoughts on this here.

robpr · July 2019

Can Ring of Preservation heal cost stamina like it's now but scale the heal with highiest stats? So magicka DDs or magicka healers could get use of it too

Jodynn · July 2019

My notes from testing on the PTS as magDK dps

Degeneration change feels wonderful
Combustion change feels wonderful
Unstable wall of elements feels wonderful
Barbed trap feels wonderful

As far as nerfs to AoEs like eruption, blockade, and engulfing, I accept them with the other changes gladly, because the quality of the life the others provide is much higher than taking away that amount of DPS.

I am doing more or less the same dps on the PTS as Live as of now, so I would say as far as my class it remains balanced single target, but not having an execute is still annoying in raids.

Destructive reach seems interesting for other classes.

Scalding rune is still gimmicky and isn't that much of a dps gain, I would have liked to see a mag version of trap beast and was hoping this skill would take it's place, something that gives minor force for x seconds but cost magicka and is a magicka dot that way I'm doing dealing 1k of physical damage for some odd reason...

Other random combat notes, orbs sound great in PvE in PvP with bombs a lot of people activating uh... I don't know we'll see.

Spell Recharge for high elf is still pretty trashy, it doesn't help me accept niche situations in PvP.

Keep up all the hard work and look forward to what is next, thank you.

frostz417 · July 2019

What about giving classes like magden and mag necro’ a reliable class stun?
Or giving magden a good class spammable since you nerfed shock clench into oblivion rendering 90% of these class playstyles useless and obsolete.
Screaming cliff racer is a horrible spammable with how slow and telegraphed it is.
You nerfed two underperforming classes that were the lowest in pve, magden was A tier at best in PvP only because the only good playstyle was shock clench with Master Destro and now that that’s gone they are almost obsolete.

Heelie · July 2019

I forgot how spamming clap healing is just as much fun as a diversified rotation that relied on player skill, instead we are now left spamming one ability.

patch · July 2019

leepalmer95 wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

So for those classes without Cleansing Ritual...

Vigor?

Vigor doesn't heal others anymore though...?

Sordidfairytale · July 2019

patch wrote: »

leepalmer95 wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

So for those classes without Cleansing Ritual...

Vigor?

Vigor doesn't heal others anymore though...?

One of the morphs does.