Timing of Power Surge change shows lack of forethought

Zypheran · August 2019

There are other threads discussing how bad the new Power Surge changes are so I'm not going to discuss how good or bad it is here.
But the timing of it.... this really annoys me. Why leave this change till the very end of the test cycle?
We all know that nothing will change from this PTS patch when it goes live. What's here is here to stay until next DLC at best.
So why drop such a significant change at this point?
Either ;
- you don't really care about our feedback
- you knew it was not going to be liked and so didn't want to listen to feedback (not much different to above!)
- Or this was decided on last minute

If it is the latter, then how could you possible stand over this as a well thought out direction for this skill? It just smacks of people sitting in a room throwing darts at a wall with little or no thought or planning. You promised us vision for where you were taking combat but now it seems its back to last minute swinging changes with little forethought!

Bashev · August 2019

Zypheran wrote: »

There are other threads discussing how bad the new Power Surge changes are so I'm not going to discuss how good or bad it is here.
But the timing of it.... this really annoys me. Why leave this change till the very end of the test cycle?
We all know that nothing will change from this PTS patch when it goes live. What's here is here to stay until next DLC at best.
So why drop such a significant change at this point?
Either ;
- you don't really care about our feedback
- you knew it was not going to be liked and so didn't want to listen to feedback (not much different to above!)
- Or this was decided on last minute

If it is the latter, then how could you possible stand over this as a well thought out direction for this skill? It just smacks of people sitting in a room throwing darts at a wall with little or no thought or planning. You promised us vision for where you were taking combat but now it seems its back to last minute swinging changes with little forethought!

What they had to do is make the basic morph Spell damage buff and heal on crit damage. Then one morph changed to weapon damage and more heals on crit damage, then the other morph buff weapon damage and spell damage + heals on crit heals. Problem solved and you are welcome ZoS!

ChunkyCat · August 2019

It’s like the new guy (who shall not be named) is building a new game without reading the instructions and is ending up with a bunch of “spare parts”. So he just throws those away, because I guess he didn’t need them?

Lady_Sleepless · August 2019

This just stinks of ZOS trying to sell the Mages Guild skill line by nerfing sorcs. It's the only reason I can see as to why they did it.

Aurie · August 2019

Regarding OP:

Most likely a combination of all three.

ZOS are not interested in our feedback as the new combat team is on a mission.

I'm more inclined to think that they sneaked in those changes at the last minute as they knew perfectly well there would be an outcry.

As it is, they are only having to deal with the outcry now, instead of during weeks of PTS as well.

Kova · August 2019

Lady_Sleepless wrote: »

This just stinks of ZOS trying to sell the Mages Guild skill line by nerfing sorcs. It's the only reason I can see as to why they did it.

It really really does. That and, "haven't you heard about necromancer? You can even buy skyshards and level quickly!"

Its just ultra convenient that every change seems to compliment a new cash shop item. Even moreso when you reference Pete Hines from 2014 when he was defending the subscription cost:

"We're also very confident in our ability to support it with content. And not content of the magnitude of, it's a new month, here's a new sword or here's a funny hat--but content that is real and significant and it feels like regular and consistent DLC releases."

Completely unrelated, but check out whats in this months crown store showcase!!!!

Their integrity has aged like milk, and all the veteran players warned everyone it would happen. At least the consumers are happy that they have more E-food to slorp up.

jypcy · August 2019

Tbh my impression was that they listened to player feedback regarding how classes needed aoe hots with the nerfs to grand healing and energy orbs, and surge was their solution for sorcs. It doesn’t look to be a very successful one, but it was rushed in towards the end because of responding to player feedback, at least.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2019

Just one more factor contributing to very cramped bars on a mag sorc. Now a mag sorc is going to want to slot crit surge (a stamina skill) for a heal, and a mages guild skill for major sorcery. I am not going to sit here and pretend this change is the end of the world or anything, but I do think it reeks of developers making changes to a game that they dont actually play all that much.

WrathOfInnos · August 2019

I don’t like it, but seems like we’ll just have to slot Structured Entropy. It gives Major Sorcery, heals the user over time, gives decent passives for slotting (basically the old power surge so far) and it is a pretty good ST DoT. The main downside here is that any Sorc that wants the healing will have to give up the resource return from Degeneration.

CambionDaemon · August 2019

Lady_Sleepless wrote: »

This just stinks of ZOS trying to sell the Mages Guild skill line by nerfing sorcs. It's the only reason I can see as to why they did it.

Bingo, we have a winner!

ccfeeling · August 2019

Because they can skip the last phase adjustment .

MashmalloMan · August 2019

jypcy wrote: »

Tbh my impression was that they listened to player feedback regarding how classes needed aoe hots with the nerfs to grand healing and energy orbs, and surge was their solution for sorcs. It doesn’t look to be a very successful one, but it was rushed in towards the end because of responding to player feedback, at least.

Wow, logic. Nice to meet you, haven't seen you in a while.

From the 2nd week.

"Sorcerers currently lack an ability they can utilize to heal their allies with supplemental power, such as a Heal over Time. We have some adjustments to the Power Surge morph of Surge in a future Update to help grant them such a tool!"

3rd week bugged, everyone shouts "Mag DD can just slot it and does too much for 33s passive healing!!"

4th week fixed, ZOS listened to feedback from the week before and hit it with a hammer, only procs on Crit Healing (good), 3s CD to reduce potency and keep it in line with other aoe hots (bad), lastly because it was so last minute, no thought given to Crit Surge for Major Sorcery w/ dynamic scaling as the dedicated "Self Heal" morph.

Did they hit the mark, no, that 3s cd doesn't line up with any hot in the game, but it is technically similar to other aoe hots.

So small tweaks are needed, the question is, will they listen and is it too late for the final release of the DLC, because I seriously don't want to wait another 3 months.

CambionDaemon · August 2019

Marshall1289 wrote: »

jypcy wrote: »

Tbh my impression was that they listened to player feedback regarding how classes needed aoe hots with the nerfs to grand healing and energy orbs, and surge was their solution for sorcs. It doesn’t look to be a very successful one, but it was rushed in towards the end because of responding to player feedback, at least.

Wow, logic. Nice to meet you, haven't seen you in a while.

From the 2nd week.
"Sorcerers currently lack an ability they can utilize to heal their allies with supplemental power, such as a Heal over Time. We have some adjustments to the Power Surge morph of Surge in a future Update to help grant them such a tool!"

3rd week bugged, everyone shouts "Mag DD can just slot it and does too much for 33s passive healing!!"

4th week fixed, ZOS listened to feedback from the week before and hit it with a hammer, only procs on Crit Healing (good), 3s CD to reduce potency and keep it in line with other aoe hots (bad), lastly because it was so last minute, no thought given to Crit Surge for Major Sorcery w/ dynamic scaling as the dedicated "Self Heal" morph.

Did they hit the mark, no, that 3s cd doesn't line up with any hot in the game, but it is technically similar to other aoe hots.

So small tweaks are needed, the question is, will they listen and is it too late for the final release of the DLC, because I seriously don't want to wait another 3 months.

It should NEVER have been touched, there are plenty of other skills that could have been changed to help 'all' of the Sorcerer healers out there (Dark Magic skill line is where they should have looked).

CGPsaint · August 2019

First of all, there was absolutely no reason to tinker with Power Surge. That and the difference in healing aside, this decision means that Zenimax is removing a CLASS ABILITY, which gives Major Sorcery to the SORCERER class. Read that again. Sorcerers have to get Major Sorcery from another skill line. Seriously? What are they thinking?

In theory, they have data that shows who's using what class for what content, so surely they are able to see how many people are using MagSorcs for healers. Are people really ditching their Templars, Wardens, and possibly Necro Healers to flock to Sorc Healers??? Nope.