Suggestion for combat changes in the future

IonicKai · October 2019

I think a lot of people are upset at the constant 180s and lack of foresight with combat changes. I also understand that with deadlines for content releases it's impossible to make a lot of meaningful changes based on the feedback you get during PTS as 5 weeks is not a lot of time if something is majorly wrong.

My suggestion is to find a way to develop combat changes outside of releases and leverage having combat changes on PTS regularly. Depending on how the game as written this could pose technical difficulties but it would be worth the investment. If you can release combat changes outside of content releases then you would be able to fix issue. With a more constant PTS and release cycle you could iterate through changes and figure out what works for your vision and the players.

Edit: Grammar

Taleof2Cities · October 2019

That's a lot easier said than done, @IonicKai.

Other than a handful of dedicated players that test combat on PTS ... there aren't a lot of players that want a significant time investment on PTS. Which takes away time they could be playing on Live.

Maybe if ZOS hosted more testing events in Maryland (or other locations), and invited long-time and casual players alike.

IonicKai · October 2019

@Taleof2Cities I don't disagree that it is difficult but even if they don't want to test it on pts they still need to separate combat changes from content releases so that it can happen at a pace that makes sense instead of letting bs changes sit for 3 months at a time. The real purpose of putting it in pts would be if people want to check it out.

Lokey0024 · October 2019

Make vigor alot stronger but cost alot more.

Kittytravel · October 2019

The actual way to possibly adhere to this is offer some kind of reward for helping test on the PTS. It'd be hard to implement but I'm sure it's possible. That is if they really want a wide range of data sample.

Perhaps they make a combat change and then they want to test the impact of that on trials. So you offer a real in-game reward claimable once per server (something even as small as an ouroborus crown crate) per trial that PTS character completes. They get a larger sample size and you get a free crown crate for 30 minutes or so of work. Cloudrest sample not good enough? Only enable it for certain trial completions. Don't want to give that many crates out? Okay only one trial and crate per PTS change cycle. You want to test PvP changes? Take a keep in Cyrodiil or obtain x amount of kills, either is fine.

They reward those crown crates for sillier things like watching twitch streams while 90% of people AFK the thing in the back ground just for the crate. I don't see why this isn't an amicable solution to allow them larger data pools in their testing grounds while providing player incentive to actually play on the PTS for just a bit of time in exchange for possible real rewards in the live servers.

jcm2606 · October 2019

They just need to be less afraid of pushing balance changes to the live servers. Looking at what the OP describes exactly, if they run out of time during the PTS, they can simply push the patch, then the next immediate maintenance, do some minor balance changes based on player feedback. They've done this in the past (Rune Cage, weapon enchants proccing off of DoT ticks, etc), there's no reason why they couldn't do it now, at least on the PC server.

As far as consoles are concerned, I do imagine there is a bit of patch QA work done by MS/Sony that slows the process down, acting as a bottleneck of sorts. This can be solved pretty easily, though. There's generally 1-2 weeks between the PC and console releases of a quarterly update, so they could use this time to push balance changes after the patch hits the live PC servers, and push the latest PC patch as of the week before the patch goes live on consoles. Console gets what PC had a week after the patch went live, with the next week's PC balance changes being pushed a week later on consoles (gives MS/Sony time to sign off on the update).

In an ideal world, this could be extended to full monthly minor balance passes that are done directly on the live servers, with the major passes being done on the PTS (minor passes basically address problems that can be addressed right now, major passes address problems that need more work to address), assuming Zenimax stops being stupid and flailing the nerf bat around like a toddler trying to hit a pinata. This would allow them to immediately address problems that crop up the moment they do (such as the overload heavy meta, buggy break free on Draining Shot, etc), while leaving the stuff that will likely *** *** up if it were to be done on the live servers, on the PTS.