Rave the Histborn wrote: »

RebornV3x wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

RebornV3x wrote: »

The problem with the people supporting these nerfs is if the top end game players are losing DPS in top end game meta gear with fully optimized builds how do you think everyone else is going to do I'll tell you they won't be doing well at all.

these nerfs never hurt the top 10% these are your HODOR's and other highly coordinated groups these guys adapt and have a close group of friends who can normally farm for gear and get it quickly.

at the same time these nerfs don't hurt the bottom 25% these are new players, the "Housing Decorator Sim 2019" people, overland questers, Roleplayers etc...

The nerfs are detrimental to everyone else in between that group that's just starting to get there feet wet in Vet Trials will now be setback people will get left out if they don't have this build or this class ect even more which will probably cause groups to disband. That CP 200-500 player just starting to get there endgame gear maybe start doing more harder content you guessed it major setback and by the time they figure it out get the gear and bam! another patch that ruins there fun and progress. These nerfs always hit the average player the hardest which is probably 60-70% of the player base.

I really feel bad for players that aren't already hitting 80k-90k+ DPS with a full coordinated group of good of friends that are gods at this game.

I don't know much about game design but what little I do know is you never progress backwards you don't want someone who has spent 1,000's of hours and 1,000's of dollars into the game just to feel weaker patch after patch and from a business stand point its just dumb. the point of a company like ZOS is to make money if people want there DPS higher than just do it...

How is any of this different from things before this patch? If they don't have the right gear they're going to get left out anyways. I also think it's really hard to believe that guilds that have been farming gear in vet dungeons and trials are all of a sudden going disband because they suddenly have the potential prospect of farming gear. That just doesn't make sense. Why would they get discouraged about farming gear that they need to go to a place where they are going to farm gear? That's what you do in an RPG, you constantly cycle gear out and in an MMO part of the life cycle is having an RNG system like this.

Not everyone is looking to be a dps god in this game. You're comparing the 1% to every player and thinking that's what they aspire to be. Most don't know and don't care. They enjoy the game they're own way. All the people pearl clutching over this patch seem to be the first people to rage over those same casuals they claim to care about when they do 5-10k DPS in a vet dungeon. The reason they do that is it's just a game, it's not their entire lives. I mean honestly guys, how many times have you seen/heard of someone that didn't know how to leave Cyrodiil? Do you really think those guys are scanning every patch note for every change or do you think they're looking at the new zone and gong "Oh Sai Sahan! Oh Dragons!"

There's a difference between feeling weaker patch after patch and being weaker patch after patch, it's not the same thing. ZOS and every other game company also doesn't care if you spend thousands of hours on their game. It's your time and your choice to do that. If you're spending $1000s you're also owed no favors. A fool and his money are easily parted and if that's how you choose to spend your money well you got what you got, you're not entitled to more. The point of the company is to put out a product they want that makes money, it's not to appeal to every person that "doesn't know much about game design" that wants to have a say in it. That's not how anything works.

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

RebornV3x wrote: »

The problem with the people supporting these nerfs is if the top end game players are losing DPS in top end game meta gear with fully optimized builds how do you think everyone else is going to do I'll tell you they won't be doing well at all.

these nerfs never hurt the top 10% these are your HODOR's and other highly coordinated groups these guys adapt and have a close group of friends who can normally farm for gear and get it quickly.

at the same time these nerfs don't hurt the bottom 25% these are new players, the "Housing Decorator Sim 2019" people, overland questers, Roleplayers etc...

The nerfs are detrimental to everyone else in between that group that's just starting to get there feet wet in Vet Trials will now be setback people will get left out if they don't have this build or this class ect even more which will probably cause groups to disband. That CP 200-500 player just starting to get there endgame gear maybe start doing more harder content you guessed it major setback and by the time they figure it out get the gear and bam! another patch that ruins there fun and progress. These nerfs always hit the average player the hardest which is probably 60-70% of the player base.

I really feel bad for players that aren't already hitting 80k-90k+ DPS with a full coordinated group of good of friends that are gods at this game.

I don't know much about game design but what little I do know is you never progress backwards you don't want someone who has spent 1,000's of hours and 1,000's of dollars into the game just to feel weaker patch after patch and from a business stand point its just dumb. the point of a company like ZOS is to make money if people want there DPS higher than just do it...

How is any of this different from things before this patch? If they don't have the right gear they're going to get left out anyways. I also think it's really hard to believe that guilds that have been farming gear in vet dungeons and trials are all of a sudden going disband because they suddenly have the potential prospect of farming gear. That just doesn't make sense. Why would they get discouraged about farming gear that they need to go to a place where they are going to farm gear? That's what you do in an RPG, you constantly cycle gear out and in an MMO part of the life cycle is having an RNG system like this.

Not everyone is looking to be a dps god in this game. You're comparing the 1% to every player and thinking that's what they aspire to be. Most don't know and don't care. They enjoy the game they're own way. All the people pearl clutching over this patch seem to be the first people to rage over those same casuals they claim to care about when they do 5-10k DPS in a vet dungeon. The reason they do that is it's just a game, it's not their entire lives. I mean honestly guys, how many times have you seen/heard of someone that didn't know how to leave Cyrodiil? Do you really think those guys are scanning every patch note for every change or do you think they're looking at the new zone and gong "Oh Sai Sahan! Oh Dragons!"

There's a difference between feeling weaker patch after patch and being weaker patch after patch, it's not the same thing. ZOS and every other game company also doesn't care if you spend thousands of hours on their game. It's your time and your choice to do that. If you're spending $1000s you're also owed no favors. A fool and his money are easily parted and if that's how you choose to spend your money well you got what you got, you're not entitled to more. The point of the company is to put out a product they want that makes money, it's not to appeal to every person that "doesn't know much about game design" that wants to have a say in it. That's not how anything works.

To respond to your first question "how is any of this different from things before this patch?" I will explain in simple terms

LESS DPS > MORE Time to kill > MORE Mechanics > MORE margin for error = people being a lot more selective in the people and builds there willing to take into harder content. Which alienates a large part of the player base.

So either join the meta and fotm builds or gtfo I guess is what you want. Not saying every build needs to be able to be viable for endgame but lowering dps across the board further pigeonholes people into certain builds or don't even show up mentality.

We were all new players at one time or another lower dps just makes another barrier for entry

not everyone is aspiring to be in the top 1% of god tier players and that's fine and they shouldn't have to be but at the same time not everyone is just doing normal fungal 1 everyday and killing dragons eventually if you play the game long enough you might wanna try harder stuff maybe a guildmate or friend has a cool title or dungeon skin that you yourself might want to get well if your not already at that level already low dps is going to make the climb to get to that level of play that much harder than it needs to be.

the gear cycle and gear grind its a staple of what MMO are all about while it would be inconvenient to have level cap increases ever 2 years or so like WOW for example but that's a whole other discussion its better than ZOS just deciding to on a whim to nerf this or that for no reason every 3 months Just to grind gear to get back to where I was last patch.

Again, how is this dps different from any other patch? People are always selective in their players and builds for trials, this didn't all of a sudden spring up with the newest patch and anyone that regularly does this content has already adapted to stuff like this before.

So either join the meta and fotm builds or gtfo I guess is what you want

Before the patch everyone used the same sets. After the patch everyone used the same sets. I don't dictate the meta, the trials guilds and people running them do. Don't *** because the players that this affects are the min max dps and not the regular players.

We were all new players at one time or another lower dps just makes another barrier for entry

We were all new players that had to work to whatever the meta was and changed to. Everyone does this and using it as an excuse isn't going to work.
Not everything is a barrier to entry lol if you're a dps and all of a sudden you lose a little bit of dps and you can't compensate for it then you probably weren't that great in your group anyways. You don't make your end game population healthy by buoying them up in your content.

not everyone is aspiring to be in the top 1% of god tier players and that's fine and they shouldn't have to be but at the same time not everyone is just doing normal fungal 1 everyday and killing dragons eventually if you play the game long enough you might wanna try harder stuff maybe a guildmate or friend has a cool title or dungeon skin that you yourself might want to get well if your not already at that level already low dps is going to make the climb to get to that level of play that much harder than it needs to be.

Ok so what you're saying is if you want something like a title, or a skin, something associated with achievements is locked behind content it should be lowered so you can get it? If you can't do the mechanics then the DPS isn't going to matter. This is why I don't care and it's what everyone's argument is based on.
"There's stuff in this game that I want but I don't want to work for it or keep having to maintain at my level. Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme."

Sorry that's not how life works.

The reason WoW has to increase level cap (to ridiculous levels might I add) is BECAUSE they don't have a very functional gear cycle/grind and because none of their *** ever gets nerfed. When you get to end game raids you get Tiered Class gear. Every tier is a step up from the last and more meta then the last and is class specific so every player of that lvl of end game uses that same armor set. If they didn't change things up constantly WoW would have ended 10 years ago.

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

It's only worked to dig Average Joes a grave.

The average player is (basically) unaffected.

The "average joes," just got a huge DoT and AoE buff six months ago that pushed them well above what they'd been at. Then that buff got walked back a bit, and they're crying about how they'll never be able to play, even though they're in a better place than they were at before Elsweyr dropped.

Exactly, dots aren't supposed to be a point click and die mechanic in this game. They're meant to supplement your direct damage and weaving. All that happened was part of the population that wasn't fully ready for trials (geared but unable to properly rotate and weave) got into content they weren't supposed to be in yet.

Vahrokh wrote: »

I've played the game and read my 5 guilds chats. 3 of them are for trading, 1 is a social PvE guild, one is "dedicated" PvE.

Well, for the first time I have seen "randoms" (those that the balance devs consider spending their happy time randomly killing dragons and stuff) complaining so much.
Usually, you see "activist" forum posters, PvPers, Youtubers and similar to complain about nerfs and similar.

Average Random Joes do not read the forums, do not read the ESO blog, do not watch videos. They just login, queue for some normal and vet keys and so on.
Well, for the first time even Random Joes are frustrated. Especially magicka players.
Now their class is just non functional any more. It's not enough to flip a couple of skills, re - re - re - re - re "adapt" the 1000th gear set and rotation.

This time basic gameplay blocks have just ceased to function. In my personal case I have used liquid lightning (or splash) since beta. It's even a more foundation class identiy skill than crystal fragments. And... voilà... it's gone. Fi-ni-shed. If you are so stupid to still use it, you are just a waste, you really want to place <generic faceless skill xyz> in its place.
But it's not just that. For the first time in 5 years I had to trash everything (including Maelstrom weapon) and grind a fire set. Because either you go all out NO AoE NO Dot fire spec, or you are just a piece of unmitigated garbage to your team. It's a 180° gameplay change enforced on you.

Sustain? Even worse. I completely hate fire specs, I adapted to heavy attack builds long ago. But now, even an heavy attack at every rotation is not enough any more!

This is not just "felt" by me. I actually run trials 80% of the time, so I am going to use potions, foods and have full healers support on that.

But this weighs heavily on those who do not run trials like me. The Random Jones. Until yesterday they could solo some stuff, now they ceased to.
2 rotations and they are out of magicka and die. Are people meant to buy tripots, golden food and maybe have an healbot follow them to just do random stuff outside of a trial?

The sustain nerf has been way too harsh.

"But you can slot regen enchants blah blah blah". Hell yeah! If only everybody had to. But no, classes that were already prevalent at top DPS, mainly stamina based, don't need any sacrifice. They parsed 100k 2 days ago and they'll parse top DPS tomorrow.
The others, who were behind to begin with (despite having to use melee Zaan set and sit at melee range to get healers buffs), now will be even more behind.

But this matters little to Random Joe.

What matters Random Joe is that now he gets kicked out of veteran dungeons (especially DLC) because now he just passed the thresold between "he's average but OK enough" and "no way, his DPS is way too low".

Actually, this whole post has been created because I precisely read on guild chat of a couple of guys experiencing exactly this.

Random Joe does not have the time or money to always get "no compromise" gold food, so he goes purple and his health (regen food) is too low now.

Meanwhile, the rich raider, goes all out golded, has full healers support everywhere and his DPS is still vastly enough to finish any kind of content (bar vSS timed run).

ZOS has landed low blows to a lot of people in the last 2 years, but this time they are hard hitting the majority, not just the "min-maxers-who-cry-at-losing-100-DPS".

It's like they have two teams:

• content production developers, constantly working hard to deliver better and more gorgeous looking new regions, quests etc.
• game balance developers, paid to discourage everyone, to remove fun (who finds fun to double heavy attack at each rotation?), remove class identity, remove flavour.

It's absurd.

starkerealm wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

It's only worked to dig Average Joes a grave.

The average player is (basically) unaffected.

The "average joes," just got a huge DoT and AoE buff six months ago that pushed them well above what they'd been at. Then that buff got walked back a bit, and they're crying about how they'll never be able to play, even though they're in a better place than they were at before Elsweyr dropped.

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

I've played the game and read my 5 guilds chats. 3 of them are for trading, 1 is a social PvE guild, one is "dedicated" PvE.

Well, for the first time I have seen "randoms" (those that the balance devs consider spending their happy time randomly killing dragons and stuff) complaining so much.
Usually, you see "activist" forum posters, PvPers, Youtubers and similar to complain about nerfs and similar.

Average Random Joes do not read the forums, do not read the ESO blog, do not watch videos. They just login, queue for some normal and vet keys and so on.
Well, for the first time even Random Joes are frustrated. Especially magicka players.
Now their class is just non functional any more. It's not enough to flip a couple of skills, re - re - re - re - re "adapt" the 1000th gear set and rotation.

This time basic gameplay blocks have just ceased to function. In my personal case I have used liquid lightning (or splash) since beta. It's even a more foundation class identiy skill than crystal fragments. And... voilà... it's gone. Fi-ni-shed. If you are so stupid to still use it, you are just a waste, you really want to place <generic faceless skill xyz> in its place.
But it's not just that. For the first time in 5 years I had to trash everything (including Maelstrom weapon) and grind a fire set. Because either you go all out NO AoE NO Dot fire spec, or you are just a piece of unmitigated garbage to your team. It's a 180° gameplay change enforced on you.

Sustain? Even worse. I completely hate fire specs, I adapted to heavy attack builds long ago. But now, even an heavy attack at every rotation is not enough any more!

This is not just "felt" by me. I actually run trials 80% of the time, so I am going to use potions, foods and have full healers support on that.

But this weighs heavily on those who do not run trials like me. The Random Jones. Until yesterday they could solo some stuff, now they ceased to.
2 rotations and they are out of magicka and die. Are people meant to buy tripots, golden food and maybe have an healbot follow them to just do random stuff outside of a trial?

The sustain nerf has been way too harsh.

"But you can slot regen enchants blah blah blah". Hell yeah! If only everybody had to. But no, classes that were already prevalent at top DPS, mainly stamina based, don't need any sacrifice. They parsed 100k 2 days ago and they'll parse top DPS tomorrow.
The others, who were behind to begin with (despite having to use melee Zaan set and sit at melee range to get healers buffs), now will be even more behind.

But this matters little to Random Joe.

What matters Random Joe is that now he gets kicked out of veteran dungeons (especially DLC) because now he just passed the thresold between "he's average but OK enough" and "no way, his DPS is way too low".

Actually, this whole post has been created because I precisely read on guild chat of a couple of guys experiencing exactly this.

Random Joe does not have the time or money to always get "no compromise" gold food, so he goes purple and his health (regen food) is too low now.

Meanwhile, the rich raider, goes all out golded, has full healers support everywhere and his DPS is still vastly enough to finish any kind of content (bar vSS timed run).

ZOS has landed low blows to a lot of people in the last 2 years, but this time they are hard hitting the majority, not just the "min-maxers-who-cry-at-losing-100-DPS".

It's like they have two teams:

• content production developers, constantly working hard to deliver better and more gorgeous looking new regions, quests etc.
• game balance developers, paid to discourage everyone, to remove fun (who finds fun to double heavy attack at each rotation?), remove class identity, remove flavour.

It's absurd.

As a casual magicka-user myself, so far I'm enjoying the changes. Did my damage take a significant hit? Aye. It did. But battlegrounds and none-CP PvP has improved markedly because of it. I can still solo everything I was soloing. So frankly I don't see what the big deal is.

So as usual, this new combat team continues to impress me. This game is finally moving in the right direction after years of neglect and inept gameplay. This new team understands there is more important things to an MMORPG than MOAR DEEPS!!! which the last combat team pandered too relentlessly and to the detriment of the game as a whole.

@Vahrokh

What?????? Are you a casual player that's enjoying this game?????? Don't you know that according to the forums that you should be in a blind rage over this right now? You can still solo world bosses? Dude, you're supposed to have no sustain and all the dots you're supposed to rely on got nerfed hard. There should be no way at all that that you should be able to solo any content at all. Didnt you hear? We're all quitting this patch cuz we're inept and can't adapt.

Rungar wrote: »

if casual players are quitting its most likely that they have been poisoned in guildchats by bitter hardcores. Nothing zos ever does in a patch is earth shattering for players who quest and do normal dungeons or dabble in pvp or crafting.

i see the themes all the time but they are never accurate. People go around saying they have to change their build every 3 months due to combat changes but choose to ignore that zos content changes determines if your going to farm new sets most of the time and those content changes are every three months! Coincidence!!

they might have to change a skill or three and maybe a monster set which was already long collected. The game has always had extensive combat changes at least as long as ive played (3 years).

i dont like their approach to changes because they dont use root cause analysis and the needed changes are pretty obvious hence their changes never accomplish much but generally overall they are constantly improving the game.

seems to me theres some real effort to derail the new teams vision.

Rungar wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

Rungar wrote: »

if casual players are quitting its most likely that they have been poisoned in guildchats by bitter hardcores. Nothing zos ever does in a patch is earth shattering for players who quest and do normal dungeons or dabble in pvp or crafting.

i see the themes all the time but they are never accurate. People go around saying they have to change their build every 3 months due to combat changes but choose to ignore that zos content changes determines if your going to farm new sets most of the time and those content changes are every three months! Coincidence!!

they might have to change a skill or three and maybe a monster set which was already long collected. The game has always had extensive combat changes at least as long as ive played (3 years).

i dont like their approach to changes because they dont use root cause analysis and the needed changes are pretty obvious hence their changes never accomplish much but generally overall they are constantly improving the game.

seems to me theres some real effort to derail the new teams vision.

Look. Most MMOs do something like this. ZOS is not a pioneer at anything here.
But what you get is: an expansions comes out say once a year and it brings the new, best gear. This has been done both on vertical progression (WoW) and horizontal progression MMOs.
At the same time, the MMO would release perhaps a couple of new talents, make so that a new rotation is the new best and similar.

That's just how MMOs work: they are a live and lively, dynamic experience.

ESO used to be like this for 2 years.
However, since the previous lead game dev (now gone) joined ZOS, he started this hysteria.

First of all, they HUGELY overpower new sets / classes / skills sets that are currently for sale. I can understand a "nudge" towards selling you the new stuff, but this is not a nudgel. This is akin to ripping your arms off!

Second, you don't have 1 year to "settle down" to new gear, rotations etc. With 1 year, you actually appreciate "some fresh air" and change.
But 3 months? It's way too grindy!
I am a beta player who has done most of the possible PvE content (all except vCR + 3 and except vSS + all hm), I play hours every day and even I still don't have the full set I was meant to grind by 3 days ago!

In order to keep up with the constant need to re-gear, re-enchant and so on I should go back to when I raided in WoW for 11h a day. It's not healthy! And thanks the ES gods we can now change our traits, otherwise by today I'd only have *2* appropriate pieces of gears on my name!

Now imagine what happens to those who don't have hours a day to play, who don't have access to Perfected XXXX stuff. They keep going, try to adapt with crappy stuff but their performance flops, they are always behind, they get kicked from vet dungeons.

Is it fair for a MMO to only cater to those like me and sod off everyone else? I don't think so, and I am not alone in that!

if you were worried about lesser players you would advocate for the removal of light weaving. Your real worry is that people arent doing those activities anymore as hardcores are leaving the game and no ones replacing them.

Vahrokh wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

It's only worked to dig Average Joes a grave.

The average player is (basically) unaffected.

The "average joes," just got a huge DoT and AoE buff six months ago that pushed them well above what they'd been at. Then that buff got walked back a bit, and they're crying about how they'll never be able to play, even though they're in a better place than they were at before Elsweyr dropped.

Exactly, dots aren't supposed to be a point click and die mechanic in this game. They're meant to supplement your direct damage and weaving. All that happened was part of the population that wasn't fully ready for trials (geared but unable to properly rotate and weave) got into content they weren't supposed to be in yet.

It's not their fault if ZOS royally screwed up 6 months+ worth of expansions and patches DPS.

Imagine if in real life they decided all long time retired 75 old, suddenly are young enough to go find a job and stop paying a pension to everybody because of that.

Or if people bought a car and got driving license and then the government decides to only let 25+ old to be allowed to drive.

In all cases, you'd see a riot.

So, this would be a bad time to point out, you need to be 25 to rent a car in some states?

You missed the point where you could rent a car at 18 old until yesterday, paid for it, are travelling on it, and suddenly they raise the age to 25 and you now are left in the cold.

starkerealm wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

It's only worked to dig Average Joes a grave.

The average player is (basically) unaffected.

The "average joes," just got a huge DoT and AoE buff six months ago that pushed them well above what they'd been at. Then that buff got walked back a bit, and they're crying about how they'll never be able to play, even though they're in a better place than they were at before Elsweyr dropped.

Exactly, dots aren't supposed to be a point click and die mechanic in this game. They're meant to supplement your direct damage and weaving. All that happened was part of the population that wasn't fully ready for trials (geared but unable to properly rotate and weave) got into content they weren't supposed to be in yet.

It's not their fault if ZOS royally screwed up 6 months+ worth of expansions and patches DPS.

Imagine if in real life they decided all long time retired 75 old, suddenly are young enough to go find a job and stop paying a pension to everybody because of that.

Or if people bought a car and got driving license and then the government decides to only let 25+ old to be allowed to drive.

In all cases, you'd see a riot.

So, this would be a bad time to point out, you need to be 25 to rent a car in some states?

You missed the point where you could rent a car at 18 old until yesterday, paid for it, are travelling on it, and suddenly they raise the age to 25 and you now are left in the cold.

Then maybe you should have paid attention to the highly publicized change that we knew about well in advance of your trip, and then worked to bring your DPS up some.