Tulshe wrote: »

Ellimist_Entreri wrote: »

Without AC, your ability to react to combat would be extremely limited.

I've stated this earlier. I find it ok to cancel animation in term of interrupting your action to perform another one. But to cancel an action and still get the result of this action is not ok. It's like shooting a gun. But with just pointing it to an enemy and not pulling the trigger. But the enemy still get shot

carlos424 wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

That’s good to know. I do wonder what I am doing so very wrong. I have no aspirations to push the leaderboards, to join those of you on the ceiling, but I would like to find my way off the floor, to find someplace nice to hang out on the wall where I have the option of playing a DD in vet dungeons and pull my weight. So how does a player get there?

For builds I at least start from Alcast or others posted in this forum, with the exception that I don’t have trial DPS gear and few arena weapons, and certainly nothing perfected. CP 900+

I have no problem bar swapping and use the Action Duration Reminder add-on to make sure I keep up abilities like Critical Surge, for example. My DPS in parses and against dungeon bosses ranges from 15-28k. To my surprise, both of my mag sorc builds are on the low end of that even though I thought I had a decent rotation down. I did much better in test runs with a max crit magblade in blue gear and where I’m still working out the rotation. I was also surprised to get higher numbers with my PvP build mag warden (doing normal pledges with them for Undaunted) which is the opposite of a crit build, getting damage primarily from Bird of Prey, Advanced Species and Malacath.

I apologize if that is unneeded detail, but to me it seems diagnostic, that my numbers depend on individual attacks hitting hard one way or another. That is why I thought my general underlying problem must be a failure to properly attack weave. I should very much like to know what I am doing wrong.

Hardly the thread to go into detail about what you could be missing...

That’s true, but reading through all the comments in this thread I am skeptical that the problem isn’t LA weaving. It seems that timing it just so makes a big difference in DPS and is a major thing that most players not completely new are aware of but many will not have mastered because there really isn’t in-game feedback that you’re getting it (not that I’m aware of) and seems much more tedious than fun, at least in my opinion. I’d rather timing or combining of different skills be the factor or just situational awareness, rather than clicking the same button just so between every skill. 🤔

Youre clicking buttons anyway. What’s one more? Lol. Plus there are so many sets that require a light attack or heavy attacks to proc, plus ultimate regeneration, etc. Even if you are not a good light attack weaver, or anti-light attack-weaving, you should still be trying to use them with regularity while in combat. With that in mind, why not just try to do them between each skill?

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Goregrinder wrote: »

Those who spend time developing a skill should always be rewarded by being better at that skill than someone who does not take the same time to develop it. Lowering the skill ceiling basically tells us that they don't want people to spend time getting good...that a fresh CP 160 toon will have the same level of success as someone who has played since beta.

You can 'lower the ceiling' without lowering the skill ceiling. Reducing the results you get from Absolute BIS Gear & Skill, isn't the same as removing the skill that's needed to get those numbers. If your perfect rotation & build gets you twice the DPS needed to clear the highest content, rather than 4x the DPS needed, you still needed your perfect build, rotation, and skill to get there, and a bad player still won't match it.


(When the range of DPS between bad players & top players gets too wide, it causes problems with even being able to design & balance new content. That can be seen in games like Star Trek Online, where low-end players might make 10k DPS, and the best players in the "DPS League" are pushing 500k.)

You're saying you can lower the skill ceiling without lowering the skill ceiling? Or what other ceiling is there besides the skill ceiling?

DPS =/= Skill

If your Perfect Skill (build, gear, rotation, timing, positioning, etc) gets you 100k DPS.

And they change the numbers so that your Perfect Skill gets you 50k DPS.

The ceiling has been lowered (50K is smaller than 100K), but the skill required was still the same.


Of course, figuring out how to reduce the numbers gained from all those perfect buffs/synergies/combos/etc without reducing what happens from basic skill, is the challenge.

This makes absolutely no sense (or maybe I am just not understanding what you are saying). This game is a Skill game when it comes to DPS. Of the 5 things you mentioned, the first two arent skill based (perhaps they are knowledge based), and the last three are potentially skill based (not sure if there is much difference between timing and rotation). Rotation is certainly skill based and of the things you mentioned, it is the biggest piece of the pie (bigger than the other 4 put together).

If all you do is reduce damage by 50%, sure you could lower the elite DPS from 100k to 50k, but you would also shrink the those doing 10k down to 5k. From a percent standpoint, the gap hasnt changed. In that example, the gap is still 10x.

They only way to truly lower the gap between those at the bottom and those at the top is to make ROTATION less impactful. The other things are drops in the bucket. The issue of course, how do you make Rotation less impactful without gutting combat.

@Oreyn_Bearclaw Add more situational buffs, bonus synergies, if you will.

These would still require reaction time and would allow bonus damage in the right context. Plenty of other games have figured out how to make 'skill checks' that require the player to interact without the need for memorization of a perfect rotation.

Witcher, God of War, Atlas, heck even Dead by Daylight all have skill check windows that require player presence at the time of the check - not possible to memorize the timing, key press required, etc to accomplish the check result. (Think Combat Metronome, but the red portion isn't always in the same place at the same time.) Slottable perks and now CP could be invested that would lessen this effect directly (making the window bigger, or the moving portion slower) for players that do not have the physical ability to hit that perfect rotation mark. It would still allow high end to be higher because someone would have to opt to slot one of those perks, missing out on another that a high end player would be able to maintain because of their personal ability.

Our characters are supposed to have skill levels the players cannot. I can't walk into a crowd of 10 people, pick a fight, and hold them all off indefinitely with my IRL tanking skills. This is what the in game bonuses are intended to help counter. Perks to improve or at least soften the effect of rotation timing would go a long way in that regard.

I'd also like to see the skill overwrite of LA's go away. There is zero need for the ability queue in regard to LA's. This alone would allow people to more successfully LA between skills regardless of ping rate and other factors to achieve that higher DPS. It would take nothing away from the high end, because a perfectly timed rotation (higher LA ratio, ~ .9) would still outperform a less perfectly performed rotation (.7, .8), but the ratio wouldn't suddenly drop to 40-60% because the game is designed to overwrite the LA's because of the queue.

The LA could be part of the skill check window, rewarding higher DPS with a perfectly timed response, slightly less DPS with a less than perfectly timed response, if some kind of actual feedback (other than "your LA didn't go off for some arbitrary reason") was built into the game.

There are ways to do this that still reward the young, skilled, fast reaction times without cutting out everyone else with higher ping, lesser rigs, age, medical conditions, etc, because the character skills and perks could help compensate for this while still providing that gap between beginner-mid-high-l33t.

I'm sure those systems work great in single player games where all you have to balance is one player fighting multiple NPC's. ESO, however, is not a single player game. It's a Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing game, or MMORPG, sometimes referred to as simply an MMO.

You now have multiple players involved when fighting NPCs, and you even have players fighting against other players. On top of that ESO uses an action based combat system that incorporates elements of traditional MMORPG's that came before it, such as buffs, debuffs, spells, etc.

That's already like 4 or 5 extra layers you have to balance compared to a single player game. I don't know why people still use the argument "Well Zelda Ocarina of Time was a well balanced game, I don't know why the developers of Star Citizen don't balance it the same way....it worked for Zelda!...". That argument didn't make sense to me back in 1998, and it still does not make sense to me here in 2021.

@Goregrinder two of the four I mentioned are not single player games.

It's not much different than a synergy, but with a limited window. The only additional check would be the perks mentioned, which would most certainly be required to be slotted, so the server side check is either required or it's not, and it's no more processor intensive than any other 1 of 4 perk check.

It actually adds something dynamic to the fight, vs the combat equivalent of typing in a 15-20 letter word with perfect cadence.

nqvarihs wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

2. I actually would love to have online tutorial or at least a company statement from ZOS stating clearly that LA EXPLOIT, which is doing LA weaving (a VALID light attack ever other second in front of each skill) in the SAME SECOND AS A SKILL effectively getting TWO actions in ONE second, is something that they think is positive to the game and also want people to learn, and give us training on it AT THAT POINT, until they state this explicitly it is an exploit that I WILL NOT DO ON PURPOSE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThZtwhYkKSs


LA/HA tests

Combat in ESO is one of the things that truly separates our game from others like it. It’s action oriented, fast-paced, and gives you a lot of freedom over its various mechanics/interactions. It is balanced not with ability cooldowns, but via ability costs and resource pools - you can’t keep casting abilities or block/roll dodge without the proper resources to fuel those actions. We’ve found that players love this freedom and there is always a “button to press” or action to take at any point in combat.

High APM play is still rewarded as the absolute highest DPS and requires a mix of both Light and Heavy attacks, interacting with Off-Balance as optimally as possible.

[snip]

[Edited for Baiting]

& where's the level up tooltip that explains to a new player why their light attacks don't go off?

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

Alurria wrote: »

Hmm, reading your post a thought occured to me. If they got rid of the LA weaving they could introduce buffs specific to a dungeon only useable in that dungeon trial etc. Just throwing that out there. You would get a buff from a npc in the dungeon or trial and it would last as long as you are in there. I'm just speculating of course. But I digress I think horizontal progress is possible. You either have to lower the ceiling or raise the floor more. As far as weaving if it wasn't something they originally intended I wouldn't expect them to actually teach people how to do it. That wouldn't be logical. Leaving it in game is another matter that has created the situation as it is now a large gap. There maybe that 1%who will always be on top but there are a whole bunch in the middle who don't want to be left behind. So something has to give right? People play to have fun that is the main point fun is defined differently for different people. Truly I don't want homework to have to play a game. This is just my perspective on the issue.

Zos doesnt really teach anything in Eso. This is not limited to weaving. Zos doesnt even teach you that stam costing abilites scale with weapon damage/max stam only.

And again: Weaving hasnt created the situation with floor and ceiling as it is now. The gap is created by lack of knowledge on how to set up a character optimally. One example: 2 people parse. Player 1 runs a BiS build for PvE dps. While he misses 40% of LAs and recasts some dots late he still hits decent numbers. Player 2 runs ebon, lord warden and Salvation. He hits every light attack and executes a perfect rotation. He will still be several 1000s of dps behind Player 1.

Why does something have to give? The middle can easily achieve a level of performance to be able to clear nearly everything comfortably. They might not get the trifectas or the dps check on the last boss in Sunspire hardmode but vet trials can easily be done without being at the top. Also what do you define as the middle here? Everything between the floor and ceiling still has potential to have massive gaps between them.

And sure people play to have fun. No one forces anyone to do homework when playing the game. But when one enters certain group content it is not unreasonable for the rest of the group to expect that 1 guy to be able to perform at the required level. This mostly applies to vet content tho. But if people dont care about rising from the floor why should the ceiling be lowered to meet them? The floor doesnt care.

Those arguments are absurd and you're taking floor and ceiling a bit too literally.

Nothing in game will nor should compensate for the mix and match you speak of. No half serious DPS is trying to do so in Ebon & Warden. The gap, the real 'floor' in discussion is the mid tier. It's still the vast difference between people with the right gear, trying like hell to apply everything they know, everything they've reasonably learned in the game and still seeing a tremendous difference between the mid tier 'floor' and the high tier 'ceiling.'

If it was so blatantly obvious, if it was so easily attainable, there would not be the extremes between two people wearing otherwise identical gear.

It's like training to race a car. You put in hours every single day for years and you hit a certain limit. You're still far behind the top end drivers, only to find out the manufacturer never bothered to mention you had a whole extra gear. The tooltip stating "drive faster" simply doesn't cut it.

If there was decent in game feedback identifying where person A was falling short vs person B, it would then be strictly on the person to improve at that point.

That feedback is all but non-existent. There are no trainers. There are no advanced or role specific tutorials. There are all but useless level up tips and unintuitive gameplay. If not for a handful of add ons and some seriously dedicated people that have spent years reversing this game, we'd all still be guessing 90% of the time.

The difference this is truly about regards those low to mid-tier that are trying to improve, that are doing their homework, that are more than willing to put in the time. It takes far more than a written guide and a couple of videos or the gap there currently is simply would not be as high as it continues to be.

The actual 'floor' probably doesn't care. That is not the people that are being affected.

I would certainly not be opposed to better player tutorials, but I also believe in a little self accountability. It’s 2021. There is a thing called google. Plenty of very detailed guides on how to pull proper damage and anyone can make the choice to actually spend the time on a target dummy, which gives all the feedback you need. Admittedly, consoles could do better in that department. I also agree that the mid tier to the ceiling is the only gap you can meaningfully manage, but most of those stuck in the mid tier don’t put in the practice time to get better.

You don’t need a perfect rotation or LA weave for any content in this game, but if you practice and master it, you should be rewarded with more damage.

How much more damage is appropriate at the extreme end of things is certainly debatable from a balance perspective, but the flip side is that that there are way too many people that copy a build refuse to parse more than a handful of times and rage about the skill gap. Or maybe I should say damage gap. Most mid tier players won’t acknowledge their own skill limitations.

Tulshe wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Combat is fast, reactive and skill based.

All of this can be achieved without turning a man into metronome using glitches. Remove the ability to fish out free damage from animation canceling and the combat system will still be "fast, reactive and skill based".

Ellimist_Entreri wrote: »

It doesn't take twitch reflexes or metronome like precision to click your left mouse button (or hit the attack trigger on controller) just before you use an ability; only the desire to do so.