Start Date: July 2018
Experience: CP1150
Pre-High Isle: 40k dps average
Post High Isle: 60k dps average
Activities Pre High Isle: Normal Dungeons, Questing, Overland
Activities Post High Isle: Vet DLC Dungeons, Normal Trials, Solo Arena progression

Back in December 2021, I left the game. I was so dissatisfied and discouraged that I would never complete the content I wanted to do. I could not make it through a Vet DLC Dungeon without being carried hard by a great tank and 2 other DPS with heals. I could not weave effectively to save my life but worse than that, I could not manage a rotation and would constantly run out of Stam or Mag depending on character.

Fast forward to 2022. I see a trailer on Youtube for the new Chapter release of High Isle. I start researching what changes are coming in this new year. I see a few of the content creators talking about the new gear sets and a mythic named Oakensoul. After more content became available regarding Oakensoul, I became intrigued to give the game another shot as maybe 1 bar worth of skills would be easier to manage while not being a total drain for a 4 person group or 12 person trial group.

Sure enough, I farmed the leads and did all the things and waited for lock box respawns till the cows came home, multiple times. Finally got the ring and crafted the new Orders Wrath set to pair with my already gold Deadly Strike set. WOW! I could actually kill stuff now....and not die 10 times in the process. I still could not complete Vet Maelstrom Arena as stage 7 is still kicking my butt. However, I did complete normal Maelstrom for the first time. I completed White Gold Tower on Vet Hard Mode along with Imperial City Prison and Ruins of Mazz for my first Vet DLC Dungeon clears. Granted, I was still the lowest DPS on the team but I was contributing, I wasn't a liability anymore.

So when patch notes were released for the next update and I saw Oakensoul was nerfed pretty harshly, I had to check it out. I downloaded the PTS and created my character and began my testing. Ouch!! Even an unskilled player like me could tell the difference and my weaving sucks so I know it was not the Light Attack nerf I was feeling. I am not much of a parse person so I went to Deshaan where I like to run the Public Dungeons for XP. The mobs took almost twice as long to kill and the boss' were actually a challenge, not saying that is a bad thing but for a CP1150 with all Gold Gear, should they really be that tough in Deshaan? A WB that I can solo on Live server was not solo-able for me on PTS.

On the PTS, I was pretty much right back to where I was in December of last year, only difference was...I am now on 1 bar vs 2 bars. But what is the point if there is no difference? My skill gap to experienced players only went backwards despite the other changes.

My thoughts and proposals...As it stands on the Live Server, Oakensoul in PVE content, is still 30k-40k less than a traditional 2 bar set up when a skilled player is doing the parse and testing. Oakensoul is not OP in PVE. As I understand it, the issue is with how strong it is in PVP, which I very rarely ever play. So why punish PVE players? Why not just remove Oakensoul from PVP altogether or reduce its buffs to what you want when a person enters PVP content. I think I read somewhere that Battle Spirit is something that exists in one but not the other so why not tie the buffs to that? If PVP, use this set of buffs...but if PVE then use the original set buffs.

As it stands right now, the first week of PTS, you have only widened the skill gap you said you wanted to make closer. Another part of this is the longer DoT length. Sure it seems great in theory, less actions per minutes and all but what it really does is encourage more spammable attacks which drain your resources even faster than a slow rotation with 2 bars. So that again, widens the skill gap.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we want to follow up on the conversations around the U35 combat changes. First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback. We have been reading your feedback and reviewing the testing data since PTS launched earlier this week, and we are continuing that process. We are exploring some adjustments based on testing findings for PTS week 3 and beyond. We’ll share details about those next week.

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue our testing on the PTS - please keep the hands-on feedback coming.

Thanks Kevin! Hopefully we get some good changes, everyone wants the game to head in a productive direction. I hope we see that in Week 3!

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we want to follow up on the conversations around the U35 combat changes. First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback. We have been reading your feedback and reviewing the testing data since PTS launched earlier this week, and we are continuing that process. We are exploring some adjustments based on testing findings for PTS week 3 and beyond. We’ll share details about those next week.

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue our testing on the PTS - please keep the hands-on feedback coming.

Not really interested in adjustments to pts week 1. Start with u34 and go from there.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for the combat changes in Update 35. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:[/i]

• Light and Heavy Attacks
  • Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?
    Yes. After doing some Overland and Parsing for several hours, LA/HA felt like noodles. They remain just as important as ever because of Weaving and set stacks, they just feel unrewarding for doing so because they do no damage.
    • If you did, was it better or worse in your experience?
      Absolutely felt worse.
      
    • What activities did you primarily feel the differences in, if any (parsing, dungeons, overland, dueling)? Please feel free to include before and after images of metrics on data, such as combat logs, to showcase your point.
      LA Weaving was less impactful damage-wise, but still just as important. If I didn't weave, I lost a huge amount of damage, and any stacking sets were useless - given that many stacking sets are the premier DPS sets in this game (i.e. Relequen) weaving has lost no significance, it just feels worse to do.
      
      Spoiler for parse images
      Here's my Live parse from Deadlands. I found Deadly to be equivalent to Kinras later, and so switched because Oceanic Ping made keeping stacks of Kinras up sucky, but didn't save that CMX
      
      
      
      Here's a parse from the PTS in the set-up I continued to use, except swapping Light Slimecraw hat for Medium Slimecraw hat
      
      
      
      That is a visible 15k DPS loss. When you account for the ~15-18% buff the dummy received, thats a 25-28k DPS loss.
      
      And here are my 2 best parses on the PTS - Jabs vs Rapid Strikes, both at 107k (I'm dissapointed that Rapid Strikes is even close to Jabs). I don't have this set-up for Live, so can't show the comparison.
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
    • Do you feel like Light and Heavy Attacks still provide meaningful impact to your play experience after the adjustments? Please explain your reasoning.
    
    
    Beating a dead horse, yes, LA weaving is still impactful, it just feels worse.
• Damage over Time
  • Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?
    Yes. I had to adjust all my rotations. In any situation where the target moved, there were 3 categories of DoT's worth casting:
    1. Single Target 'sticky' DoTs
    2. DoT's that stayed on the player, i.e. Solar Barrage
    3. Elemental Wall, because Maelstrom Staff
  • If you did, was it better or worse in your experience?
    
    Worse. Having to relearn everything is a pain already, but then the DoT timings weren't even consistent because some DoT's changed, some didn't, some were still affected by duration passives (i.e. Enduring Rays passive from Templar Dawn's Wrath tree)
    
  • What activities did you primarily feel the differences in, if any (parsing, dungeons, overland, dueling)? Please feel free to include before and after images of metrics on data, such as combat logs, to showcase your point.
  
  On dummy parsing, I found myself staring at my bar more than normal because I had to switch to dynamic rotations to get the best results. In overland, as I've stated, very few DoT's were worth casting. It was usually easier to just line my bar with Fighter's Guild and Jab away
  
• After the balance changes, did you make changes to the amount of Damage over Time abilities your build utilized? Please explain any reasoning.
  
  Yes. Compared to Live, since I changed the spammable I used to a Stamina morph, I could slot more DoTs for dummy parsing. Not that it feels rewarding - I feel punished for being a Magplar and needing to switch to Biting Jabs from Puncturing Sweeps to get the same levels of damage.

[*] Healing over Time

• Did you notice these adjustments on the PTS while playing?
  Not as much. I haven't got a group to run Vet Trials with on the PTS. Overland doesn't need heals to begin with
  • If you did, was it better or worse in your experience?
    It felt worse, because it felt sluggish. 2s ticks felt very slow when my health is low
  • After the balance changes, did you make changes to the amount of Healing over Time abilities your build utilized? Please explain any reasoning.
    No. There aren't enough HoT's to even do that in the first place - I already run 4 (Illustrious, Extended Ritual, Orb, Radiating), and 5 if I'm running Powerful Assault. There aren't any other HoT's I can add, except Ring of Preservation

Since they want structured feedback. The damage nerfs I don't particularly mind (excluding the significantly added difficulty for the latest trials since they were designed with higher damage levels in mind - or do ZoS have a recording of them completing vDSR/vRG HM in this new patch?). Apart from making Jabs easier to weave, I despise the changes. It feels so limp now, and the slidy spear on the third strike looks absolutely ridiculous [snip] animation wise - I would have been so happy if you'd just left it as is and sped up the animation to match the actual channel time, or even to it's new channel time.

What I'm worried about is HoT's. PvE encounters aren't designed around players healing from 2s HoT's. Literally too much damage is taken far too fast for that to be tenable.

[edited for bashing]

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Yep. For sure. Numbers may change. In either direction… so things may even get worse than week one.

Yes, this is the amount of trust I have in the combat team. (And we all know where this reference is from).

[snip]

This is not an encouraging response.

If you are an ESO player who was waiting to see if the U35 combat changes would more or less go through or if ZOS would reverse course...

This response from ZOS means they are going through. Perhaps with minor changes. It is happening. RIP.

Only thing that would truly right this ship is a full-scale 180 and some indication from the combat devs that they get it. Not adjustments to the changes.

[Edited for Discussion of Moderation Action]

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we want to follow up on the conversations around the U35 combat changes. First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback. We have been reading your feedback and reviewing the testing data since PTS launched earlier this week, and we are continuing that process. We are exploring some adjustments based on testing findings for PTS week 3 and beyond. We’ll share details about those next week.

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue our testing on the PTS - please keep the hands-on feedback coming.

i definitely plan on keeping track of changes

suggestions i would probably give would be:

• completely revert the dot changes to tick rates, or straight up triple their dmg output from where they are
• completely revert the hot changes to tick rates
• do like 4 more passes on the class skill changes so its not a nerfhammer across the board

based on what ive seen from previous PTS there still is the chance stuff could change, but everything as it is now does not look promising, and honestly major changes like this need longer than a 5 week pts cycle, especially if you only do major changes every 2 weeks, thats why so much stuff has been releasing as a hot mess (looking at all the bugs that released with high isle launch)

i would rather a 9 week pts cycle instead of a 6 week as there is more chance to get out a more finished product, i can guarantee as consumers people are getting tired of every company releasing shoddy games (real world references such as the cyberpunk release, fallout 76 release, etc) these games are coming from high end studios but are releasing an extremely buggy D-rated product

its stuff like that which makes me glad i dont always buy and play any brand new games at launch, for most games i end up waiting like 1-3 years before i end up playing it (partially cause a lot of my time is in ESO and partially because many games in the past several years have had extremely poor releases)

i have been playing this game for 8 years and seen the big meta swings (and glad i dont really chase the meta) but in the time ive been here this is one of the biggest flat across the board nerfs ive ever seen, last year was when i first started really doing vet trials more since my main dps toons can reach about 50-60k in a trial group scenario and i feel like i can contribute more instead of feeling carried

Has anyone at ZOS explained how a Mag DK can be anything other than instant cannon fodder in Cyrodiil? DOTs are worthless in PVP now. The Light Attacks and Heavy Attacks are close to worthless now, even with Molten Armaments. Light Armor continues to be nothing more than a death sentence. Is this update the one where ZOS effectively pushes all Mag DKs to Heavy Armor Stam DKs because they have absolutely no idea how to make Mag DKs viable in PVP?

siddique wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

siddique wrote: »

It has come to this point that a random post by a forum admin gets half the community going "thank you, Kevin." While nothing personal against poor Kevin, but this is still terrible. Adjustments to PTS1? No. These changes need to be reverted. You (and not you as in you personally, but you as in the company) needs to come out and accept that these changes were NOT thought through.

Your arguments and your actions don't align. Have that basic courtesy, and rethink your future course of action.

I don't think it's fair to rail on Kevin because he drew the short straw in responding to Feedback, however vaguely it was. Last PTS We didn't get any responses whatsoever on anything just the patch notes each week. I stand by what I said, I hope the game moves in productive direction, it's clear that Week 1 Patch Notes are moving ESO in a bad Direction and I hope Zos will listen and redirect.

We'll just have to wait and see, but chances are, like @Pevey says we're most likely to see these changes going live, I hope they don't, I'll probably take a hard pass for a while if they do, but I'll be sticking around to give feedback to try to get Zos to swing the other way.

siddique wrote: »

While nothing personal against poor Kevin, but this is still terrible.

I read it and I agree with you, this is more of a response of me being a "Thank you Kevin" and not a Yelling at Kevin

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we want to follow up on the conversations around the U35 combat changes. First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback. We have been reading your feedback and reviewing the testing data since PTS launched earlier this week, and we are continuing that process. We are exploring some adjustments based on testing findings for PTS week 3 and beyond. We’ll share details about those next week.

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue our testing on the PTS - please keep the hands-on feedback coming.

This is a completely inadequate response. "Adjustments" are wholly insufficient. You can not proceeded with this combat design direction. Not at all. An apology and a complete retraction is the only way forward.

Mr_Stach wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, we want to follow up on the conversations around the U35 combat changes. First, thanks to everyone who have tested the changes and provided detailed and constructive hands-on feedback. We have been reading your feedback and reviewing the testing data since PTS launched earlier this week, and we are continuing that process. We are exploring some adjustments based on testing findings for PTS week 3 and beyond. We’ll share details about those next week.

We also ask that players please keep in mind that PTS is a test server. Numbers presented in PTS1 are often different than what appears in PTS5. Keeping this in mind, we’ll continue to review feedback and make adjustments as needed.

Thanks for your continued patience as we continue our testing on the PTS - please keep the hands-on feedback coming.

Thanks Kevin! Hopefully we get some good changes, everyone wants the game to head in a productive direction. I hope we see that in Week 3!

The only "good changes" would be no changes as IMO they're not needed at this point and the dev team should go with their original plan of small buffs and nerfs instead of the sweeping large changes that they committed not to do recently.

I like increasing dot duration to mitigate stacking dot abilities. But the gameplay is largely the same right? You still buff, dot, spam, repeat...but now you just spam a whole lot more before you dot/buff again. The game needs new abilities that are cooldown-based, proc-based, or specific class-based resources and mechanics, like necromancer corpses.

Everything in ESO plays the same, just different numbers, names, and animations. The dots and buffs are easier to manage now, but that just exacerbates the issue of how horrible spammables work towards interesting combat; why would I feel spamming the same ability even more now, with its dated animation, is engaging or exciting?

Again, this patch has great direction, but these changes just make the game easier while also making it more repetitive and mundane by creating a more spammy playstyle. There's a lack of variety of ability types (cooldowns, procs, etc.) to create builds with.

ESO, every class and build: Buff, dot, spam (now even longer), repeat.

Welcome to the next ten days of unhappy people needing answers.

shadyjane62 wrote: »

Welcome to the next ten days of unhappy people needing answers.

We have our answers. This vision is going through, perhaps with minor changes in an attempt to make it seem they are responding to feedback.

Right now, whoever at ZOS thought this up and pushed this effort still very much thinks that they are right. They think the silent majority is with them.

In 5 weeks and 3 days, this will go live and the silent majority who have no idea there even is a PTS will feel these changes.

It's going to be fun to watch, NGL.