BlueRaven wrote: »

The main problem I see is that they should have readjusted trials and dungeons for what would be the new normal dps for the high end raiders. Maybe that is something that is coming, they might be waiting until the nerfs are a bit more concrete. But a lot of this controversy could have been side stepped with a simple statement that pve content will also be nerfed to compensate.

There's no content rebalance on the way. They would never intentionally sign off on balance changes that would require them to adjust every dungeon and trial in the game.

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

The main problem I see is that they should have readjusted trials and dungeons for what would be the new normal dps for the high end raiders. Maybe that is something that is coming, they might be waiting until the nerfs are a bit more concrete. But a lot of this controversy could have been side stepped with a simple statement that pve content will also be nerfed to compensate.

There's no content rebalance on the way. They would never intentionally sign off on balance changes that would require them to adjust every dungeon and trial in the game.

True, but unfortunate. I actually think the content should be adjusted rather than the players.

Pepegrillos wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Pepegrillos wrote: »

Because the skill gap is so large that they end up having to create content tailored for a very small audience (vHM trials in particular). That's content that only a couple hundred or a thousand players can complete. (Last I heard vRGHM was only completed by 600 characters since it was released, so not even necessarily 600 different accounts).

All this wouldn't be a problem if end-game PVE was something the community deeply cared about (an example, race to world first in WoW). The issue is that almost no one gives a flying [snip] about it. So it's probably not just an isolated design decision, I bet someone around Zos started looking at developmental costs and returns.

peacenote wrote: »

Everyone who is blaming the high DPS of the best of the best groups is (I'm sorry to be blunt) just wrong. It's the fact that much of the newer content has such little margin of error that "the best of the best" is required to get close to even trying it. Those elite folks should get their credit through the leaderboards and faster completion times and maybe special achievements... not by simply being able to get through it.

I want to address these types of arguments since most posts are a variant of these. Early ESO discredits both of these types of arguments. In 2015 and 2016, ESO even overland had a bit of difficulty. Things like vet Maelstrom, City of Ash 2, and Vet Craglorn trials were extraordinarily difficult in the earlier years of the game. When Maw of Lorkhaj came out, there were very few people that could complete it at all. So ESO's endgame was even more exclusive and don't forget that the game was younger at this point, so people weren't as good or knowledgeable as they were today. Despite all of this, there were more high-end raiding groups and progression groups. The end game community was thriving despite how exclusive being a good player was at the time.

So why are things different now? The game is not nearly as difficult and end game is not nearly as exclusive as it was in 2015-2017, yet end game is actually shrinking not growing. Anyone care to explain?

Your claims.

1) In 2015-2016 ESO was harder.
2) In that period, the endgame was even more exclusive.
3) In that period, the endgame community was thriving and bigger than now.

All that can be true. But the fact that a proportionally small community was thriving doesn't mean that the game as a whole was. You can look at Simpson's Paradox for some sort of parallel.

The explanation is simple. Since the initial flop this game was, the devs have continuously been steering the game away from the traditional MMORPG target audience and towards the Elder Scrolls fans audience. The problem is that many, despite playing this game for years, have either simply not noticed this obvious change or have refused to accept it. So now they are in some sort of cognitive dissonance that prevents them from grasping the wider context in which all these changes make sense.

Moving in this direction has allowed the game to carve a niche for itself. And this has paid off. The game has become an easy, casual, fully voiced story-driven MMO. But going this way has obvious trade-offs. Some of them are dedicating fewer resources to pvp and end-game PvE. This has been obvious for years.

For all that and other reasons, nothing of what you mention addresses or discredits the posts you quote. You are talking beside the point.

Nope, actually you are beside the point.
The original questions: What is wrong with a skill gap? Why is it unhealthy?
Your response (I think): Making content for only a small portion (the very top) of the player base does not make financial sense, most players don’t even care about it.
My Response: Old ESO was harder, vet content was even more exclusive, but the end game community was bigger than it is now.

So if we assume that what I said about early ESO is correct (which it is) and the end game community was bigger when the game was more exclusive, then proportionally, MORE people were engaging with vet content. This is exactly what ZOS wants, they want more people to engage with vet content. By showing that the more exclusive old ESO was successful at getting more players to engage with vet content, it suggests that too much exclusivity is not a problem. Your reason for stating that the skill gap is unhealthy is that it makes some content too exclusive. If I showed that exclusivity isn’t actually a bad thing for content engagement, then the skill gap by your reasoning, is not actually a bad thing for content engagement.

Do not confuse completion with engagement. Sure very few people have finished vRG HM, but that doesn’t mean few people TRIED. If people are at least trying the hard content, it’s not wasted money on the company’s part. After all, the content is being utilized, just not completed. In old ESO, few people beat Maw early on, but many many people tried because they wanted the skin. It was a flex to beat vet Maw and many people were drawn to this exclusivity. It didn’t matter how few people actually beat it, the content was being utilized by those that tried.

You then go on about how ESO is more Elder Scrolls than MMORPG. I would agree, but that’s a completely different discussion and it’s actually the off topic part.

[edited to remove quote]

There is nothing wrong with skill gap. There is problem with forcing players to do content they dont want to do. Like...

When u add DLC trials u dont expect ppl who only do quest in Overland to do it.
When u add new dungeons u dont expect PvP players to run them just because its there. Its not why they are playing this game.
When u add new zone with quests u dont expect a endgame player to have as much fun as casual player because he will kill the Boss in 5s.

When u design easy content, u expect casual players to do it.
When u design hard content u expect ppl that like hard games.
When u design new PvP u expect PvP players to play it.

I dont understand why ZOS is trying to push ppl who only want to quest into harder stuff. Like... The quester only needs Story Mode for dungeons to be happy, that's it. Even if they would be able to do trials, its not what they are interested in.

Instead of it, they should focus on ppl who like that content. Yes, endgame community is small, but thats not because its too hard. Its because ZOS is hurting veteran players with each patch. There were a lot of ppl who did raids and a lot of them left because of ZOS. Now we have U35 on PTS and endgame is hit yet again.

Just let casual players enjoy questing in Overland.
Just let PvP players murder each other in Cyrodill.
Just let endgame players play the game.
Each of those playstyles is valid. There is no point in killing one to make other better.
And ZOS can make money from all those 3 playstyles. They just need to cater to their needs.

There is no point in lowering the skill gap in order to push casual players into endgame. Focus on ppl who are interested in it.
In addition... If anybody would be able to do harder content, would it still be a harder content? I dont think so...

ESO has 3 diffrent playstyles. ZOS is trying to reduce it to 1 right now and i dont get it. Instead on focusing each groups needs, they just try to push ppl into content.


Yes, i know that there are ppl who want to try harder stuff but hit the wall. Its okay. We just need to help them. And where is that help? Yup, right, ZOS doesnt offer it. And that's a problem too. There is no tutorial, lack of options and the only thing they got right is getting nerfed (Oakensoul). Add to that constant nerfs every 3 months and how that person is supposed to get over that wall?

I could say few more things but its already a lot and maybe not quite on the topic. But i just wrote what i thought after reading comments.

At the end i will say, lowering the celling doesnt mean that more ppl can do harder content. Most of the time that lowering hits the ppl who want to get into that content, and ppl who play because they love combat.

Anyway, have fun everyone. In the end everyone just wants to have fun in the game and its not right to take it away from them.

Edit. Just some typos.

Stamicka wrote: »

Pepegrillos wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

So if we assume that what I said about early ESO is correct (which it is) and the end game community was bigger when the game was more exclusive, then proportionally, MORE people were engaging with vet content. This is exactly what ZOS wants, they want more people to engage with vet content. By showing that the more exclusive old ESO was successful at getting more players to engage with vet content, it suggests that too much exclusivity is not a problem. Your reason for stating that the skill gap is unhealthy is that it makes some content too exclusive. If I showed that exclusivity isn’t actually a bad thing for content engagement, then the skill gap by your reasoning, is not actually a bad thing for content engagement.

The reason why the target-audience-change background I included is not part of a different discussion is that it offers a much simpler explanation to this second issue you raise. If anything, there was more engagement with endgame content because the audience of ESO at the time had more traditional MMORPG players than casual Elder Scrolls fans. But this is not the case anymore because Zenimax reorientation of the game has steadily decimated the traditional MMORPG population it once had.

Exclusitivty does not drive engagement unless you have an audience that's driven by exclusive, hard content. That hasn't been this game's audience for a while.

I think this is 100% right. The ESO demographic has shifted and the game overall is much more casual. However, the type of players you describe tend to be solo questing types. Many of these people would not even group up for vet content at all (I’ve seen posts of these people claiming that their immersion was ruined just by seeing another player on a flashy mount). I don’t think the skill gap is the reason for their lack of participation. They just play ESO like it’s solo.

I'm that guy that mostly plays solo and I can tell you that yes, said skill gap often turns me away from playing vet content. Finding a group is a pain, and more often than not people don't have the patience to let you go at your own pace and figure things out. I sometimes do trials with my guild, but we are working people with busy schedules, it's hard to get into the group often enough to practice in any real capacity. If you add to that that most vet rewards that casuals like us would be after (skins, personalities) are locked behind trifecta achievements, it's easier to just don't bother with the content at all, as it's unfun and repetitive, and my gaming time's precious to me.

Do I think that the changes in U35 are for good then? I honestly don't know. I don't know enough about parses, and weaving, to have any strong opinion on it. All I see is lots of angry threads about how the game's awful now, and people who call themselves casuals while claiming that they practice gaming with training programs like it's some boot camp.

All this certainly doesn't help mitigating the elitist badge many people pin onto the best vet players, meta chasers, min maxers, or whatever you wanna call the top dog players in ESO.

It would help if the game had some indicator on whether I'm doing things right. If they were to keep LA weaving as it is, a proper in game tutorial would be a welcome addition.

FantasticFreddie wrote: »

Account wide achievements drove away a lot of experienced raiders, this one is just too much.

No it didnt, the fact that they dumbed down endgame raiding over the years to the point where previously mediocre at best players could get trifectas in days just by running certain raid comps was the reason for the mass exodus of the very best players, trifectas dont mean *** anymore, it used to be a prestige title for the best of the best and nowadays every 3rd player runs around with at least one of em.

Also the introduction of faction lock in combination of targeted nerfs of the 1vX playstyle drove away alot of people from PvP who at the time were considered the best in cyrodiil and dueling, what also didnt help was that PvP didnt get any major updates besides battlegrounds who were doomed to fail from the get go by being a team-based PvP mode with 3 partys.

What I really dont get is why theyre pushing so hard to close the gap between people invest time to learn and improve at the game and people who just casually play three hours a week, theres nothing wrong with being bad at a game and if you dont put in time to improve mechanically and knowledge-wise, well, live with the consequences and be bad.

This game currently is just a shell of its former self, for me, summerset was the turning-point where the game went to ***.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

LordDragonMara wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Nothing is wrong with skillgap, but nobody should "have" to spend hours in front of a dummy in order to "qualify" to get access to content that is in the game. They keep coming up with these sets that boosts the DPS through the ceiling for the top 5-10% of players, meanwhile the players in the middle are getting left further and further behind. Something DOES need to be done to bring the floor DPS up and make doing good DPS easier to make the game more accessible. Otherwise players will just get frustrated and walk away.

Part of this is the function of powercreep. We want sets that make us feel more powerful, but when we do, it makes it harder and harder for them to design content that is fun, engaging, but also challenging for the upper end players and that is still completable for lower end players. Part of this is why I find it ironic as to why they are nerfing the oakensoul ring. This was a perfect example of something that brought up the floor DPS quite a bit without increasing DPS at the top end of things. In that sense, it was perfect.

So you pretty much want to be at that "end", but you don't want to practice to get there .... I also want to be top programmer/developer, but don't want to spend hours over hours in coding, and all the needed stuffs.
But it's up to me right, to do the work, right ?

And we should divide the gear from skills, cause this is 2 completely different things.

Some people just want from the start in the game to do all.
And again you don't need to be even close to optimal levels, neither to have perfect weaving to do the vets and end game stuffs. Game is already too easy on most fronts.
But it's a mmorpg and you certainly should know your character, your rotation and what abilities is needed for x or y thing.
Same as what build/gear to do. But this is more of a knowledge skill, then what we are talking about.


The way i see it currently, they are punishing top players for being top players, for actually spend time in the game, play the game, understand the game, practice the game, learn the game and find a way how to become top players.
And they reward players that just refuse to learn and refuse to get good at the game.

It's like my boss to come and say, listen i'm lowering your salary, cause you are the best in the company and write and do stuffs fastest. Your colleagues just can't keep your pace, so we are going to lower your wages .... How that sounds ? Because this is exactly what is their doing.

No its not about wanting to get to the end without practice, I'd rather get to the end by practicing - playing the game, not by sitting on a dummy. Not everyone has hours to burn dummy-humping so to speak just to "qualify" to do end game content. That idea is just ridiculous IMO. Most people I know and play with only have a few hours a day to play - IF THAT. You can't just say "well those people don't deserve to play the content I play because they don't practice enough." That is just a very narrow-minded way of looking at things. We want to spend the time we do have playing the game, not practicing to play the game. Its hard enough just getting 12 people together to be able to run this content.

What I'm hearing from you is "endgame content is an exclusive club and only the elite should have access to it." I'd be fine with that too - if ONLY the elite paid for it... I paid for that same content to and it is ridiculous that I'd get excluded from it because I don't have 20 hours to practice/perfect my rotations. My DPS isn't bad (~60k on my best character), but its ridiculous when you get groups running around saying they can't take you unless you meet their ridiculous dps qualifications.

Let me just end with this philosophical question:

Is a player better because they have enough dps to bypass mechanics - or is a player better if they can negotiate the mechanics and play the encounter as intended? You tell me...

Both cases are true. I believe the answer is for zos to make challenging content for those incredible high passes, a reward for that play style. Will I ever see it, most likely not, as i parse on the lower end. However i do not begrudge those players who play at the top end.

Pepegrillos wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

So if we assume that what I said about early ESO is correct (which it is) and the end game community was bigger when the game was more exclusive, then proportionally, MORE people were engaging with vet content. This is exactly what ZOS wants, they want more people to engage with vet content. By showing that the more exclusive old ESO was successful at getting more players to engage with vet content, it suggests that too much exclusivity is not a problem. Your reason for stating that the skill gap is unhealthy is that it makes some content too exclusive. If I showed that exclusivity isn’t actually a bad thing for content engagement, then the skill gap by your reasoning, is not actually a bad thing for content engagement.

The reason why the target-audience-change background I included is not part of a different discussion is that it offers a much simpler explanation to this second issue you raise. If anything, there was more engagement with endgame content because the audience of ESO at the time had more traditional MMORPG players than casual Elder Scrolls fans. But this is not the case anymore because Zenimax reorientation of the game has steadily decimated the traditional MMORPG population it once had.

Exclusitivty does not drive engagement unless you have an audience that's driven by exclusive, hard content. That hasn't been this game's audience for a while.

There is plenty of players that wants to improve and their skills to matter, and they played the game for it. End there is plenty of the so call Hardcore players.
A game without it's hardcore community/players is as good as dead.
Also most if not all of the end game community is the the community that is the most stable and won't just leave the game after a few months, like most of the casual players are doing. They get bored and move constantly anway.
Also a lot of new players don't even subs. Most if not all of the endgame community are constantly on subs, which is from where they money are coming to the game.

Apex Legends is a good example. They experimented with some ridiculous changes back in Season 7 i think, where they decided to reduce the TTK and makes the whole community mads. A lot of Pro/Content creators players stop playing, and they lost millions of their playerbase, cause this is what PRO/Content creators bring to the game. Tons of people that follow him and are ready to quite if they quit.
Around a week latter Apex decided to revert the changes and never since has ever thinking of touching core mechanics.

Guess what is happening with ESO now ? Go look at the Combat Devs Twitch live, and 99,99% of the people were mad with the changes. Most of the content creators are not happy, and their followers too.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

No its not about wanting to get to the end without practice, I'd rather get to the end by practicing - playing the game, not by sitting on a dummy. Not everyone has hours to burn dummy-humping so to speak just to "qualify" to do end game content. That idea is just ridiculous IMO. Most people I know and play with only have a few hours a day to play - IF THAT. You can't just say "well those people don't deserve to play the content I play because they don't practice enough." That is just a very narrow-minded way of looking at things. We want to spend the time we do have playing the game, not practicing to play the game. Its hard enough just getting 12 people together to be able to run this content.

What I'm hearing from you is "endgame content is an exclusive club and only the elite should have access to it." I'd be fine with that too - if ONLY the elite paid for it... I paid for that same content to and it is ridiculous that I'd get excluded from it because I don't have 20 hours to practice/perfect my rotations. My DPS isn't bad (~60k on my best character), but its ridiculous when you get groups running around saying they can't take you unless you meet their ridiculous dps qualifications.

Let me just end with this philosophical question:

Is a player better because they have enough dps to bypass mechanics - or is a player better if they can negotiate the mechanics and play the encounter as intended? You tell me...

But dummies are there for a reason. If you want to improve your DPS/Parse/Rotation, etc. it's the place to do it.
I learned LA Weaving by playing the game actually. Watched 30 seconds video of what LA Weaving is, and how it's done, and i practice it in the Overland, just like everyone can do it.
You can do the same with DOTS micromanagements as well, can't you ?

It's up to you from that point if you are lacking or wanna test something or wanna perfected it.
But it's not a game fault or endgame community fault that some people don't want to do it, they are lazy, or not care or whatever, but then complain that lacks DPS or so. It's a player fault.

ESO is one of the easiest MMORPG in the market. There is nothing hard about it. Everything also come naturally if you have brain and understand things.

As far as the rest, here is my 2 cents:

We are all equals, but just like every MMORPG out there, there is some checks, and stuffs you need to know/do to be able to do X or Y content.
ESO not locking anyone out of content. If you want to do it, you will put the needed time and efforts and will do it .This is MMORPG after all. It's not a SP game at the end of the day.
People should be happy and thankful cause back in the day MMORPG was all around group play. Now ESO and many more offer you to play as a SOLO players mainly and do 90% of the stuffs you can do in the game. But at the end of the day you should know where you going to. MMORPG is and always been a complex games, where there is time investments and so on.
Still you have normal mods for the most stuffs, so you are not locked. Same with Vets and hard.

And btw, just because you are paying for something, doesn't mean anything should be handed to you.
Again i will give example with Apex Legends. Should i complain that only a handful of people(i think 500) can only reach Predators lobbies(this is the highest ranked system, similar to hard content for example) ? They are just better than me, put more time or done it better, and deserved to be there.

And i play Video Games no more than 3-4 hours per day. Everything is a process in competitive/Online/MP games. Nothing happen overnight. I will be better if i spend just 10 minutes daily for my rotation in the timespan of 1 month compare to you doing it for weeks 2-3 hours per day for example.

xgoku1 wrote: »

They said reduce the delta, not remove the delta. So instead of DPS range from 30k floor to 140k ceiling, they want to make it like 50k floor to 100k ceiling.

That was the stated goal, but as all the data now shows, and as everyone acknowledges, that is not what these pts changes do at all. It was an indiscriminate damage and healing nerf across the board. Even the few people who are somewhat supportive of these changes, like xynode, acknowledge that damage is coming down across the board. How can he tell his fanbase with a straight face that this is good for them?

There was no need for that, and it definitely goes against the stated goal. These changes make content less accessible than ever. Lower and mid-tier players will feel the changes more than anyone. The bar for them to ever make it into more challenging content just got higher.

A MUCH better way to go about this would have been to narrowly target the few actual causes of the dps at the very high end. Small, thoughtful nerfs to stampede, stamsorc, and a few sets (rele, kinras, coral, bahsei, kilt) would have accomplished the goal of ACTUALLY narrowing the gap and also would have promoted greater build variety.

That is why people are upset. These across the board nerfs are just insane and target the wrong people. Most importantly, they run entirely opposite of the clearly stated goals.

Fingolfinn01 wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

LordDragonMara wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Nothing is wrong with skillgap, but nobody should "have" to spend hours in front of a dummy in order to "qualify" to get access to content that is in the game. They keep coming up with these sets that boosts the DPS through the ceiling for the top 5-10% of players, meanwhile the players in the middle are getting left further and further behind. Something DOES need to be done to bring the floor DPS up and make doing good DPS easier to make the game more accessible. Otherwise players will just get frustrated and walk away.

Part of this is the function of powercreep. We want sets that make us feel more powerful, but when we do, it makes it harder and harder for them to design content that is fun, engaging, but also challenging for the upper end players and that is still completable for lower end players. Part of this is why I find it ironic as to why they are nerfing the oakensoul ring. This was a perfect example of something that brought up the floor DPS quite a bit without increasing DPS at the top end of things. In that sense, it was perfect.

So you pretty much want to be at that "end", but you don't want to practice to get there .... I also want to be top programmer/developer, but don't want to spend hours over hours in coding, and all the needed stuffs.
But it's up to me right, to do the work, right ?

And we should divide the gear from skills, cause this is 2 completely different things.

Some people just want from the start in the game to do all.
And again you don't need to be even close to optimal levels, neither to have perfect weaving to do the vets and end game stuffs. Game is already too easy on most fronts.
But it's a mmorpg and you certainly should know your character, your rotation and what abilities is needed for x or y thing.
Same as what build/gear to do. But this is more of a knowledge skill, then what we are talking about.


The way i see it currently, they are punishing top players for being top players, for actually spend time in the game, play the game, understand the game, practice the game, learn the game and find a way how to become top players.
And they reward players that just refuse to learn and refuse to get good at the game.

It's like my boss to come and say, listen i'm lowering your salary, cause you are the best in the company and write and do stuffs fastest. Your colleagues just can't keep your pace, so we are going to lower your wages .... How that sounds ? Because this is exactly what is their doing.

No its not about wanting to get to the end without practice, I'd rather get to the end by practicing - playing the game, not by sitting on a dummy. Not everyone has hours to burn dummy-humping so to speak just to "qualify" to do end game content. That idea is just ridiculous IMO. Most people I know and play with only have a few hours a day to play - IF THAT. You can't just say "well those people don't deserve to play the content I play because they don't practice enough." That is just a very narrow-minded way of looking at things. We want to spend the time we do have playing the game, not practicing to play the game. Its hard enough just getting 12 people together to be able to run this content.

What I'm hearing from you is "endgame content is an exclusive club and only the elite should have access to it." I'd be fine with that too - if ONLY the elite paid for it... I paid for that same content to and it is ridiculous that I'd get excluded from it because I don't have 20 hours to practice/perfect my rotations. My DPS isn't bad (~60k on my best character), but its ridiculous when you get groups running around saying they can't take you unless you meet their ridiculous dps qualifications.

Let me just end with this philosophical question:

Is a player better because they have enough dps to bypass mechanics - or is a player better if they can negotiate the mechanics and play the encounter as intended? You tell me...

Both cases are true. I believe the answer is for zos to make challenging content for those incredible high passes, a reward for that play style. Will I ever see it, most likely not, as i parse on the lower end. However i do not begrudge those players who play at the top end.

We have that, right now, on live. With trials, we have normal, we have veteran, and we have Vet Hard Mode (along with Trifecta). The last of those (at least in recent years) has become an aspiration for those extremely high end players. Walking out of someplace like Rockgrove with the trifecta is a sign that your team is really damn good.

The irony is, this release mucks with that, dragging players at the bottom of vet trials out and shoves them back down into normal, while potentially knocking struggling and learning players out of normal trials entirely. And then what, spend 2 months not playing the content you want, grinding on a dummy to improve your rotation, only for ZOS to nerf you again after they said they wouldn't?

I mean, we literally have your suggestion, in the game right now, and it's getting chucked out the window.

LordDragonMara wrote: »

The game has plenty of new players. It's not like new players aren't coming. The problem with the Skill Gap is not because Skill Ceiling is too high. It's because the game not properly explain combat mechanics, and many more. But lowering the skill ceiling and trying to artificially close the gap it's not the solution.

This. Making it worse, the combat UI design does not point towards its function.

Imagine if...
... One of the spaces on the bars had a different border, and had "spammable" in soft gray text when it was empty. You could ofc shift this around. But, what if there was a visual indicator?
... You could turn on an "Advanced Combat" checkbox, and it did things like enabled a tutorial, enabled visual skill timers, and explained what a spammable and a DOT was? You could also uncheck this checkbox.
... During the tutorial, skills would flash more obviously, briefly, when they were ready to use again?

...etc. Turn the tutorial and the "Advanced Combat" checkbox over to the community to input ideas for. Have the devs coalesce these. Test. Retest. Move forward.

This whole discussion is two very different factions arguing about two very different things and then being dissatisfied with the other when the original question is being answered in a way that doesn't coincide with what they view to be the problem. Obviously different people have different priorities, there's a lot of shunting the blame back and forth between 'pros' and 'casuals' and it's all very exhausting. This isn't even about a 'skill gap' being inherently bad, it's about the entire game being wildly out of scale with their vision.

There are important and valid criticisms about the planned changes some people have expressed with genuine and well thought out responses, it's disingenuous to paint the whole discussion as only being about elitism and making it about humbling the mean 'pros'. At the same time, folks don't seem to realize that end game players are grossly overrepresented on the forums and those people are playing virtually a completely separate game from the rest of the player base. Just like you use the middle class as a litmus test for economic health, you look at your strictly average players when you're looking for how well received your content is. The problem is that ESO has no middle class, there's a very hard divide between 'casual' and 'hardcore' and the pathways to crossing that threshold for those who want to are throttled by a demand for fine mechanical mastery over an obscure mechanic that was originally unintended. Add that in to the sheer DENSITY of ESO's build knowledge and theorycrafting that comes with end game, and it's almost impossible to get 'in' to veteran raiding as a casual. Like, where do you even start? You look up a build and the first thing you'll see is someone telling you that you need Perfected Relens to do veteran dungeons.

And it's not just a matter of applying yourself a little more, the game was not fundamentally designed around the idea that animation canceling would be used to bloat DPS numbers to the point of cheesing mechanics. ESO does not prepare or test you for those skills at any point in time during normal gameplay, there is a single loading screen you might never see that mentions the GCD of light attacks in passing, and then you are suddenly expected to understand all of this and execute it perfectly before you will even be allowed to witness the mechanics of a proper end game dungeon or raid. This hits you absolutely out of nowhere, possibly a couple hundred hours deep. You understand that it isn't merely a skill gap, it's a technical rift that doesn't have an 'easy' fix. ZoS has been trying to bandage it for a while with OP sets, but just like nerfing the ceiling isn't going to magically make casuals viable end game raiders without learning the skills, no amount of buffing the floor is gonna bring them in line with practiced raiders who have access to the same over powered gear AND technical ability, it just makes the number bloat worse.

And of course it's about more than just the after-market meta of weaving and memorizing the glossary of theorycrafting terms, there's some other serious problems working against new players that are the game 'working as intended'. You can't exactly practice and familiarize yourself with the mechanics in Normals because, again, the current DPS numbers are so outside the parameters a lot of the content was designed for that normals are facerolls. Even if you WANTED to do the mechanics, many bosses just can't survive even 'average' skill players or are mechanically nerfed in such a way for normals that is doesn't prepare you at all for vet (Lokkestiiz comes to mind; ice tombs are never addressed in normal, so no matter how much practice you do on Normal you'll have to learn the actual way to handle them in vet, which you're not going to get into without already having the skills to clear it, which you haven't developed because you've been ignoring the mechanics in normal, see how it's a cyclical problem?). So where do people who genuinely want to pivot into harder content, but need the experience and gear go? Well, currently they opt to just stay in normals forever, not improving their skills and not contributing their talents to the end game community because that gulf is either too vast to navigate without serious help, or too intimidating to even try. This doesn't just suck for them not being able to get cosmetics either, but keeping end game //extremely// exclusive is bad for the long term health of the game. If you don't believe me, go ask Wildstar, who bent over backwards catering to it's dwindling 'hardcore' raid scene till its dying gasp.

This all puts ZOS in a precarious position. Obviously they want to reign the numbers back in to a more intentional scale, so that hard content is satisfyingly hard and rewarding for end game players who put the time and practice in while not isolating the vast majority of others from even considering attempting them. But they can't close pandora's box once it's open, and now no matter what they do it's going to upset someone. If they go through with the proposed changes it's going to make a lot of people angry over massively slowing the game down, and that's a valid thing to be upset about. But if they yield to the backlash and don't go through with it, they risk further alienating the people who were hoping this change could open up the end game a little more, which makes up a lot of paying players. It's really a no win situation being exacerbated by heated tempers over basically a rhythm game getting nerfed.

If you take one thing away from this; be nice to the developers. They're not out to get you, or me, or anyone else. They're just looking at the low player engagement with DLC dungeons and trials and the vast discrepancy between the 'average' and 'top' players. It's not what I would have opted for, and there will be mistakes, hot fixes, hot fixes for the hot fixes, and new unintentionally broken things found by players within 4 hours of launching the update you spent 6 months crunching on. That's merely the nature of the beast when you're a huge MMO.

Alchemical wrote: »

The problem is that ESO has no middle class, there's a very hard divide between 'casual' and 'hardcore'

I am middle class and so are some of my friends. I don't generally participate in vet trials, because I have no interest in getting organised for a 12-man group, joining a regular progression group, playing to a schedule. I parse around 60K on the trial dummy. 70K when I really put my mind to it. With one class. The easiest (magplar). I don't keep a good rotation. Point is, I'm not even interested in playing that game - the vet trial game - and I'm mystified why that should be an issue for anyone. If this is where we're drawing the line, then normal trials are available for everyone to experience the story content. It works for me. I enjoy PvP, solo and small group play (dungeons, arenas).

You've given one reason why someone might want to do vet trials, e.g. for skins or other unique rewards. You know what? That's not a good reason. People should have unique rewards to show for content only they can do. Even ZOS agree (seemingly), since they made an account bound motif that can only be bought with Tel Var.

ZOS don't want their work to go to waste on anyone. I get that. Creating zones, dungeons, trials, is hard and takes a lot of time. People should be able to experience them all. If we're drawing the line where you've drawn it, then everyone can. What exactly is wasted that lower tier players never get to see? It's limited to the above and the very minor bonuses attached to perfected sets.

Add that in to the sheer DENSITY of ESO's build knowledge and theorycrafting that comes with end game, and it's almost impossible to get 'in' to veteran raiding as a casual. Like, where do you even start?

I think the more correct question is "Why would you even start?" I was once like that. I came from single-player games. It was a matter of foolish pride to do White Gold Tower when it came out and none of us were ready for it. I was extremely negative twoards a veteran player who didn't want to join, because he knew he was in for 5 hour sessions of getting nowhere. I expected to be able to do everything, because I came from non-competitive single player games. That's a mental barrier you just have to get past, if that's what it is. I'm tempted to say the entitlement, but that's not even it. It's more like an unspoken assumption, because single player Bethesda games, basically anything that isn't called Dark Souls, are easy. Although being spoilt in your upbringing exactly results in entitlement, so perhaps that is exactly the right word after all.

Now we have normal mode, so it's not a problem anymore from a story content point of view. That said, our little new player group wasn't at all happy when there were the first talks of WGT being nerfed. We wanted to conquer it in it's original form. We didn't want ZOS to make it easier.

You look up a build and the first thing you'll see is someone telling you that you need Perfected Relens to do veteran dungeons.

I doubt very much that that's what they're being told. There may be a few people who do that, but what I've encountered is the following. I put my builds up on UESP. They're not builds for trials, but some use advanced gear, such as arena weapons and trial sets. In the UESP editor I list the perfected versions of those items, when that's what I actually use. So I give out my builds freely to whoever wants to look at them, and what I've found more than once is that people become completely fixated on farming the perfected gear, even when I tell them repeatedly that that is not important. What do you do? Where does that come from? I don't know. Obviously requiring Perfected Relequen for vet dungeons is complete BS.

I myself have been afraid to join vet trials, but you're making it out like there is this one big skill gap to participate in them. Aside from "Why do you want that so badly anyway?", it's not even true that everything has a uniform difficulty. The Craglorn trials are easy. Vet Hel Ra doesn't feel substantially harder than some of the normal DLC normal trials. Lorkaj, even on normal, has mechanics that can fail a group, if that group doesn't have enough DPS. Kyne's Aegis seems easy. nCR+0 is easy. It's only when people want to do +2 or +3 (for the jewelry) there can be an issue.

The problem that I see is that nowhere is it signposted what you're letting yourself in for, when you go to a particular place. In what order should you progress through dungeons and trials. That you start with Fungal Grotto. That Fungal 1 is damn easy, even on vet. That you work youself up through the non-DLC dungeons. That a normal DLC dungeon might be the same difficulty as some non-DLC veteran ones. That you will almost certainly be carried, if you pug a normal Craglorn trial, e.g. the ubiquitous Hel Ra, but you might run into problems in, say, normal Rockgrove. Bad experiences happen, because you choose the wrong content at random.

If you take one thing away from this; be nice to the developers. They're not out to get you...

The developers appear to be taken in by a data-driven approach, e.g. they have statistics on what skills players use, what sets, and what content they run. It appears that only takes them so far, and then they try stuff. This is how we ended up with this wild string of unsuccessful experiments. DOTs buffed. DOTs nerfed. Heavy attacks buffed this spring. Heavy and light attacks nerfed this autumn.

This affects me personally very little, but reading the threads of RAID leaders, the constant meta changes are a big problem. If ZOS would simply just stop, that could be as beneficial as their constant, frantic meddling with the combat system. This would allow raid leaders and content creators to create material that would stay relevant for a while and give players who want to move into veteran raiding something to aim for that isn't a constantly shifting goal post in terms of gear farming. Besides, if you're at the cusp of getting into veteran raids, having content nerfed isn't satisfying either. Not that that is even exactly happening, as there seem to be concerns it will be the opposite.

Even if ZOS some day get the balance right, they're doing it not with the help of the community, but by constantly upsetting them in the meantime. Who can keep up with the meta changes? The committed mid to high-end players who spend a lot of time here. Not everyone else.

I have no faith that ZOS will stop with the wild changes, based on the history of this development team. The arrival of Brian Wheeler and, yes, Gilliam the Rogue started this. Wrobel was more conservative.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They said they want to reduce it, not eliminate it. They said having one is natural and healthy for a game. But they want a more natural and logical progression to harder and harder content. So, this is a bit of a strawman.

Currently the endgame population is unsustainably low. Some guilds have trouble even filling prog rosters. And there's a wide mass of people that want to do that content, but can't, due to the power gap. You can't let everyone run in the Olympics, but the Olympics also can't be just be Usain Bolt running against random objects because there's not enough people for an actual race.

If there aren't enough people interested in the "olympics" nothing ZOS does will help with that and they can permanently damage the more middle/casual player group in the attempt. I don't think that's what they want.