Nerfed me into leaving - A heavy attacker's story

malistorr · July 2022

I've been playing ESO for about 4-years now. I started out on PC NA and switched to Xbox NA. I'm middle-aged and have mild arthritis in my hands. For PVE I've used a lightning staff heavy attack build for the whole time and have seen it constantly be nerfed at least once a year. Whether it be via set nerfs or other means, the damage I can do with the lightning staff has been cut by about 2/3. I remember getting ticks of damage up to 32 or 36K when critting a few years ago. I passed vMA many times with this build and even vet dungeons and trials. Unfortunately with update 35 it seems this play style will be nerfed yet again and so much so that it will be difficult to even DPS in a normal dungeon this way. ZOS, you're effectively ensuring that anyone with physical issues can't play the game successfully or at least can't do very well or enjoy it. If you need to nerf heavy attacks in PVP do that separately to prevent 1-shots or ganking. But don't nerf the heavy attack play style so much so that a decent chunk of your player base can't play or enjoy the game any longer. Most of my lightning staff heavy attack ticks are 8-12K now. They tend to be toward the bottom of that range (and even lower depending on the enemy). What other play styles have been nerfed so much that they now do 1/3 of the damage that they used to? And how do you expect people to play now who can't or don't want to do light attack weaving? For a company that used a slogan of "play ESO any way you want to", ZOS seems more and more every patch like a company that is desperate to keep the game running by throwing band-aids on it to save money. Instead of fixing the root cause, which is poor performance of the game all the way around, you're making changes that nobody wants and that ruin the game. The fixes to your issues should be:

1. Finish replacing all your decade-old servers with modern hardware across the board.
2. Fix your code for PVP to improve the performance instead of dumbing down the game and nerfing things to make the game less taxing on hardware that should have already been replaced.
3. Listen to your player base and realize that many, many people cannot light attack weave or simply don't want to. (Make the game truly "Play any way you want to")

You're driving players away by the tends-of-thousands. If lightning staff heavy attacks are nerfed in even the slightest way when update 35 is released I will walk away from the game and never come back. I'm tired of spending hundreds of dollars a year on a game when the people who make it ignore the player base and make changes that ruin the game for us. If anything, lightning staff heavy attacks need to be buffed in PVE so that people with physical issues or who think that light attack weaving is stupid and not fun can still play and enjoy the game without a 75-90% limit on possible damage they can do. This really should be common sense! Unless you want this game's target player base to be elite E-sports athletes (which will cut your player base by 95%) then I should be able to get similar DPS in normal dungeons and other PVE playing any way I want to. You've made that impossible over the years and are continuing to do so.

Lady_Galadhiel · July 2022

With U35 they take a large portion of the "play the way you want" scheme which they like to sell us so much away.
My main character will be useless after the update (healer).

Eldartar · July 2022

My Main is Dead with U35, 1 bar MagSorc Heavy Attack Pet build . . . . My Main since Beta.

"Play the way you want" as long as it's our way.

ZOS you are killing your own game.

Lady_Galadhiel · July 2022

Eldartar wrote: »

My Main is Dead with U35, 1 bar MagSorc Heavy Attack Pet build . . . . My Main since Beta.

"Play the way you want" as long as it's our way.

ZOS you are killing your own game.

I used a one bar HA build on my main for solo arenas. With 2 pets and literally only 3 skills to rotate. Did vMA and vVA with it. Won't be able to do it after U35.

seventyfive · July 2022

malistorr wrote: »

I've been playing ESO for about 4-years now. I started out on PC NA and switched to Xbox NA. I'm middle-aged and have mild arthritis in my hands. For PVE I've used a lightning staff heavy attack build for the whole time and have seen it constantly be nerfed at least once a year. Whether it be via set nerfs or other means, the damage I can do with the lightning staff has been cut by about 2/3. I remember getting ticks of damage up to 32 or 36K when critting a few years ago. I passed vMA many times with this build and setup and even vet dungeons and trials. Unfortunately with update 35 it seems this play style will be nerfed yet again and so much so that it will be difficult to even DPS in a normal dungeon this way. ZOS, you're effectively ensuring that anyone with physical issues can't play the game successfully or at least can't do very well or enjoy it. If you need to nerf heavy attacks in PVP do that separately to prevent 1-shots or ganking. But don't nerf the heavy attack play style so much so that a decent chunk of your player base can't play or enjoy the game any longer. Most of my lightning staff heavy attack ticks are 8-12K now. They tend to be toward the bottom of that range (and even lower depending on the enemy). What other play styles have been nerfed so much that they now do 1/3 of the damage that they used to? And how do you expect people to play now who can't or don't want to do light attack weaving? For a company that used a slogan of "play ESO any way you want to", ZOS seems more and more every patch like a company that is desperate to keep the game running by throwing band-aids on it to save money. Instead of fixing the root cause, which is poor performance of the game all the way around, you're making changes that nobody wants and that ruin the game. The fixes to your issues should be:

1. Finish replacing all your decade-old servers with modern hardware across the board.
2. Fix your code for PVP to improve the performance instead of dumbing down the game and nerfing things to make the game less taxing on hardware that should have already been replaced.
3. Listen to your player base and realize that many, many people cannot light attack weave or simply don't want to. (Make the game truly "Play any way you want to")

You're driving players away by the tends-of-thousands. If lightning staff heavy attacks are nerfed in even the slightest way when update 35 is released I will walk away from the game and never come back. I'm tired of spending hundreds of dollars a year on a game when the people who make it ignore the player base and make changes that ruin the game for us. If anything, lightning staff heavy attacks need to be buffed in PVE so that people with physical issues or who think that light attack weaving is probably the most stupid way of playing a game ever can still play and enjoy the game without a 75-90% nerf on possible damage they can do. This really should be common sense!

Do you actually believe they will have tends of thousands of players less after this patch has been released?
Are you certain a significant majority of the playerbase are opposed to the changes made to lighting staves heavy attacks?

I would assume most players occasionally dip into a battleground or two and a good chunk are happy to no longer encounter such cheese-builds there or in cyrodiil.

Of course there is then the suggestion that you hinted at to separately balance different parts of the games but we both know they don't want to do that so that discussion is pointless.

To end on a happy note - you mentioned weaving. They're nerfing weaving. You'll only lose 10% damage by not weaving going forward.

Moloch1514 · July 2022

@ZOS_Kevin this is a huge "accessibility" concern for many of us, which per devs was supposed to be improved in this patch.

malistorr · July 2022

Do you actually believe they will have tends of thousands of players less after this patch has been released?
Are you certain a significant majority of the playerbase are opposed to the changes made to lighting staves heavy attacks?

To answer your 1st question: Yes, people like me and other people who play like I do (obviously not you)

To answer your 2nd question: I never said that so I have no idea. I never said it's a majority of the player base. But how I or others play in PVE doesn't really affect you right as long as we can all contribute in a meaningful way to our group's success in group content. That is what I'm asking for.

This conversation doesn't really have anything to do with PVP other than where I said they should have different rules for certain things since trying to balance them for both PVE and PVP makes for a very confused (and not good either way) type of game.

I'm sorry if you got ganked a bunch of times by someone heavy attacking. (I'm assuming it was a DK with a fire staff and that is a whole other conversation altogether) Lightning staff heavy attacks in Cyrodiil do very little damage against other players. I think my max damage is maybe 4-5K/second and that is fully buffed with every set/item buffing heavy attacks. It's near impossible to kill anyone this way. So unless you are a full glass cannon build and don't heal yourself or have someone heal you, you should never be killed by a lightning staff. Never mind the fact that anyone built like this (the attacker) has low health, almost no defense, and is a glass cannon themselves. You should be able to kill the attacker quite easily. I have PVP toons built for PVP because the PVE build with the lightning staff heavy attack can't kill anyone and I just repeatedly die. There are almost no mag sorcs in Blackreach. There are some occasional stamsorcs but they don't use a lightning staff.

lordspyder · July 2022

seventyfive wrote: »

malistorr wrote: »

I've been playing ESO for about 4-years now. I started out on PC NA and switched to Xbox NA. I'm middle-aged and have mild arthritis in my hands. For PVE I've used a lightning staff heavy attack build for the whole time and have seen it constantly be nerfed at least once a year. Whether it be via set nerfs or other means, the damage I can do with the lightning staff has been cut by about 2/3. I remember getting ticks of damage up to 32 or 36K when critting a few years ago. I passed vMA many times with this build and setup and even vet dungeons and trials. Unfortunately with update 35 it seems this play style will be nerfed yet again and so much so that it will be difficult to even DPS in a normal dungeon this way. ZOS, you're effectively ensuring that anyone with physical issues can't play the game successfully or at least can't do very well or enjoy it. If you need to nerf heavy attacks in PVP do that separately to prevent 1-shots or ganking. But don't nerf the heavy attack play style so much so that a decent chunk of your player base can't play or enjoy the game any longer. Most of my lightning staff heavy attack ticks are 8-12K now. They tend to be toward the bottom of that range (and even lower depending on the enemy). What other play styles have been nerfed so much that they now do 1/3 of the damage that they used to? And how do you expect people to play now who can't or don't want to do light attack weaving? For a company that used a slogan of "play ESO any way you want to", ZOS seems more and more every patch like a company that is desperate to keep the game running by throwing band-aids on it to save money. Instead of fixing the root cause, which is poor performance of the game all the way around, you're making changes that nobody wants and that ruin the game. The fixes to your issues should be:

1. Finish replacing all your decade-old servers with modern hardware across the board.
2. Fix your code for PVP to improve the performance instead of dumbing down the game and nerfing things to make the game less taxing on hardware that should have already been replaced.
3. Listen to your player base and realize that many, many people cannot light attack weave or simply don't want to. (Make the game truly "Play any way you want to")

You're driving players away by the tends-of-thousands. If lightning staff heavy attacks are nerfed in even the slightest way when update 35 is released I will walk away from the game and never come back. I'm tired of spending hundreds of dollars a year on a game when the people who make it ignore the player base and make changes that ruin the game for us. If anything, lightning staff heavy attacks need to be buffed in PVE so that people with physical issues or who think that light attack weaving is probably the most stupid way of playing a game ever can still play and enjoy the game without a 75-90% nerf on possible damage they can do. This really should be common sense!

Do you actually believe they will have tends of thousands of players less after this patch has been released?
Are you certain a significant majority of the playerbase are opposed to the changes made to lighting staves heavy attacks?

I would assume most players occasionally dip into a battleground or two and a good chunk are happy to no longer encounter such cheese-builds there or in cyrodiil.

Of course there is then the suggestion that you hinted at to separately balance different parts of the games but we both know they don't want to do that so that discussion is pointless.

To end on a happy note - you mentioned weaving. They're nerfing weaving. You'll only lose 10% damage by not weaving going forward.

PvP is a toxic cesspool and has no place in this game or any MMO.

sharquez · July 2022

lordspyder wrote: »

PvP is a toxic cesspool and has no place in this game or any MMO.

Actually this attitude is the root of toxicity, Don't play if you don't want to but let others have their fun.

lordspyder · July 2022

sharquez wrote: »

lordspyder wrote: »

PvP is a toxic cesspool and has no place in this game or any MMO.

Actually this attitude is the root of toxicity, Don't play if you don't want to but let others have their fun.

Unfortunately the game keeps forcing me into IC and Cyrodil. Trust me I would be happy to never set foot in either. Also, my Oakensoul is getting nerfed due to PvP so it impedes my life whether or not I play it. Remove PvP.

Psiion · July 2022

Greetings all,

Seeing as this thread is a feedback thread regarding the upcoming Combat Changes in Update 35, we have closed this thread as a duplicate to consolidate feedback on the update. If anyone would like to leave their thoughts for the team, please feel free to do so on the Official Thread here, but remember to keep posts respectful and within the Community Rules.