This may explain some of it for me. I don't play any other mmo games, so I don't know. All I do know is that most of my stamina characters have been extremely tough to play and style seems wonky. I feel like I have no power at all at times. And this is all now. I don't know what will happen after the patch.

MaraxusTheOrc wrote: »

Elden Ring, Nioh, and God of War are completely different genres and network infrastructures. Seems unfair to compare any MMO’s combat to three of the highest regarded mostly single-player with small multiplayer interaction action-RPGs.

As far as WoW is concerned, that game that has become a lobby-based dungeon/raid game with a subscription. For the last decade, WoW has been a game of borrowed power and has very similarly to ESO attempted to balance by adding and removing stuff every year with no real rhyme or reason.

Plenty of people talk about ESO’s combat system’s deficiencies. This isn’t anything new.

Plenty of people talk about it, and yet the devs don't see to be focused on it. They release a weird patch seeking to improve combat, and people's knee-jerk reaction is to talk about their damage numbers being hit instead of redirecting to the more significant problems. I partly agree with you on the unfair comparison aspect. Yet, remember that ESO's combat is largely based upon Skyrim, a single-player rpg. There's nothing holding the devs back originally or now from making combat more exciting and dynamic. I'll probably remove the comparison so as not to distract from my primary points regardless.

WoW has had a big borrowed problem since BFA launched in 2018, not 10 years ago. That was when we saw the borrowed power got removed from the game (thus becoming a "borrowed" power) and replaced, quite poorly, with other forms of borrowed power during that expansion, culminating with corrupted gear. I agree that the constant removal and introduction of the borrowed power was unhealthy for the game, but again my comparison with WoW's combat, especially at the end of my post, was to demonstrate the uniqueness and variety of combat design against the static, mostly similar builds and playstyle of ESO across all classes. WoW's combat still retained much of what made the combat great even if particular specs became less desirable when removing desired abilities. Overall, most of what worked with most classes in the borrowed power they had was added back in baseline, and the same thing (hopefully the last time) will happen again in Dragon Flight as the devs swear off borrowed power for a while.

I have never played ESO for the combat, and probably never will, as I mostly agree with your overview - ESO combat is boring and repetitive and many of the better 'skills' have consistently been weapon / guild lines, leaving 'classes' to all feel the same.

For PVP, I agree their belief it is possible to balance the plethora of skill and gear combinations available in ESO simultaneously for PVP and PVE is pure fantasy.

Edit to add - visually the models are ok, not great, but not bad either - they do fit Elder Scrolls. A lot of animations do suck though.

This is going to be an unpopular position I'm sure, but the combat system in this game is my LEAST favorite part of the game. It is one of the reasons why I prefer to play support role instead of DPS. IMO, the combat system is basically muscle memory button mashing - getting as many actions per minute in as you can in order to maximize DPS. It is the ONLY way to get endgame competitive DPS in this game, and it requires you to put in hours and hours of dummy-(riding) just to "prepare" yourself to play the game. And it puts WAY too much emphasis on the importance of the trial dummy. Overall, I think this is just absolutely ridiculous, especially for those of us who have limited time to play because of jobs, family, and (Gasp) other hobbies. You SHOULD be able to have better damage output and combat effectiveness based on your time spent in the game IMO.

What I would like to see in a combat system:

1. Weapon/Spell damage should scale - at least in part - with your champion point level. I don't know what an appropriate scaling percentage would be, but in order to take emphasis away from damage rotations/animation cancelling/weaving, a portion of your raw damage rating should come from just having higher champion points. This will reward people who spend more time in the game, and it would be an easy measure to determine whether someone is "ready" to take on certain content. Furthermore, Zos is giving away level-up scrolls like candy and enlightenment makes new champion point rank characters gain champion points faster/easier than people who have been in the game awhile, training gear is available as well, so people can grind levels if they want to. Naturally, this would have to be disabled in PVP through battlespirit, or at least have a server where this is disabled.

2. More emphasis on the importance of defensive group buff sets. They're only used really in PVP, and even then, offensive buffs are just as important. On the PVE side, its offense or nothing because no matter how good your healers/tanks are, OHK and high damage mechanics negate the effectiveness (and therefore, usefulness) of defensive buff sets. IMO, they need to scrap the overuse of OHK mechanics, and implement more high AOE damage encounters where defensive buff sets will be more useful. As a way to negate OHK mechanics, perhaps some ultimates can be reworked to be more useful in these encounters. For example, a templar popping Rememberance or Panacea at JUST the right time should save from a OHK/group wipe (but not prevent wipe if the OHK is the result of failed mechanics).

3. Shift emphasis from light attacks to heavy attacks to increase damage output. I never understood why heavy attacks were to regain resources whereas light attacks were intended to "supplement" damage by being a filler attack. IMO, restoring resources from heavy attacks should be a part of a sustain mechanic available from your champion points or from a set bonus, not as a basic combat mechanic. The heavy attack should serve as the fill in damage, and the amount of damage should done should outpace the amount of damage you can deal with light attacks during the same period it takes for you to complete the heavy attack. Furthermore, you should get bonus damage for heavy attacks completed on targets that are subject to crowd control (stunned, feared, immobilized, off balance, etc.).

At the same time, I think the duration of the status effects that allow for increased damage heavy attacks should be increased - at least in PVE to allow a small group to effectively (and quickly) deal with large mobs.

4. Decouple the damage AoE/Dots do from their duration. The AoE/Dot damage should scale on weapon/spell damage (amped by critical chance/damage/penetration/other champion point perks), but duration should be something you can build for, either by sets or champion points. That way, you are not FORCED into this style of combat where your trying to maintain a fanatical pace to keep high uptimes on all your DoTs/AoEs. (As an aside, I also think the size of AoE's should be able to be increased in champion point system).

5. In order to make everyone happy, I think they could try to do something with the champion point perk/armor system that would allow players who enjoy the current combat system to play the same way - but because it is a product of a specific build (via champion points/armor sets, etc.), it is balanced as against other builds rather than having those advantages basically built into the base combat system. What this would mean - if you like the current combat system, you can keep it. You just won't enjoy the huge advantage that perfect weaving/cancelling gives you right now.

6. Healing should scale independently of "offensive stats." A DPS should not be competitive with (or out-heal) a dedicated healer. A dedicated healer should have a clear and overwhelming advantage in the healing department vs. a mostly DPS character that utilizes a restoration staff on back bar or otherwise uses a class heal.

7. Damage penalties for heavy armor. This mainly applies to PVP, but unless Zos tries to re-think tanking, I don't think this would have a large impact on PVE. But there should be a global damage penalties that a character receives for equipping a heavy armor piece. I think the heavier pieces (chest, legs, head, (maybe shoulders?) should incur a stronger damage penalty of, say 15% overall per heavy piece, and 10% per light piece, so that if you wear ALL heavy armor, your electing to be a tank, and you pose no threat to anyone in combat. From a balance standpoint, it is absolutely ridiculous that you can make a build that is SUPER tanky - so much so that you can resist/shrug off/laugh at damage from a character who built themselves as a glass cannon, but you are still able to do enough damage to kill people on your own. I'm not sure how that is even a thing, but it definitely shouldn't be IMO.

Overall, I'd just like a game where DPS isn't king, and where the roles are more well defined, and the combat isn't based on muscle memory button mashing.

So, I agree with some of these points even if I resent the way they were communicated with a bit too much hostility for my tastes. I wouldn't say the experience "sucks," is "horrible," and/or "terrible" like the original post suggests. I'd even venture to say to the OP that you'll find people (and developers) are generally more receptive to what you have to say if you can take some of the aggression out of future responses.

Points 2 and 3 are big ones for me. Class ID has never been worse than it is right now. These pushes for homogenization have to end! Race and class diversity matters and I'd like to see more differences and variations, not fewer.

And, as far as combat is concerned I too think the animations and are not very good and need to be worked on some. I think the combat experience in ESO is a bit to "floaty" for my tastes as in it's lacking a sense of impact and umph with each swing and ability. For all it's many faults New World makes me feel like I'm really hitting something when I deliver a blow--ESO often makes me feel like I'm just wiggling a sword in the air striking through models made of mist, vapor, and smoke. A combat physics rework would be a huuuge task, but if done well it could make this game shine.

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Yeah, plenty of people find ESO's combat to not be their cup of tea and either don't play it or play the game despite the combat.

That would be me - actually, I despise combat in games whether single player or multi player. Way too many years of raiding in WoW and RIFT. I will go out of my way to NOT kill stuff except as needed in quest lines.

Yeah, these are all arguments that come up pretty frequently. There are a few die-hards who try to defend some of the games more questionable design choices, but every person I've introduced to the game didn't stick around for all the reasons you listed and more. I personally agree VERY strongly with 1 and 3. The problem is a lot of these issues are foundational; spammables wouldn't be a thing if light attacks were designed to be the spammable like every other action game ever, just as a basic example. LA weaving wouldn't be the ONLY playstyle if they didn't put skills and basic attacks on separate and inexplicably long cooldown timers. You also make a great point on skills that interact with each other in a rotation. There's attempts to do this with Lava Whip and Crystal Frags, but in practice the former is optimally used as just another 10-second buff and the latter is a very basic proc effect with little actual gameplay impact.

I also agree pretty strongly with the separate PvE and PvP balance. I won't say it's impossible, but it is extraordinarily difficult to make a single skill balanced in two completely different environments. CC alone has a very different impact in PvP than it does in PvE, and frankly I feel a lot of CC skills suffer in PvE because of things like CC immunity. Players might understandably get mad without it, but NPCs don't care if they get chain stunned, yet the game still prevents it and therefore nullifies the viability of any CC skill used by a non-tank. That alone right there takes out a huge chunk of skills that players could use to make more diverse builds, but it's simply not a good choice in any case, so they go unused.

I'll also add that I feel the game has become far too reliant on AoEs and DoTs. AoEs in particular make combat at the higher end incredibly boring, as pretty much every trash fight is just "pull the mobs together and nuke with endless AoEs." There are no classes that excel at single-target vs. AoE. damage in any meaningful way, everyone just needs AoEs all the time. Both skill types also contributes to the visual clutter the devs have been combating for a while, making it hard to track what abilities are actually active without timers (And no action game should have you staring at timers, ever).

Overall, there are a lot of core combat changes I feel the game would need to even live up to other action MMOs like TERA or BDO, never mind single-player games like Elden Ring or Nioh. The problem is the devs are spending all their time making the game more like WoW or FFXIV, despite the entire premise of combat in those games being different. While there is a place for numerical balance, at the end of the day you have to actually play the game and feel how everything works together to make something actually fun.

First of all, looks are subjective. I'm glad we don't have a skill that looks like a rotten Draugr, sounds cheap and overplayed. Second of all, the graphics are janky because this is an old game. If you want a new style, go play a new game. That's not how games as a service work, and it's always lame when someone complains an MMO is not as nice as a single player game.

As for the combat in this game, it's fine. It's more fast-paced than other MMOs. If you want what those MMOs have go play them. I would absolutely hate if it if all MMOs were the same.

The thing I most hate about the combat that put me off playing it for a couple of years is that your physical attacks don’t appear to connect with the enemy, and the bosses don’t come anywhere near to appear to connect with you when they hit you with a physical weapon. You have to learn by experience and pray that you’re out of range of attacks.

"we" don't talk about it because some things people like (combat) and others are ships that sailed long ago as part of some standardisation or else (loss of identity) where feedback was ignored. Even necro is also subjective matter, for me it's a halloween clown and fits nowhere in elder scrolls while some are loving the class, can't do anything about it really.