The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
Maintenance for the week of April 22:
• [IN PROGRESS] PC/Mac: NA megaserver for maintenance – April 25, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 2:00PM EDT (18:00 UTC)
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8098811/#Comment_8098811
• [IN PROGRESS] PC/Mac: NA megaserver for maintenance – April 25, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 2:00PM EDT (18:00 UTC)
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8098811/#Comment_8098811
Minor balance tweaks > Sweeping changes
Stx
✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭
✭✭
Hey ZoS,
I know you had a vision for this patch. But it has been explained to you and demonstrated to you that these proposed changes do not accomplish what it is you set out to do. All these changes are doing is causing players to quit because they are seeing nerfs to their abilities, nerfs to dps, and not much else.
Instead of making large overhauls to the combat system, why don't you focus instead on smaller balance tweaks that would help underperforming abilities find a place in a dps rotation? This would help to achieve the goal of 'play how you want',, because non top end players won't be punished as heavily for choosing cool or fun abilities over meta builds.
Revert the light and heavy attack changes.
Revert all the dot changes. You are halfway there with these, but leaving the sticky dots at 20 to 30 seconds with low dps just means they will never be used in any content. That's not what you want is it?
Honestly, in my opinion ESOs combat system on live is very fun and solid. You don't need to make sweeping changes. Just focus on abilities that need help.. for example, the shadow nightblade ultimate, or the necro spammable.
Maybe you just take some time to look at data, and say "man, no one is using skull, I wonder why?" You can then search forums, or discords, and see that skull just doesn't deal competitive damage, and also the animation makes it tricky to weave. So then for update 35 you might try:
Flame Skull now has a quicker velocity
Flame Skull now deals bonus damage every second cast up from every third
Or for Sorcerers Lightning Splash, this ability has been underperforming compared to other class ground AoEs for a long time. Why not give it a 15% damage buff?
For Nightblade shadow ultimate, this has been one of the worst in the game for a long time. Why not give it some aoe healing, other buffs than just protection, increase the radius, reduce its cost, have it deal damage baseline, anything?
I don't want to go on forever, but small balance changes to underperforming abilities I feel will make this game better, not reinventing base combat every year. You have a solid combat system now. Players react so much better to buffs than nerfs. That's not to say you should never nerf anything if it needs it, but this entire update is nerfs... who would want to play that?
I know you had a vision for this patch. But it has been explained to you and demonstrated to you that these proposed changes do not accomplish what it is you set out to do. All these changes are doing is causing players to quit because they are seeing nerfs to their abilities, nerfs to dps, and not much else.
Instead of making large overhauls to the combat system, why don't you focus instead on smaller balance tweaks that would help underperforming abilities find a place in a dps rotation? This would help to achieve the goal of 'play how you want',, because non top end players won't be punished as heavily for choosing cool or fun abilities over meta builds.
Revert the light and heavy attack changes.
Revert all the dot changes. You are halfway there with these, but leaving the sticky dots at 20 to 30 seconds with low dps just means they will never be used in any content. That's not what you want is it?
Honestly, in my opinion ESOs combat system on live is very fun and solid. You don't need to make sweeping changes. Just focus on abilities that need help.. for example, the shadow nightblade ultimate, or the necro spammable.
Maybe you just take some time to look at data, and say "man, no one is using skull, I wonder why?" You can then search forums, or discords, and see that skull just doesn't deal competitive damage, and also the animation makes it tricky to weave. So then for update 35 you might try:
Flame Skull now has a quicker velocity
Flame Skull now deals bonus damage every second cast up from every third
Or for Sorcerers Lightning Splash, this ability has been underperforming compared to other class ground AoEs for a long time. Why not give it a 15% damage buff?
For Nightblade shadow ultimate, this has been one of the worst in the game for a long time. Why not give it some aoe healing, other buffs than just protection, increase the radius, reduce its cost, have it deal damage baseline, anything?
I don't want to go on forever, but small balance changes to underperforming abilities I feel will make this game better, not reinventing base combat every year. You have a solid combat system now. Players react so much better to buffs than nerfs. That's not to say you should never nerf anything if it needs it, but this entire update is nerfs... who would want to play that?
6
-
MashmalloMan✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Yes to all your points.
To be more specific:
For Lightning Splash, it may be competitive to use now with the synergy taken into account.. but it's definitely scurting the edge. It hasn't been meta to pop on your build since no pet sorcs were good 4 or 5 years ago, maybe more.
Since pets take up 4 slots, Prey 5, spammable 6, minor force 7, weapon aoe dot 8, Sorcs are left with 2 flex spots so the skill that goes there really needs to be worth it and skills like Bound Armaments, Carve, and defensive skills just do so much more.
I'd instead suggest Warden and Sorc to get the DK treatment of increasing their elemental synergy's to match that of Fire for not just themselves, but the group. This adds to group diversity if build composition that the minor prophecy buff can't support when they eventually combine crit values.
Eg. For Lightning Splash - enemies hit take 6% more shock damage recieved for 4s. I personally think this is a perfect canaditate for a debuff like this - it mirrors how Razor Caltrops works.
Make a similar Frost debuff for Warden.
Completely change the Encratis monster set to provide all or nothing towards the elements, instead of just Fire - maybe then, Shock mages will be a thing.PC Beta - 1900+ CP
Stam Sorc Khajiit PvE/PVP Main || Stam Sorc Dark Elf PvP ||
Stam Templar Dark Elf || Stam Warden Wood Elf || Stam DK Nord || Stam Necro Orc || Stam Blade Khajiit
Mag Sorc High Elf || Mag Templar High Elf || Mag Warden Breton || Mag Necro Khajiit || Mag Blade Khajiit0 -
merpins✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭It would honestly be really nice if they did small tweaks every week or two, rather than huge changes every 3 months. It's at the point where big sweeping changes shouldn't be happening anyway, the game is nearly 10 years old.
As a note, the only way I'd want big sweeping changes is if ZoS finally decided to balance PVE and PVP separately, and are doing buffs to classes that are underperforming in PVE, nerfing classes that are overperforming in PVP, and each of these buffs and nerfs are balanced using battle spirit.Edited by merpins on July 29, 2022 6:55PM1