What NEW vet HM trial bosses' health would satisfy you?

qcell · August 2022

To which values would they need to reduce these 2 particular enemies' health for you to say: now it's good.

Current live HP:

Xalvakka HM 238M
Taleria HM 201M

It's fine to read your opinions, but please include at least values for both bosses, specifically in veteran Hardmode, in each reply. Feel free to include more details (Oax, Bahsei, their adds, Lylanar/Turlassil, Reef Guardians, Sea Behemoths...).

Tagging a few people that I think may have valuable opinions on the topic and are active on the Forums, but this is open to everyone who can provide a rationale.
@Troodon80 @code65536 @SeaUnicorn @Nefas @DjMuscleboy02 @MyNameIsElias @CyberOnEso

WrathOfInnos · August 2022

Both these bosses seem about balanced on live. Xalvakka's wipe timer may a little low, but I wouldn't say the fight is excessively long. I just want their health reduced by the same percentage as the DPS nerfs so that the difficulty remains nearly constant, or slightly easier. No group should lose the ability to clear any encounter when a patch releases.

SeaUnicorn · August 2022

If somehow ZOS manages to balance it in a way where we get same fight times it's fine. vSS, vRG and vDSR have pretty balanced not too long, not too short fight times for optimized groups.
But it is hard to tell, because theory crafters who were parsing on PTS week one is not parsing anymore due to being exhausted from all the changes. So I don't even know where our damage will be.

What worries me is what happens to various mechanics and what kind of unintended impacts they might have.
Like Xalvakka Shells? Will their HP be reduced, will we be able to clear them fast enough since it's an extremely dangerous mechanic.
What about Totems in vKA side bosses? Will we need more people focusing them down?
What happens to blobs in Falgravn? Will we still be ablet to cleave them? If not - we have to ST them, and therefore extend the fight since Falgravn will not be focused.

Will we need to change Oax strat to re-balance push on Oax and Mini to where new mini spawns just as old mini dies?
And yet again, incoming damage is not changing in those trials, but healing power is. How will it impact our ability to survive? Currently a lot of survivability on Taleria comes from being able to use Blade Cloak on DDs (with its auxillary effect being major evasion), but DW seems to be getting nerfed, so if DW falls out of meta people will be taking more damage during Maelstroms, but our heals will heal them for less...

DjMuscleboy02 · August 2022

I don't think I necessarily have a number in my head for what I think boss hp needs to be reduced to. But I think that if you're making a claim that you are going to reduce boss hp and difficulty to be in line with what it currently is on live then I'd be expecting to see boss hp follow a similar reduction in line with damage. If damage is going down by ~20% then I'd expect to see boss hp dropping 20% across the board.

This would bring Xalvakka to around 190.4m and Taleria to around 160.8m.

My biggest concern would be that should damage go down, regardless of the claim of closing some kind of existing skill gap, the fights need to remain the same time or better. Otherwise it's not actually lowering anything, it's just making it harder for the target demographic and accomplishing nothing for top players. 30s longer on Xalvakka will hardly affect most raid teams, but can shut out prog teams for another couple weeks.

I really don't think that damage matters a whole lot to most people, barring losing the ability to clear certain fights like Xalvakka. So as long as damage stays in line with what is expected from the content, these changes won't actually matter. What is really the make or break for me is how combat will feel after yet another round of sweeping changes. I think most people really enjoy the combat and stick around for that reason. You can go do big damage in pretty much any game, but eso's combat is what really attracts a lot of players in the community. Spamming the same skill 40 times isn't very fun. Heavy attacking isn't fun. There is already no reason to even do end game content in eso, it's pretty much a money sink. Having to play catch up every patch because of so many changes gets exhausting.

We are entering week 4 of PTS and are almost entirely in the dark on what changes are really coming. This concerns me more than anything. I really think that ZOS need to take a step back and pull these changes and give plenty of time for testing to be done. The changes being made here are not something to shove out to meet a quarterly combat patch expectation. These changes have the potential to be one of the worst introductions to the game since the last time similar changes were made in Morrowind. Zos has been doing a really good job of new content lately and I would hate to see it ruined by forcing something like this.

Nefas · August 2022

Sub 190 mil for both regardless of changes for Update 35 to make the content more accessible.

Nefas · August 2022

Same concept goes for the other boss fights. No need to balance even the hardest content strictly around the 0.01% of the top 1%.

Troodon80 · August 2022

Nefas wrote: »

Sub 190 mil for both regardless of changes for Update 35 to make the content more accessible.

I was going to say, even without the DPS changes, these could be reduced by around 10% just to make it more accessible. They're "balanced" for the top-most groups, which is nice as a challenge, and for the most part even they're clearing trifecta in a couple weeks. But it was pointed out several times by various people that on Taleria, for example, there's almost no line drawn between getting a hard mode clear and doing it no death, because otherwise you don't have the DPS to clear up Sea Behemoths, line up mechanics, etc. Considering almost all the leaderboards consist of the same handful of players which most people in end game could name, that's not healthy.

ninibini · August 2022

To make it more accessible, the boss healths should be decreased so that a group that is able to get Godslayer (even if it's a 30 min GS) is able to clear both hard modes in RG and DSR with a bit of leeway for factoring in some recovery. You shouldn't need a perfect fight just for getting a clear.

qcell · August 2022

Update after Week 5 changes: @ZOS_Finn please read, I spent a long time on this.
Please forward to the corresponding department.

My feedback:
The 90.0000% multiplier change you did on all the trial bosses (that we checked) on PTS is insufficient to avoid regression to compensate the lowered group DPS.

My tests
I checked the full exact HP value (not rounded) and it was pretty precise to 4 decimal spots. I logged into PTS and checked health values of several trial bosses in HM where available (Olms vAS, Z'maja vCR, Oaxiltso vRG, Lightning Storm Atronach vAA) and bannermen. There are not enough available players to test further in PTS.

Dreadsail Reef and endgame
An example that is affecting my raiding group given its dps check nature: Taleria's HM health needs to go down 25-30% (from 201 to 140-150 million HP) for it to remain at the same level of difficulty and clear-rate with the Week 5 U35 (8.1.4) DPS for us. We already have high uptimes of the new buffs added to the trial dummy. Less than 140M will make the encounter easier. More than 150M will result in fewer (if any) clearings.

I analyzed two groups progressing Swashbuckler Supreme in EU that are getting to Taleria 30+/36 vitality and doing flawless no-death Taleria HM, and we won't be able to clear the last boss HM after the changes - at all*. I'm happy to share specific data, all my spreadsheet calculations and logs if anyone from ZOS reaches out directly. But I won't post it in the forums.

* I have in-depth experience with Taleria's combat events, casts, cooldowns, debuffs and nuances and I've gone in depth to simulate how it will play out.

boi_anachronism_ · August 2022

This right here ⬆️ you have dedicated players willing to spend their free time running and testing for you providing real data trying to help you make a better, balanced game. Please give these folks the time of day. They deserve it for the considerable effort and contribution.

jecks33 · August 2022

qcell wrote: »

* I have in-depth experience with Taleria's combat events, casts, cooldowns, debuffs and nuances and I've gone in depth to simulate how it will play out.

You and guys like you should be paid for all the time and effort you put in this game. Thank you very very much!

Lykeion · August 2022

qcell wrote: »

Update after Week 5 changes: @ZOS_Finn please read, I spent a long time on this.

You are the best, qcell. You are a great model as a plugin author, an endgamer, and a community contributor.

Drammanoth · August 2022

Want 'accessibility' ? 10% health reduction is not enough. 25% on vets+hm, and 33% on vet arenas. Otherwise someone is in for a sour treat...

And by soneone, I mean us, the playerbase