Giraffon wrote: »

I'm currently taking a time out from this game. I appreciate changes that improve things or add content, but when they screw with my build that I've worked so hard on. That gets old fast.

I'm in the same boat - it's frustrating, and it's disheartening too.

I've been taking a break since U35 was announced, and honestly I can't be bothered to get back into the game at this point.

Despite it being a relatively short time, it already feels like I'm completely out of touch with what's going on in the game. With all the different changes since, and the thought of having to go back and grind out and relearn all my characters in order to update my builds... that's a lot of work, and it's just not fun anymore.

Zero incentive to come back to ESO at the moment, and that's sad, because I've had some great times playing ESO in the past.

That being said, if anyone else is feeling burnt out, there are so many other fantastic games out there. Sad to see the state of ESO, but having a great time exploring other games as well.

I'm tired of changes that have to deal with the behavior or complaints of the top few % of the game that impact the rest of the game and don't resolve the issues they are intended to address or cause significant damage to other areas.

At this point it goes for pretty much every game I play.

The top few % of the game are the people most likely to push your design to the breaking point then exploit the area that breaks. Unless you are incredibly sure you are going to hit your mark, have limited collateral damage, or your game is sold primarily as an E-Sport, I really think developers should generally just leave the top be.

Marto wrote: »

Troodon80 wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

Jman100582 wrote: »

a meta change like 7 times a year

There's not even 7 balance changes a year...

Balance change isn't the same as a meta change. ZOS balances the game, generally, 3-4 times per year as per a balance change in each quarterly update. Unless something is bugged, in which case it might get into an incremental patch. A meta change is whatever does the best, and people work out the "best" over time. What seemed to work on PTS and day one of Live isn't what we're using now, only a couple weeks later. It's not just the target dummy you need to look at, either. Certain classes perform better in certain content, so meta, broadly, shifts depending on content as well.

For example, people were trying out Maelstrom staff on PTS in the first 2-3 weeks, but it got changed and bugged in the last couple weeks of PTS and then for a couple weeks on Live. People tried Vateshran daggers (situational), then went two-piece dual wield (Relequen/Whorl + Pillar/Aegis Caller + Mythic + Monster set, and that's without considering tank sets, healer sets, and support DD sets), and now some are settling on Blackrose daggers. Gone are the days when a meta would be worked out in the final week of PTS and people would farm the upcoming meta ahead of time. Over the last couple years, meta has taken time to trickle down as people test various sets via parsing for hours a day and then testing builds in actual content. Meta can shift dozens of times over a year depending on balance + content + potential bugs.

And all of this considers only end game PvE, not even looking at PvP (which we can also just lump in with "different content").

At that point, we're not even talking about "change fatigue", we're talking about "theorycrafting fatigue".

People trying to squeeze every single ounce of power out of their character. Players that will throw fun out the window, and stop using a build they enjoy simply because some twitch streamer found something that deals 1-3% more damage.

That is absolutely self-inflicted.

Is that the fault of ZOS? Mosty not. Maybe indirectly, since this obsessive and self-sabotaging player behavior is the result of players trying to beat extremely difficult content.

Making HM trials, trifectas, and other difficult content considerably easier would probably be the best way to fix that problem. But then you'll have tons of complaints from endgame players, saying they're just melting everything and skipping mechanics with 100k+ DPS. So... What can you do?

I come back to see if there's some change that would bring me back to the game. For context, i played this game for over 12,,000 hours, have sunk thousands of dollars in in crown purchases, I Have over 16 toons max level and no longer play, but because I loved this game for so long, I keep hoping something will change. over the years and have watched what I enjoyed about the game go away. I don't do HM trials, trifectas etc... Let me say this about these sweeping changes. Yes, when you first start playing, running around the world doing quests will keep you entertained. After Doing all of the quests on one character or two, then getting mulitple characters at max crafting, or learning all of your motifs, what is there to do besides try to become better beside farm furnishing plans? So of course people are going to go out looking for things to improve their play. When that constantly changes, they are going to get tired of farming the gear, the transmutes watching dots go so weak they weren't worth using (2019 update), to so powerful that they were the meta (update after that), to so weak they aren't worth using again. (current update). Some change is good. it gives people something to do. but sweeping changes and making mulitple skills in different classes all deal the same damage with the same timers feels like putting 2 oranges on the table and giving them different names, but they are still oranges and my orange is the same as your orange if I'm one class or another. As far as farming gear and transmutes?? Why? It'll be useless in a few months. so why play?

My problem is that I find the combat changes usually undesirable. Been playing a long time and the game has taught me to literally dread each combat change since, on balance, they make the game less enjoyable for me. There have been plenty of non-combat changes that I greatly appreciate (like making writs more streamlined, the outfitting system, transmuting, stickerbook reconstruction, companions. . . .) but when it comes to combat, the changes generally seem to be dumb, too much and in the wrong direction. Perfect example: I am NOT a 'ceiling' player, yet U35 somehow felt it appropriate to nerf my 25k dps down to 15k.

Its made me not want to log in at all other than ball group 1 or 2 times a week. Ive cancelled my sub and almost at the stage of quitting completely. Especially since the new pts is around the corner. Hell xbox has only had the patch for a couple of weeks and we're already expecting more sweeping changes even though we were told in the past the sweeping patch to patch changes would stop. But here we are.

Why should i even think about farming gear or any sort of content for end game raiding, learning new parses etc when its going to be obliterated in a matter of weeks?

For me it's a "Yes but"...

Explanation of the "but": I experience the same in all MMOs I play. The younger generation, or at least a vast majority, play multiple games simultaneously and like that things go fast. They want to be straight at max level and rush to end of game. From there, if there is not regularly changes/adds bringing new content/challenges to the game, they don't wait 5 minutes before to quit and swap to the next game for new content.

Due to that, I think that MMOs don't have much choice: that's a bit the price to pay to maintain younger generation of players, who will be their future.

In my main game, changes are so close one after the other, that I have by now pile of unfinished episode stories and a Himalaya of non-completed achievements. I also keep updating equipment only for one char, the one of my preferred end game activity. I have given up updating the others because I was tired redoing whole armor, weapons, and learning again a new skill rotation.

So, yes am tired of it, but on the other hand, for all MMOs, it's probably the key to keep going, so it will not stop soon. From there, I just adapt

At app 160 to 20 the ratio of players suffering from change fatigue is 8:1
This is a significant number

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Cazador wrote: »

Personally I like toying around with new stuff and the meta gets really boring after a while so no

What if I told you that if you don't want to chase the meta you don't have to? The devs doing wild balance adjustments every 3 months isn't healthy for the game or the player base and you can actually try/toy around with new stuff without being forced to do so by these insane back and forth dev changes every quarter?

With the armory system even if you are an end game enjoyer you can toy around with non-meta builds all you want if we had stability in the game and you could just slot your meta build when you run end game content. It seems like you want to be forced to change by the devs instead of doing it because it's something that you actually enjoy.

I've only been playing a little over a year and I'm exhausted. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who have been at it for years. And why? What does all this thrashing accomplish in the end?

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

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Cazador wrote: »

Personally I like toying around with new stuff and the meta gets really boring after a while so no

What if I told you that if you don't want to chase the meta you don't have to? The devs doing wild balance adjustments every 3 months isn't healthy for the game or the player base and you can actually try/toy around with new stuff without being forced to do so by these insane back and forth dev changes every quarter?

With the armory system even if you are an end game enjoyer you can toy around with non-meta builds all you want if we had stability in the game and you could just slot your meta build when you run end game content. It seems like you want to be forced to change by the devs instead of doing it because it's something that you actually enjoy.

I do end game content so I often need to do whatever the meta is to meet certain requirements (though I play around with other stuff in my free time)
It has nothing with me wanting to be forced to change, in fact I like change since it gives me more to do. My problem is that there are certain classes and playstyles where the meta hasn't changed for a while. Look at a stam character for example. In nearly every circumstance relequen is meta and has been since it's release in 2018. Until something is changed (adding a new set that is as strong or stronger) it will likely stay that way. I get that people don't like change and all, the meta stagnates if nothing changes.

If you build to the design of the game, rather than building to take advantage of things that are broken/bugged, then you don't need to change you're build as much and it often gets buffed patch to patch.

Cazador wrote: »

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

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Cazador wrote: »

Personally I like toying around with new stuff and the meta gets really boring after a while so no

What if I told you that if you don't want to chase the meta you don't have to? The devs doing wild balance adjustments every 3 months isn't healthy for the game or the player base and you can actually try/toy around with new stuff without being forced to do so by these insane back and forth dev changes every quarter?

With the armory system even if you are an end game enjoyer you can toy around with non-meta builds all you want if we had stability in the game and you could just slot your meta build when you run end game content. It seems like you want to be forced to change by the devs instead of doing it because it's something that you actually enjoy.

I do end game content so I often need to do whatever the meta is to meet certain requirements (though I play around with other stuff in my free time)
It has nothing with me wanting to be forced to change, in fact I like change since it gives me more to do. My problem is that there are certain classes and playstyles where the meta hasn't changed for a while. Look at a stam character for example. In nearly every circumstance relequen is meta and has been since it's release in 2018. Until something is changed (adding a new set that is as strong or stronger) it will likely stay that way. I get that people don't like change and all, the meta stagnates if nothing changes.

I've been playing ESO since closed Beta and normally just rolled with the tide so I'm no stranger to change in this game or any other MMO. What I have extreme issue with from this combat team is is the frequency of changes and the fact that they are often large/sweeping changes instead of merely adjustments and refinements of the current combat system. This game is 8 years old, we're not early access, we're not alpha, and we're not beta this is prime time production commercial release ESO so these wild schizo balancing changes and periodic "shaking up the etcha sketch" is not something that we should see in a game that is almost a decade old.

Metas will change even with subtle balancing changes so we don't need Merunes Dagon type balancing patches coming from this very out of touch combat team to keep things interesting. I hate having to leave feedback like this because overall the encounter team and story team is doing awesome work that I really enjoy. It's just very difficult to enjoy the solid work of the good dev teams when we have a combative out of touch combat team unnecessarily molesting the foundations of how players interact with every other part of ESO.

If the changes all worked towards a goal-end-state, I'd be more supportive of their pace. Unfortunately, they flip about more than a beached Maomer.

I would say its quite telling, pity we had such a small sample