Why the changes in Update 35 miss the mark and fail to fix the issues that it seeks to address

RaptorRodeoGod · July 2022

Is it just me, or has every time they've made a change to "raise the floor and lower the ceiling" made dealing damage harder for everyone individually, whilist simultaneously introducing strong group buffs that end up raising the group dps ceiling?

Trae12 · July 2022

Totally agree, I think the changes dont fit the agenda. They might have looked good on paper to ppl in an office that dont actually play the game but i havnt found anyone who thinks these changes are positive or needed in any way other then Oakensol for pvp, everyone agrees with that but they shouldnt completely gut it for pve. I think Deltia porposed a good change top add pve specific buffs to Oakensol.

Tannus15 · July 2022

Trae12 wrote: »

Totally agree, I think the changes dont fit the agenda. They might have looked good on paper to ppl in an office that dont actually play the game but i havnt found anyone who thinks these changes are positive or needed in any way other then Oakensol for pvp, everyone agrees with that but they shouldnt completely gut it for pve. I think Deltia porposed a good change top add pve specific buffs to Oakensol.

just add -25% damage to players. oakensoul in PvP is literally the easiest thing in the world to fix.
I don't understand why they are changing it they way they are.

Amottica · July 2022

code65536 wrote: »

In case anyone is curious, my group tested Kyne's Aegis Hard Mode on the PTS on Saturday night.

I detailed that experience (with log snippets) in the official feedback thread:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7660761/#Comment_7660761

That seems like a very good test.

I agree that combat should not be treated like a "lab experiment". I have never seen a game where combat changed this significantly from update to update let alone year to year.

Thank you for the thorough testing and feedback you have presented.

LeHarrt91 · July 2022

An amazing post, thank you for the time spent in putting this together.

As a Console Player the proposed changes on PTS do not look good for many of the players in the Console Community, considering the current content on Live is often a struggle.

Please consider the ramifications these changes will have on ALL Platforms.

guarstompemoji · July 2022

tmbrinks wrote: »

[

The two teams don't seem like they are in sync (maybe they don't even talk to one another), which is unfathomable to me. Some of the comments made by devs on both teams on the "Thursday Night Streamers/Devs" runs (which are streamed by at least 8-9 other stream team members) made it seem as such. I found it very enlightening that one of the combat designers was seeing the new trial for the first time on the live servers.

[Emphasis mine]

This IS a concern. A person hopes for these teams to work in tandem. Thank you for bringing this to light.

elinien · July 2022

code65536 wrote: »

But at the end of the day, I’m perfectly okay with there being a large power gap and power creep, as long as content isn’t balanced for what the top end is capable of doing. Let them have their portal-skip Cloudrest; that trial is still hard for the vast majority of groups even today, but that’s fine, because Cloudrest and the achievements in Cloudrest were never tuned for those kinds of “tippity-top” groups (to borrow phrasing from Rich). It’s when you have things like DPS checks in Rockgrove HM and insane speedrun time requirements in Dreadsail HM that are clearly aimed at those “tippity-top” groups that the power gap becomes a major problem in PvE. Let score competition be the (open-ended) outlet for those groups at the apex of the game, and buff up leaderboard rewards for them, but stop balancing achievements and even just hard mode clears around that level of play, and you'll have a much healthier raiding scene where more things are accessible to a greater range of player power. And perhaps then, people will not be as likely to react with such strident hostility to the prospect any power being ripped away from them.

I've seen a few other people mention this and it's so true. I really DO NOT care that a top 1% can steamroll content. Let them, they seem to enjoy it, because it's still hard for the rest of us.

I'm a modernly skilled dps. I can do about 50k against the dummy and less than 30k in actual content. When patch after patch takes away power in order to "thwart" a group of people I could care less about, it's so frustrating and demoralizing. It feels like lower and midrange dps have become collateral damage in a war we wanted nothing to do with. It's well past time for a cease fire.

JustAGoodPlayer · July 2022

If they "wants better for you" = you lose near half of your damage.

(I talk about HA builds this PTS)

So i think it is some different from human - allien language

Oakenaxe · July 2022

I wish ZOS would comment on these things, respond to the feedback of their passionate players. I want to hear what they have to say about every point made here. If they are confident in these changes, then convince me. Convince us. Say why this is wrong and why the changes are being kept. They were improving their communication to the player base, but are failing to do so right now when we need it the most.

redspecter23 · July 2022

Oakenaxe wrote: »

I wish ZOS would comment on these things, respond to the feedback of their passionate players. I want to hear what they have to say about every point made here. If they are confident in these changes, then convince me. Convince us. Say why this is wrong and why the changes are being kept. They were improving their communication to the player base, but are failing to do so right now when we need it the most.

I suspect we'll know a lot more during the next pts cycle. Many players are in "wait and see" mode and we're waiting on week 3 for the first news about how the feedback is being received. It's unfortunate that we don't have much to go on right now, but until the week 3 pts comes out, there isn't much they can say other than they are listening to us.

Oakenaxe · July 2022

redspecter23 wrote: »

I suspect we'll know a lot more during the next pts cycle. Many players are in "wait and see" mode and we're waiting on week 3 for the first news about how the feedback is being received. It's unfortunate that we don't have much to go on right now, but until the week 3 pts comes out, there isn't much they can say other than they are listening to us.

Makes sense, I hope they do so. Looking forward to it.

Pevey · July 2022

redspecter23 wrote: »

Sindrik8x wrote: »

These are the types of people that need to sit on the dev team. Zos would be wise to bring someone on with true and tested knowledge like this. Everything stated is spot on. By far the best critique of update 35 I have seen yet between forums, and youtube/twitch.

Thanks for putting this into context for the community Code.

Isn't that the exact situation that led to Gilliam getting invited onto the ZOS team?

Yes, and I think Gilliam has probably been a good addition to the team. Gilliam has a lot of skills, but they don't include being a big picture guy. They also don't include being particularly good at understanding how changes will affect how people enjoy and feel about the game.

It's great for zos to bring in very knowledgeable players who are passionate about the game. I think they were smart to bring on Gilliam (not his real name). But not every individual has all the skills that are necessary for the team as a whole to have. My sense is that Gilliam is a foot soldier and dutifully implements someone else's vision to the best of his ability. Whose vision? That person could use some assistance. That's the nicest way I can put that.

Elsonso · July 2022

redspecter23 wrote: »

Oakenaxe wrote: »

I wish ZOS would comment on these things, respond to the feedback of their passionate players. I want to hear what they have to say about every point made here. If they are confident in these changes, then convince me. Convince us. Say why this is wrong and why the changes are being kept. They were improving their communication to the player base, but are failing to do so right now when we need it the most.

I suspect we'll know a lot more during the next pts cycle. Many players are in "wait and see" mode and we're waiting on week 3 for the first news about how the feedback is being received. It's unfortunate that we don't have much to go on right now, but until the week 3 pts comes out, there isn't much they can say other than they are listening to us.

They were supposed to provide an update this week, but track record says that this won't happen.

Marto · August 2022

Also, power creep isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it means that people who can’t tackle the latest hard modes might have a chance to do so in the future. This is especially true since new content balance takes this power creep into account. People have come to expect power creep each patch to help bring inaccessible content closer within reach, and telling everyone that you intend to roll back power creep is, um, controversial, to put it lightly.

Conversely, balancing for the top end is okay, when there isn’t a huge power gap. If the difference between what we can do and what a world record group could do is only 10-20%, then it’s fine for trials to be balanced around “if there's a group that could pull it off, then it’s fine”. But when that gap is as large as it is today, that just means that far too many players are excluded.

Is this not exactly what causes the power creep?

If we go "Oh it's ok for things to be a bit harder and for power to be a bit higher" for long enough, the result is power creep.

Having this kind of power increase might feel good on the short term, and not seem like a big deal if you look at each patch individually, but on the long term leads to a huge disparity.

And this is also why raising the floor is not a good solution either. It just exacerbates the power creep, keeping the high-end status quo stable, at the cost of making the low-end painfully easy. It's why overland mobs melt in just a couple hits, when that was not the case three or four years ago.

Lowering the ceiling dramatically is the only thing that will solve this vicious cycle, even if it feels bad on the short-term.

code65536 · August 2022

Marto wrote: »

Also, power creep isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it means that people who can’t tackle the latest hard modes might have a chance to do so in the future. This is especially true since new content balance takes this power creep into account. People have come to expect power creep each patch to help bring inaccessible content closer within reach, and telling everyone that you intend to roll back power creep is, um, controversial, to put it lightly.

Conversely, balancing for the top end is okay, when there isn’t a huge power gap. If the difference between what we can do and what a world record group could do is only 10-20%, then it’s fine for trials to be balanced around “if there's a group that could pull it off, then it’s fine”. But when that gap is as large as it is today, that just means that far too many players are excluded.

Is this not exactly what causes the power creep?

If we go "Oh it's ok for things to be a bit harder and for power to be a bit higher" for long enough, the result is power creep.

Having this kind of power increase might feel good on the short term, and not seem like a big deal if you look at each patch individually, but on the long term leads to a huge disparity.

And this is also why raising the floor is not a good solution either. It just exacerbates the power creep, keeping the high-end status quo stable, at the cost of making the low-end painfully easy. It's why overland mobs melt in just a couple hits, when that was not the case three or four years ago.

Lowering the ceiling dramatically is the only thing that will solve this vicious cycle, even if it feels bad on the short-term.

There is the notion that older content should be more accessible. Some games make that notion explicit, by introducing higher level caps when adding new content. ESO doesn't do that, but it has implicitly done something similar. The alternatives are to either nerf older content, or to break the expectation that older stuff should be easier.

The problem in ESO is that this power creep is sometimes broad and lifts all segments of the player base, which is good; but often, that new power is locked behind things that are not easily accessible (e.g., introduction of Minor Brittle, or "kiss-curse" sets like Bahsei or Riptide), which results in the kind of of power creep that also increases the power gap.

This, coupled with the design philosophy of tuning things to what the top players are currently capable of doing, is what produces long-term balancing issues.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2022

CODE FOR PRESIDENT!!!