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The skill Gap feels so much bigger now
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okansSoul ShrivenWell I'm around CP560, a damage dealer not good at dealing damage, still can't weave good, at least not consistently and whenever I'm in a dungeon, even in a normal one, I feel like other people are doing better than me, especially in boss fights.
There are moments where I attack a mob while the group moving on, the mob loses health but I have to attack a couple more times to kill it. This exact scenario happens so frequently. And sometimes one of groupmates see me dealing with it, they just run next to me, one shot the damn thing and we move on. Hey, there are some fights I think I was OK too but it's never consistent. Many times I find myself just not enough, running around like crazy to escape from boss AOE's, trying every skill and attack to deal more damage yet feel like I'm being carried hard.
Considering I'm using dungeon finder every single time, almost every time I happen to end up with nice people, who either help me or the the group was just too good that I didn't had to do much or they just didn't care anyway. But I want to be able to explore and complete dungeons, do pledges, trials, raids, I just don't want to be a burden to other people while doing those.
So yes, there is definitely a big gap between good players and casuals like me, and I am willing to improve myself. I did a lot of Googling just do improve my damage, spent a lot of time to get better equipment, reconstructed my skill tree, got some more skill points to improve some important passives here and there, yet, when I go to my guild house to test my improved character on a trial dummy, it's a disappointment DPS wise... And I am pretty sure I have nice armor sets for a casual, at least purple, with monster and epic items and all.
I know that I'm a bad player, at least for now, but the game does not help me anyway to improve myself, other than making me feel weak compared to others. I have no idea how making the content harder helps news or casuals to do better in the game. I had zero training when starting this game and had no idea about weaving, global cooldown etc. I gathered information here and there, but it's just not enough yet. I would love it if they tell me what's the optimal and what's the acceptable damage I should be making based on my current armor, weapon and skills. At least something like the screen that show up when you die in a boss fight, telling you how your helmet is not good as your other armor or you should consume a potion or a food to improve your stats, tell me what's wrong with my rotation, when and how should I attack and when and how should I block, run or stand...7 -
BlueRaven✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭For a seasoned player trolls do pose little threat.
For a person with an RP build, or a new player wearing a mix of ill matched armor/weapon combinations, or someone with some sort of disability, the threat is more significant.
They don’t have easier content to fall back to, if overland becomes unenjoyable for them.5 -
CP5✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭And that's why it should be an option, as right now there is no option. You start off with overland, then what? Normal dungeons which are heavily populated with experienced players blitzing through it for easy rewards, denying newer players even the chance to see what's going on? When many of the base game dungeons are simple enough for a group with even one relatively experienced player can make it a breeze? People won't notice or learn anything through that. So then vet dungeons? I used to pug those all the time and the simple fact is many players don't know the basics of how to play the game even then, despite having put in enough time in game to gain a sizable number of champion points.
There needs to be something in between, a place for players to learn at their own pace without having to be in group content and the world of tamriel is the single largest piece of content in the game that also happens to be the only piece of content that doesn't offer any sort of choice or meaningful difficulty gradient for people to test themselves against. My point here, and in the past in the overland content thread, is that these issues could be addressed by giving players a choice, by reusing the same tech they used at launch for overland and still use now, to provide a version of overland that encourages the use of more of the games systems, to both act as a place for newer players to learn and to be more engaging for experienced players, because as a digital game it is well within their capabilities to give players that choice.2 -
Jaraal✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭"FeedbackOnly wrote: »Lastly I don't see how this was supposed to increase accessibility yet.
And that’s probably why they never published the promised Q&A. Their stated goal was to improve accessibility, while closing the skill gap. But they achieved the opposite on both counts.
How can you explain the inexplicable?
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Kingsindarkness✭✭✭✭✭There is nothing ZOS can do about people not understanding to stay out of red circles.
Well...considering that I get one/two shotted with zero warning in a Dungeon my friends and I use to have zero issues in...and then I'm told to watch a Youtube Video from someone who tells me I'm <insert humiliating and derogatory comment here>
And if I say anything about that I'm called toxic told to get gud or welcome to MMO's ....nevermind the devs keep telling me this isn't a MMO.
But... stay out of the red circle...got it.
Edited by Kingsindarkness on September 19, 2022 11:07PM4 -
fizzylu✭✭✭✭✭
✭Everyone keeps saying tutorial but what would that tutorial actually be for?
Interrupts, blocking, roll dodging?
Or is it to teach animation canceling?
If it’s to teach animation canceling then I would say don’t bother. Even in games like wow, the people who do high end content is very small, and let’s be frank here, the combat in wow is better than the animation-canceling-multibar-combat-thing we have here. (And the combat in wow is not great to begin with.)
No one is moving to eso because of the amazing combat system, in fact the combat system is probably eso’s biggest problem.
Highlighting it’s clunky nature by having a tutorial would probably drive players away more than help them.stevenyaub16_ESO wrote: »It's more like 120APM to DPS because you light attack before each skill + barswaps.
Agree that having a tutorial that teaches you to do this and push you to weave faster would turn away the majority of new players.
It's a completely unique system that no gamer outside of ESO has ever had to do.
Is it bad? Matter of taste. I find it satisfying. But at the same time, I think it's a god awful way to play a game.
Y'all out here really making it clear why ESO's combat is an issue haha the mixture of bar swapping, light attack weaving, AND the lack of cooldowns outside of GCD.... well, it's a mess.
WoW has a standard rotation style of gameplay with longer cooldowns on many abilities, a GCD system, and light/heavy attacking isn't even really a thing. All you do is learn your rotation, when to hit the buttons in said rotation, and you're good to go. Might sound boring to an ESO player.... but at least it makes sense, feels smooth, and isn't a result of an unintended feature *cough cough* light attack weaving *cough cough*.
But then there's New World, a game that has a combat system that I imagined ESO's would be like. It has the weapon swapping (and even cooler since you actually get to see both weapons equipped at all times), it has the light and heavy attacking.... BUT it also has long cooldowns for abilities, avoiding a spammy "120APM" style gameplay. Most of your damage even comes from light/heavy attacks being used as the bread and butter of the combat rather than some sort of filler like in ESO.
I enjoy both WoW and New World's take on combat.... and I'd be lying if I didn't say that in ESO's case, my love has depleted quite a bit as the years have gone by haha and I have introduced friends to all three games; ESO, WoW, and New World. ESO was always the least favorite so I do agree that a tutorial would do more harm than good.... but isn't it kind of odd we're saying that new players learning the way a game fundamentally functions combat wise would chase them away???? And if that is the case, shouldn't something be changed???? Idk haha
Edited by fizzylu on September 19, 2022 11:08PM5 -
Jaraal✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭There is nothing ZOS can do about people not understanding to stay out of red circles.
Considering that 1/3 of players play in first person view and can’t even see red circles, maybe ZOS could, like, you know…. tell players about red circles in the tutorial or something?
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/617082/do-you-play-eso-in-first-person/p1
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ForzaRammer✭✭✭✭✭
✭PrincessOfThieves wrote: »Everyone keeps saying tutorial but what would that tutorial actually be for?
Interrupts, blocking, roll dodging?
Or is it to teach animation canceling?
If it’s to teach animation canceling then I would say don’t bother. Even in games like wow, the people who do high end content is very small, and let’s be frank here, the combat in wow is better than the animation-canceling-multibar-combat-thing we have here. (And the combat in wow is not great to begin with.)
No one is moving to eso because of the amazing combat system, in fact the combat system is probably eso’s biggest problem.
Highlighting it’s clunky nature by having a tutorial would probably drive players away more than help them.
Animation cancelling is a very small part of the dps gap. The real problem, which often gets overlooked, is that people don’t hit skills every second (every global cooldown). If you look at the cmx info page, there is a “weaving average” line. The “total” stat, basically gives you how much time you wasted between skills throughout the parse or fight. The top dps are under 10 seconds on a dummy parse. If you do a skill even every 1.25 seconds instead of every 1 second, you will be wasting 60 seconds over a 4 min parse. Thats a good 30k dps. That’s the damage difference. It’s not that people cannot track dot timers, or have perfect light attack weaving. Most people are just not using skills quite fast enough.
If combat is dependent upon 60 APM, then that is the chief problem.
I like watching star craft. And one of the announcers likes to do commentary on average-lower level played games. Those people hover around 20-40 APM. Which seems about right to me. I think that is the average players output, but I know of many players where their APM will be much lower than that.
Competitive APM in Starcraft is much higher than in ESO, though
And it's a different type of game.
I don't think the problem is that casual players can't hit abilities fast enough, it's that they move around too much and let their dots fall off. Without that, most people can hit decent (not top tier, but decent) numbers.
That’s true, but I think the average player is about 20-40 APM. Competitive StarCraft APM can get really crazy, into the hundreds APM, but for the average person that’s not happening.
60 APM, that’s not a combat system the average player can accommodate.
You definitely don’t need 60 apm to be an end game tank (clear all hm trials). And 60 apm on rojo healer is not exactly low.
A low apm player who refuse to be support main is just complaining instead of trying. It’s not like support mains get less reward from clearing contents.1 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭
People like this, I feel, are the majority of the players. And making overland more difficult, is just making their lives more difficult in a long shot attempt to help bolster a section of the game that is in the vast minority.
Most players do slightly more damage than their companions, while some players are doing 25x that damage. That is far too wide a gap. The top end needs to be pushed down, and the dps requirements of the difficult content needs to come down as well.
Leave players who are not part of this problem out of it.
That sounds great and wonderful except how do you expect that to happen? The reason some players have high dps is they have complimentary gear and actually push buttons! THATS THE SECRET WEAPON!! Those 2 things are all thats needed to do well in ESO! Understand your character and participate!
Are you talking about players who do vet content? Because most players do not want to do vet content, most players don’t want to even do normal dungeons.
They are not bothering you. No need to punish the people who just do overland.
Define punish? Balancing challenge/reward I dont see as punishing. The easier something is the more worthless it is and the rewards that come from it. Your saying you'd prefer overland content to be much easier because you feel its a waste and JUST WANT THE LOOT? or what? Or you find overland content actually challenging now?
You are targeting the wrong set of people.
Maybe there needs to be an intermediate dungeon range between normal and vet, or the difficulty of normal needs to be raised slightly. But people who stay in overland content are not the ones making your dungeon run go slower.
They are not involved with the vet content issue. They don’t want to be involved with the vet content issue. Leave them out of it.
??? IM not sure who your talking about but to me it sounds very much like the people that aren't or can't do vet content that complain about its difficulty. The ones that can do vet content aren't the ones on the forums complaining about its difficulty
If the amount of people completing vet content was sufficiently strong, we would not be having this conversation because zos would not have an issue.
The problem comes down to money and budgets. If the cost of production of new vet content is out pacing its participation rate, then questions get asked about why they are producing that content. And those concerns are probably coming from the budget people, not the forums.
Zos is trying to increase the accessibility of vet content. Notice they are not trying to increase the participation rate of normal content. That’s significant.
The transition from overland to normal they are alright with. It’s the transition from normal to vet they are targeting.
Overland difficulty is fine for normal dungeons. It’s getting people from normal to vet. That is who you should targeting with your suggestions.
Case in point: if the majority of players can't complete a DLC vet dungeon during the 3 months that it's live then exactly WHY should you release any more?
I often suspect that if ESO+ didn't have these included that ZOS would have had to adjust their release schedule to account for bad sales.
there is also an active forum community that had been requesting zos for a way to remove dlc dungeons from random normals and random vet content. Those threads and topics get brought up as often as harder overland content does.
As I pointed out elsewhere there is a PVE dungeon skill gap that exists ranging from fg1 normal to new dlc hardmodes. There needs to be an incentive and mechanism that gets players to move along that path. Call it training dungeons, call it mechanics learning dungeons, or even tutorials. There needs something to be there to move players along. Otherwise the gap is only going to increase further.4 -
ForzaRammer✭✭✭✭✭
✭The combat system is fine, league of legend and fortnite have animation canceling. None of the mmo can even compare to these 2 games in popularity.
<snipped for baiting>Edited by ZOS_Hadeostry on September 20, 2022 1:02AM0 -
Auldwulfe✭✭✭✭✭
✭Ishtarknows wrote: »Having spent a fair bit of time in Icereach recently filling out my stickerbook it's become slap-in-the-face obvious that the tutorial needs more than what it shows now.
In every run at least one of the DDs had no clue what red lines emanating from an enemy meant, and they happily stood next to and heavy attacked said enemy, ignorant to the fact that:
a) the health bar was gold and the enemy took no damage and
b) the reason they were dying was because they had not interrupted the enemy they were looking at (doing the "interrupt me" animation).
The current tutorial shows light and heavy attacking, dodging and blocking. Nothing about bashing to interrupt or more importantly, using skills alongside said LA or HA. It's not fit for purpose.
The skill gap is far bigger than merely DPS. It's a knowledge gap.
Actually, the one in Belfira does -- you do light attacks, then block 3 heavy attacks, then 3 break free, and then 3 interrupts.
Then you finish off the fighting dummy ... thing is, you have the one high elf right there telling you what to do, at the same time the key or mouse buttons you need are flashing on the screen....
And most people don't play attention to it, after that, and never really consider outside of following the directions to get past that fight.
Auldwulfe
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Oreyn_Bearclaw✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭"The skill Gap feels so much bigger now"
That's because it is.
I have echoed much of this, but I can't say it better than @code65536 . This should be required reading:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/611505/why-the-changes-in-update-35-miss-the-mark-and-fail-to-fix-the-issues-that-it-seeks-to-address/p1Edited by Oreyn_Bearclaw on September 20, 2022 2:26AM4 -
FelisCatus✭✭✭✭✭FeedbackOnly wrote: »[…]This patch has not helped improve accessibility.
A vision, roadmap or at least a Q&A on explaining these changes would have helped. I wonder if that had been asked before. I’d assume, ZOS would have delivered one for sure if somebody would have asked by now, right? Right folks? /sarcasm off
But I agree. As replied to ZOS exhaustingly after the announcement, during PTS and after go-live. Their announcement doesn’t fit to the changes applied.
I’ll repeat myself a last time to slowly disengage with the forum and the game:
[snip]
Maybe a vision, roadmap or q&a would clarify things but ZOS prefers to stay quiet which is all the answers I, and seemingly many others I read on the forums in the past weeks, need to understand what # it is.
And yeah, the tutorial needs a heavy overhaul to deserve the name.
[edited for bashing]
It's been asked many times and they don't communicate with us at all. Which tells me there is no grand plan they just shuffle the cards every update when it comes to nerfs/buffs and stat tweaks.Edited by FelisCatus on September 20, 2022 3:48PM4 -
FeedbackOnly✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »"The skill Gap feels so much bigger now"
That's because it is.
I have echoed much of this, but I can't say it better than @code65536 . This should be required reading:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/611505/why-the-changes-in-update-35-miss-the-mark-and-fail-to-fix-the-issues-that-it-seeks-to-address/p1
I am disappointed that update 36 does nothing to address these issues either.
I have you notice trade guild prices. There's no competition because people really left. I can mark up things 50 percent from original price from update 35.1 -
BlueRaven✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭ForzaRammer wrote: »PrincessOfThieves wrote: »Everyone keeps saying tutorial but what would that tutorial actually be for?
Interrupts, blocking, roll dodging?
Or is it to teach animation canceling?
If it’s to teach animation canceling then I would say don’t bother. Even in games like wow, the people who do high end content is very small, and let’s be frank here, the combat in wow is better than the animation-canceling-multibar-combat-thing we have here. (And the combat in wow is not great to begin with.)
No one is moving to eso because of the amazing combat system, in fact the combat system is probably eso’s biggest problem.
Highlighting it’s clunky nature by having a tutorial would probably drive players away more than help them.
Animation cancelling is a very small part of the dps gap. The real problem, which often gets overlooked, is that people don’t hit skills every second (every global cooldown). If you look at the cmx info page, there is a “weaving average” line. The “total” stat, basically gives you how much time you wasted between skills throughout the parse or fight. The top dps are under 10 seconds on a dummy parse. If you do a skill even every 1.25 seconds instead of every 1 second, you will be wasting 60 seconds over a 4 min parse. Thats a good 30k dps. That’s the damage difference. It’s not that people cannot track dot timers, or have perfect light attack weaving. Most people are just not using skills quite fast enough.
If combat is dependent upon 60 APM, then that is the chief problem.
I like watching star craft. And one of the announcers likes to do commentary on average-lower level played games. Those people hover around 20-40 APM. Which seems about right to me. I think that is the average players output, but I know of many players where their APM will be much lower than that.
Competitive APM in Starcraft is much higher than in ESO, though And it's a different type of game.
I don't think the problem is that casual players can't hit abilities fast enough, it's that they move around too much and let their dots fall off. Without that, most people can hit decent (not top tier, but decent) numbers.
That’s true, but I think the average player is about 20-40 APM. Competitive StarCraft APM can get really crazy, into the hundreds APM, but for the average person that’s not happening.
60 APM, that’s not a combat system the average player can accommodate.
You definitely don’t need 60 apm to be an end game tank (clear all hm trials). And 60 apm on rojo healer is not exactly low.
A low apm player who refuse to be support main is just complaining instead of trying. It’s not like support mains get less reward from clearing contents.
While that's true, most people pick up games like this with a class fantasy already in mind. If they level up a high elf mage, or a redguard archer. To be told they should reroll a nord tank or something, it is not really a prospect that will win over many players. They want to play the character they have, not be told that IF they roll another toon, level it, gear it up, THEY MAY see endgame.
EDIT: (I don't want to derail the thread but...) This folds back to a concern I have toward the current racial passives. Many of the racial passives seem to be targeted toward a particular type of gameplay, meaning for many races they are not very adaptable. Few are rolling a wood elf as an endgame healer, as an example. It's unfortunate that players can already fail at endgame while in the character creation screen.Edited by BlueRaven on September 20, 2022 3:31AM4 -
ForzaRammer✭✭✭✭✭
✭ForzaRammer wrote: »PrincessOfThieves wrote: »Everyone keeps saying tutorial but what would that tutorial actually be for?
Interrupts, blocking, roll dodging?
Or is it to teach animation canceling?
If it’s to teach animation canceling then I would say don’t bother. Even in games like wow, the people who do high end content is very small, and let’s be frank here, the combat in wow is better than the animation-canceling-multibar-combat-thing we have here. (And the combat in wow is not great to begin with.)
No one is moving to eso because of the amazing combat system, in fact the combat system is probably eso’s biggest problem.
Highlighting it’s clunky nature by having a tutorial would probably drive players away more than help them.
Animation cancelling is a very small part of the dps gap. The real problem, which often gets overlooked, is that people don’t hit skills every second (every global cooldown). If you look at the cmx info page, there is a “weaving average” line. The “total” stat, basically gives you how much time you wasted between skills throughout the parse or fight. The top dps are under 10 seconds on a dummy parse. If you do a skill even every 1.25 seconds instead of every 1 second, you will be wasting 60 seconds over a 4 min parse. Thats a good 30k dps. That’s the damage difference. It’s not that people cannot track dot timers, or have perfect light attack weaving. Most people are just not using skills quite fast enough.
If combat is dependent upon 60 APM, then that is the chief problem.
I like watching star craft. And one of the announcers likes to do commentary on average-lower level played games. Those people hover around 20-40 APM. Which seems about right to me. I think that is the average players output, but I know of many players where their APM will be much lower than that.
Competitive APM in Starcraft is much higher than in ESO, though And it's a different type of game.
I don't think the problem is that casual players can't hit abilities fast enough, it's that they move around too much and let their dots fall off. Without that, most people can hit decent (not top tier, but decent) numbers.
That’s true, but I think the average player is about 20-40 APM. Competitive StarCraft APM can get really crazy, into the hundreds APM, but for the average person that’s not happening.
60 APM, that’s not a combat system the average player can accommodate.
You definitely don’t need 60 apm to be an end game tank (clear all hm trials). And 60 apm on rojo healer is not exactly low.
A low apm player who refuse to be support main is just complaining instead of trying. It’s not like support mains get less reward from clearing contents.
While that's true. Most people pick up games like this with a class fantasy already in mind. If you level up a high elf mage, or a redguard archer. To be told you should reroll a nord tank or something, is not really a prospect that will win over many players. They want to play the character they have, not be told that IF they roll another toon, level it, gear it up, THEY MAY see endgame.
They can play a elf tank, character race is not a blocker for people to switch roles.
If they don’t want to try a different roles when they clearly can’t handle the current one, that’s just not even trying to contribute.3 -
Ragnarok0130✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭For a seasoned player trolls do pose little threat.
For a person with an RP build, or a new player wearing a mix of ill matched armor/weapon combinations, or someone with some sort of disability, the threat is more significant.
They don’t have easier content to fall back to, if overland becomes unenjoyable for them.
I remember beta and launch ESO when there was actual overland difficulty but that's not what anyone's talking about here in the video about added overland difficulty, their point is that the current trivial overland difficulty actually stunts players' growth and progress towards doing group content, not going back to early ESO difficulty. The author's premise is that adding a little more difficulty would make players overall more proficient in addition to adding a good tutorial, not going back to a hard difficulty.
My question from your example is why would ZoS ever consider Role Players in the difficulty equation since they are off in a tavern or house role playing and not playing the game as designed or intended? This is an honest question as I don't role play or hang out with those who do, one would surmise that if RPers wanted to go out and do actual content outside of towns they'd need a build and equipment like everyone else and not just the power of imagination. Game difficulty shouldn't be designed around anyone who doesn't want to play according to the game's systems design even with the "play how you want" mantra. In fact many peoples' umbrage with end game players is that they stubbornly follow the game's systems design creating METAs to eek out every last ounce of DPS in direct opposition to "play how you want" mantra which is where I think is the real disconnect between MMO players in ESO doing end game PVE and PVP content and TES players in ESO who play like it's Skyrim Online lies. I don't ever see the gap between those two groups ever being bridged since their thinking is diametrically opposed.
The mix/matched set of armor example is simply an education issue that can be solved easily with a trip to a crafting station so they shouldn't be catered to except in making a tutorial that explains armor weights and weapons for roles and mag vs stamina skills etc. The game could be more consistent in giving out armor/weapons applicable to one's role and spec to help them out along the way - hybridization may have also muddied the waters here unnecessarily. Maybe one could choose a role at start and the game would give you armor and weapons for that role instead of the current insane trash bin method of throwing all weights and weapons types at new players confusing them? Knowledge is power and this would help a lot training people to run group content later like the video spoke about.
Your response reads like an enabling post for those who don't want to learn to play the game. Overland content shouldn't be so trivial that skills/armor/weapons don't matter - there should be a required base competency of game systems for it that comes from a solid tutorial. Regarding the video's point about getting new players into later group content my position is if you want to do content that you don't currently do, then do the MMO homework, get as proficient as you can, find a guild, and start doing the content. Is it easy? No. Can you get your feelings hurt? Indeed, as criticism while learning is never fun but it does drive growth. Is it worth it for those who want to do the content. A resounding yes. I think the only real way to actually raise the floor is to expect more of players and educate them. Like the video stated at the end, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink and some people simply refuse to drink.3 -
LesserCircle✭✭✭✭✭
✭For a seasoned player trolls do pose little threat.
For a person with an RP build, or a new player wearing a mix of ill matched armor/weapon combinations, or someone with some sort of disability, the threat is more significant.
They don’t have easier content to fall back to, if overland becomes unenjoyable for them.
Yeah I don't get this, this is a game and every game has some kind of difficulty. Overland right now is in "I didn't even know this was a game" difficulty. At the very least, quest bosses should pose some kind of threat to the player.5 -
FeedbackOnly✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭guarstompemoji wrote: »FeedbackOnly wrote: »[
There would be more high end players if they helped adjust people better. Like they didn't think through on how common players are supposed to adapt fo litterally revamped gameplay. It's not the same game.
This is something that's bothered me. For example, in discords I'm in, I can see:
o Multiple YT and Twitch videos featuring how-tos and tutorials
o "Trials 101" and "Trials Training" channels
o Project Vitality
o ...and so on.
On the other hand, I also see:
o The lack of a tutorial inside the game
And:
o The number of endgame players is small, and much smaller even now after the last patch; depending on them to continue to reinvent tutorials and spend all of their time in outreach, is not sustainable. It's also:
o A means of exploiting free labor by ZoS, by their refusal to devote resources to this crucial element of the game, and instead saying, "Oh, our players will do it for us."
And:
o The lack of an ingame tutorial that teaches longstanding elements such as "recasting skills when they time out" or "light attack weaving is an advanced technique that helps in harder aspects of the game" makes these elements feel illegitimate. This means that...
o One group of players is encouraged to see another group's playstyle as illegitimate
o This does nothing to help reconcile the different groups; it only increases a social gap
tl;dr There are resources. ZoS needs to pick up its tutorial and teach-through-UI game. Elements need addressed to encourage a better environment.
What makes it worse is when content rapidly changes and they are left out on what happened0 -
Eiregirl✭✭✭Everyone keeps saying tutorial but what would that tutorial actually be for?
Interrupts, blocking, roll dodging?
Or is it to teach animation canceling?
If it’s to teach animation canceling then I would say don’t bother. Even in games like wow, the people who do high end content is very small, and let’s be frank here, the combat in wow is better than the animation-canceling-multibar-combat-thing we have here. (And the combat in wow is not great to begin with.)
No one is moving to eso because of the amazing combat system, in fact the combat system is probably eso’s biggest problem.
Highlighting it’s clunky nature by having a tutorial would probably drive players away more than help them.
Animation cancelling is a very small part of the dps gap. The real problem, which often gets overlooked, is that people don’t hit skills every second (every global cooldown). If you look at the cmx info page, there is a “weaving average” line. The “total” stat, basically gives you how much time you wasted between skills throughout the parse or fight. The top dps are under 10 seconds on a dummy parse. If you do a skill even every 1.25 seconds instead of every 1 second, you will be wasting 60 seconds over a 4 min parse. Thats a good 30k dps. That’s the damage difference. It’s not that people cannot track dot timers, or have perfect light attack weaving. Most people are just not using skills quite fast enough.
It is not just how fast you use skills but it is also the skills you use. A lot of people on the lower end of the scale just flat out do not use skills in the best order. There are active skills that proc a passive skill that gives a buff and some that provide a buff just by having it slotted. There is a lot more involved in dealing good damage than doing a good weave and using a skill every second. You need to have the right skills on the bar and use them in the right order for the build you want to use. It can be a build you come up with yourself that works well for you or one you found online that you like.
As to a tutorial. Perhaps one that teaches the basics of how to match active skills with passive skills and how to use gear to benefit those skills.
Start with the basics. Skills, passives and gear that complement each other. Get a good rotation by using skills in the proper order to get passive buffs then work in your weaving. If you play in groups work out how you can best help each other with buffs whether that buff comes from a passive you might not be using or maybe the gear you use gives a buff that a group member might be giving with a class passive in which case you may want to change the gear you are using.
It is not hard to do 80K to 90K or more on the static iron atro dummy with all the buffs it gives with just a decent LA weave. It isn't even hard to do 50K to 70K with 0 light attacks and throwing in a heavy attack once in a while just for sustain.
If you want good number on your damage meter you just need to do the basics. Active skills + passive skills + gear and build a rotation that puts it all together.3 -
MidniteOwl1913✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭U35 met none of the stated goals. U36 does nothing to remedy that. And the game, as it is now just, isn't as fun as it was. Pugging I see a lot more people just give up because the content is now so, harder isn't really the right word. It's much more of a slough. It just isn't worth the effort for them to keep wiping over and over. This actually seems more true to me in the base game vet content. It's like these are the people who were just starting to get into vet dungeons and now it's just so much harder it's disappointing.
I'm the healer, and those nerfs hit me pretty hard, but I'm coping. But whenever I think that all these changes accomplished nothing, well it doesn't make me happy. It doesn't make me think well of the people who imposed them and refuse to do anything to mitigate the damage either.
PS5/NA6 -
BlueRaven✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭zRagnarok0130 wrote: »For a seasoned player trolls do pose little threat.
For a person with an RP build, or a new player wearing a mix of ill matched armor/weapon combinations, or someone with some sort of disability, the threat is more significant.
They don’t have easier content to fall back to, if overland becomes unenjoyable for them.
I remember beta and launch ESO when there was actual overland difficulty but that's not what anyone's talking about here in the video about added overland difficulty, their point is that the current trivial overland difficulty actually stunts players' growth and progress towards doing group content, not going back to early ESO difficulty. The author's premise is that adding a little more difficulty would make players overall more proficient in addition to adding a good tutorial, not going back to a hard difficulty.
My question from your example is why would ZoS ever consider Role Players in the difficulty equation since they are off in a tavern or house role playing and not playing the game as designed or intended? This is an honest question as I don't role play or hang out with those who do, one would surmise that if RPers wanted to go out and do actual content outside of towns they'd need a build and equipment like everyone else and not just the power of imagination. Game difficulty shouldn't be designed around anyone who doesn't want to play according to the game's systems design even with the "play how you want" mantra. In fact many peoples' umbrage with end game players is that they stubbornly follow the game's systems design creating METAs to eek out every last ounce of DPS in direct opposition to "play how you want" mantra which is where I think is the real disconnect between MMO players in ESO doing end game PVE and PVP content and TES players in ESO who play like it's Skyrim Online lies. I don't ever see the gap between those two groups ever being bridged since their thinking is diametrically opposed.
The mix/matched set of armor example is simply an education issue that can be solved easily with a trip to a crafting station so they shouldn't be catered to except in making a tutorial that explains armor weights and weapons for roles and mag vs stamina skills etc. The game could be more consistent in giving out armor/weapons applicable to one's role and spec to help them out along the way - hybridization may have also muddied the waters here unnecessarily. Maybe one could choose a role at start and the game would give you armor and weapons for that role instead of the current insane trash bin method of throwing all weights and weapons types at new players confusing them? Knowledge is power and this would help a lot training people to run group content later like the video spoke about.
Your response reads like an enabling post for those who don't want to learn to play the game. Overland content shouldn't be so trivial that skills/armor/weapons don't matter - there should be a required base competency of game systems for it that comes from a solid tutorial. Regarding the video's point about getting new players into later group content my position is if you want to do content that you don't currently do, then do the MMO homework, get as proficient as you can, find a guild, and start doing the content. Is it easy? No. Can you get your feelings hurt? Indeed, as criticism while learning is never fun but it does drive growth. Is it worth it for those who want to do the content. A resounding yes. I think the only real way to actually raise the floor is to expect more of players and educate them. Like the video stated at the end, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink and some people simply refuse to drink.
I don’t have a lot of time today, but to answer your questions quickly;
RPers go out and do content. They don’t stay in towns all day. I have encountered them inside public dungeons for example.
Not all people play this game or even mmos to do dungeons or endgame. One of my best friends has no interest in doing any group related content.
Like I said earlier, there is no fall back position for them to go to if your “overland difficulty experiment” is unsuccessful.
Whats more eso is a business. And they know who does what and in what difficulty. They want subscribers. They are rightfully reluctant to turn away people who are playing their most entry level content.
The horse analogy is pointless in this argument, horses need to drink eventually or they die. People in eso can skip endgame, just do overland content, and survive quite happily. They don’t want to be led to “water” in the first place.3 -
FeedbackOnly✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »U35 met none of the stated goals. U36 does nothing to remedy that. And the game, as it is now just, isn't as fun as it was. Pugging I see a lot more people just give up because the content is now so, harder isn't really the right word. It's much more of a slough. It just isn't worth the effort for them to keep wiping over and over. This actually seems more true to me in the base game vet content. It's like these are the people who were just starting to get into vet dungeons and now it's just so much harder it's disappointing.
I'm the healer, and those nerfs hit me pretty hard, but I'm coping. But whenever I think that all these changes accomplished nothing, well it doesn't make me happy. It doesn't make me think well of the people who imposed them and refuse to do anything to mitigate the damage either.
It's not fair that they don't help people adapted to entire new game in a sense1 -
Zephiran23✭✭✭✭With the current way levelling works in the game, you can't have a ful combat tutorial early on. In Balfiera you are not going to have multiple skills to cycle through becuase you don't have enough levels to have earnt them. Bar swapping is even further away from that opening content.
So with non-linear leveling how do you implement a second tutorial? Some players are happy to level through dungeons, others won't touch them. Even at level 10, not everyone is going to want all skill points in combat skills, even if that is optimal from a level those lines as fast as possible viewpoint.
A CP point where veteran DLC content should be completable and players should have 2 bars of combat related skills maxed and all the passives? I guess that would help players understand how to use Armory better. However, would failing that role check tutorial encourage enough players to stay and improve, or push them to try another game instead?0 -
Auldwulfe✭✭✭✭✭
✭Thing is, this is not entirely the fault of U35,
Mind you, U35 was a LOT of change, all at once, and it came on top of an incomplete transition to the hybridization plan.
And I also understand that they had to get everything on a flat line to start with, and that meant balancing out damage, etc.....
Sadly, though, as it is a transition, at the moment it feels horrible for the players... a LOT of the skills are now just different cosmetics on the same thing..... and a lot of the characters feel like clones.....
Now, it is very possible that ZOS might fix this..... and that this was just growing pains, and transitioning to a bunch of improvements.... but, they have been very bad at communication, and have lost a lot of trust with the player base.
I am seeing what they did with the Warden, and I have to thank ZOS .... they got me a free dinner. The change in U36 is almost identical to what I predicted it would be on the day U35 dropped. I had a bet with a friend, and now am getting a free dinner.
I am also noting that they are doing a slight tweak to a racial passive set, this time..... nothing too egregious.. and about the same as the frost staff boosting a warden skill, a little, in U35, that is now being expanded.
I hope this means that they will be revamping racial passives (please, I play more than one race, but my poor little Bosmer Warden Ranger style character feels like a beaten stepchild).
At the moment, I am watching the notes on the patch, and PTS, and will see what happens.
Not much more we can do... it has been made very apparent that changes will go through, whether the players like it, or not.
Auldwulfe
4 -
FeedbackOnly✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Thing is, this is not entirely the fault of U35,
Mind you, U35 was a LOT of change, all at once, and it came on top of an incomplete transition to the hybridization plan.
And I also understand that they had to get everything on a flat line to start with, and that meant balancing out damage, etc.....
Sadly, though, as it is a transition, at the moment it feels horrible for the players... a LOT of the skills are now just different cosmetics on the same thing..... and a lot of the characters feel like clones.....
Now, it is very possible that ZOS might fix this..... and that this was just growing pains, and transitioning to a bunch of improvements.... but, they have been very bad at communication, and have lost a lot of trust with the player base.
I am seeing what they did with the Warden, and I have to thank ZOS .... they got me a free dinner. The change in U36 is almost identical to what I predicted it would be on the day U35 dropped. I had a bet with a friend, and now am getting a free dinner.
I am also noting that they are doing a slight tweak to a racial passive set, this time..... nothing too egregious.. and about the same as the frost staff boosting a warden skill, a little, in U35, that is now being expanded.
I hope this means that they will be revamping racial passives (please, I play more than one race, but my poor little Bosmer Warden Ranger style character feels like a beaten stepchild).
At the moment, I am watching the notes on the patch, and PTS, and will see what happens.
Not much more we can do... it has been made very apparent that changes will go through, whether the players like it, or not.
Auldwulfe
Yep needs better transition0 -
Billium813✭✭✭✭✭
✭IMO, the skill gap is so much larger and felt so much more now because the nerf to damage consolidated the META choices.
Pre U35, there were many "fringe" sets that could achieve "passable" DPS numbers (30k-50k) and felt ok. Not the best, not the worst. But nerfing the damage across the field polarized players choices and consolidated players choices. It's harder than ever to make your own build that isn't running the most optimal builds, but still is able to complete Veteran content in the same way.
Post U35, we STILL HAVE 120k DPS builds... they hasn't gone away. But there are fewer sets and skills that achieve that DPS now. Players are turning to the same META choices more now than before in an effort to keep their numbers high. If you aren't in the META, you will see a drastic reduction in your DPS and it will feel insurmountable.Edited by Billium813 on September 23, 2022 2:40PM3 -
FeedbackOnly✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Billium813 wrote: »IMO, the skill gap is so much larger and felt so much more now because the nerf to damage consolidated the META choices.
Pre U35, there were many "fringe" sets that could achieve "passable" DPS numbers (30k-50k) and felt ok. Not the best, not the worst. But nerfing the damage across the field polarized players choices and consolidated players choices. It's harder than ever to make your own build that isn't running the most optimal builds, but still is able to complete Veteran content in the same way.
Post U35, we STILL HAVE 120k DPS builds... they hasn't gone away. But there are fewer sets and skills that achieve that DPS now. Players are turning to the same META choices more now than before in an effort to keep their numbers high. If you aren't in the META, you will see a drastic reduction in your DPS and it will feel insurmountable.
They buffed the test dummy @Billium8131
