PTS Update 37 - Feedback Thread for Combat & Classes

YandereGirlfriend · February 2023

Since Critical Rush was buffed on the PTS, I would like to bring up an inconsistency in behavior as it relates to Nightblades and Shadowy Disguise - in particular, the guarantee of a Critical Strike from an attack made from Stealth.

Currently on Live, Critical Rush and Shadowy Disguise behave the same way - they guarantee the caster a Critical Strike on their FIRST tick of damage made after after initiating an attack. They do NOT guarantee Critical Strikes upon any other targets, even if they were hit in the same AOE attack.

Now that that interpretation of the tooltip has been modified on the PTS, it is only reasonable that Shadowy Disguise receives the same treatment.

Regarding tooltips, we have:

Critical Rush: "This attack is always a Critical Strike."

Shadowy Disguise: "Your next Direct Damage attack is always a Critical Strike."

These are functionally identical for Direct Damage attacks and they should be implemented in identical fashion.

TLDR; Please Shadowy Disguise so that Direct Damage AOE attacks from Stealth Critically Strike against all targets hit.

YandereGirlfriend · February 2023

I did also want to register agreement that the elimination of Harmony from PvP is a nerf to skilled gameplay and a significant buff for zerging/faction-stacking in Cyrodiil. This is compounded by several of the new sets and skill ability tweaks.

The devs should be looking into ways to add MORE damage into Cyrodiil - not to take it away.

ForumBully · February 2023

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I did also want to register agreement that the elimination of Harmony from PvP is a nerf to skilled gameplay and a significant buff for zerging/faction-stacking in Cyrodiil. This is compounded by several of the new sets and skill ability tweaks.

The devs should be looking into ways to add MORE damage into Cyrodiil - not to take it away.

I'd called it a nerf to Necro gameplay...skilled?

notyuu · February 2023

Stamina Templar was entirely dependant upon the jabs + burning light combo to have any class idenity, but that got deleted
Stamina Templar lacks any viable class healing
Stamina Templar lacks any class defensive tools
Stamina Templar is objectvly inferior to Magicka Templar in every single way
Magick templar is in a horrible place leaving it with no viable function in PvE or any space in PvP outside of beam bot

fix when?

The_Titan_Tim · February 2023

Like I mentioned earlier, Sun Shield provided Templar with a unique playstyle, something that’s desperately needed right now, I would love to see this ability looked at, because Blazing Shield is getting double dipped in Battle Spirit from ward size and damage dealt.

Sun Shield, the base morph, needs an overall size increase as it isn’t large enough to really protect the player, or large enough to store reflectable damage.

Another option could be to drastically reduce the cost of the ability, as it provides very little.

Sergykid · February 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Since there have been a few asked about follow up, we want to touch base now. We're going through everyone's feedback over the last week and a half and plan to touchbase with the dev team again. Just a little insight, it takes some time and multiple parties to go through feedback with detail, arrange a time to chat with the dev team after they've had a chance to read everything, and be able to discuss the feedback and get answers back. The intent is not to drop off communication here. They just take time to coordinate.

Our hope is to have more feedback over the next few days. We just want to make sure we have a chance to talk to all parties involved.

[snip]

for the right answers need the right questions

[edited for baiting]

Sergykid · February 2023

and for yall, stop using "play how you want" as an excuse for using bad stuff in the wrong place. It's "play" how u want and u can do just that. I did some trifectas with really not optimized groups.
It's not "excel at everything playing how you want".

u can't go with a knife to a gunfight and complain that it's not working properly. U need to understand that some things are better than others for different purposes. U can cut bread with a spoon, that's the play how u want, but don't complain that knife cuts it better, just because you intentionally don't put effort into what u r doing

Turtle_Bot · February 2023

Sergykid wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Since there have been a few asked about follow up, we want to touch base now. We're going through everyone's feedback over the last week and a half and plan to touchbase with the dev team again. Just a little insight, it takes some time and multiple parties to go through feedback with detail, arrange a time to chat with the dev team after they've had a chance to read everything, and be able to discuss the feedback and get answers back. The intent is not to drop off communication here. They just take time to coordinate.

Our hope is to have more feedback over the next few days. We just want to make sure we have a chance to talk to all parties involved.

[snip]

for the right answers need the right questions

Then what are "the right questions"?
How long should posts be?
Why must complex issues be over simplified? (which won't get them fixed at all)
[snip]
[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

UnassumingNoob · February 2023

Sergykid wrote: »

and for yall, stop using "play how you want" as an excuse for using bad stuff in the wrong place. It's "play" how u want and u can do just that. I did some trifectas with really not optimized groups.
It's not "excel at everything playing how you want".

u can't go with a knife to a gunfight and complain that it's not working properly. U need to understand that some things are better than others for different purposes. U can cut bread with a spoon, that's the play how u want, but don't complain that knife cuts it better, just because you intentionally don't put effort into what u r doing

Reductio ad Absurdum.

Thraben · February 2023

ForumBully wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I did also want to register agreement that the elimination of Harmony from PvP is a nerf to skilled gameplay and a significant buff for zerging/faction-stacking in Cyrodiil. This is compounded by several of the new sets and skill ability tweaks.

The devs should be looking into ways to add MORE damage into Cyrodiil - not to take it away.

I'd called it a nerf to Necro gameplay...skilled?

If they wanted to nerf the Necro's burst combo, all they had to do was to change the self-synergy morph.

What it became is a nerf to all synergies in the game, destroying stuff like Nova, Lightning Flood and Talons in the process.

You are basically told by the Devs that they like it when group up and you run around with 10 Eye-of-the-Storms, 8 Rapid Regens, 12 Vigors, 12 Proxies and 10 Deep Fissures. Without synergies, ballgroups have one thing less to fear.

Darkstorne · February 2023

Just in case this feedback is being collected, I'd like to chime in with a Warden pain point: I'm concerned that Warden's frost damage being so heavily tied to Frost Staff weapons is a problem for the game, as it conflicts with the build diversity and viability design direction, as set out in the recent combat deep dive letter.

Winter's Revenge (main class source of frost damage) states this on its tooltip: damage increases by 30% if cast with a destruction staff equipped.

Piercing Cold passive skill: Increases your damage done by 2%, which increases to 12% when wielding an Ice Staff.

As someone who plays my Frost Warden with 1H+Shield for group content, and 2H for solo content, to create the kind of class fantasy we can see in some boss NPCs like Urfon Ice-Heart from the Orsinium DLC (art for him above), I have to pass up on so much extra damage I am pretty much objectively playing the class wrong. Giving class skills a 30% damage bonus when used with a specific weapon type, coupled with a passive that boosts that damage by another 10% when used that same weapon type... surely that's a terrible direction for this game to head in?

Imagine buffing Crystal Weapon damage by 30% when used with a 2H weapon, and a Sorc passive boosting all damage by a further 10% when using a battleaxe.

Imagine buffing Radiant Destruction damage by 30% when used with dual wield weapons, and a Templar passive boosting all damage by a further 10% when using maces.

Please, if frost staves need some love, buff frost staves. Don't buff them via a single class's passives, and tie a colossal 30% damage bonus to that same class's DPS skill when using a frost staff. That still makes frost staves useless for most classes, and makes all other weapon types feel vastly inferior for frost Wardens.

katorga · February 2023

Darkstorne wrote: »

Just in case this feedback is being collected, I'd like to chime in with a Warden pain point: I'm concerned that Warden's frost damage being so heavily tied to Frost Staff weapons is a problem for the game, as it conflicts with the build diversity and viability design direction, as set out in the recent combat deep dive letter.

Winter's Revenge (main class source of frost damage) states this on its tooltip: damage increases by 30% if cast with a destruction staff equipped.

Piercing Cold passive skill: Increases your damage done by 2%, which increases to 12% when wielding an Ice Staff.

As someone who plays my Frost Warden with 1H+Shield for group content, and 2H for solo content, to create the kind of class fantasy we can see in some boss NPCs like Urfon Ice-Heart from the Orsinium DLC (art for him above), I have to pass up on so much extra damage I am pretty much objectively playing the class wrong. Giving class skills a 30% damage bonus when used with a specific weapon type, coupled with a passive that boosts that damage by another 10% when used that same weapon type... surely that's a terrible direction for this game to head in?

Imagine buffing Crystal Weapon damage by 30% when used with a 2H weapon, and a Sorc passive boosting all damage by a further 10% when using a battleaxe.

Imagine buffing Radiant Destruction damage by 30% when used with dual wield weapons, and a Templar passive boosting all damage by a further 10% when using maces.

Please, if frost staves need some love, buff frost staves. Don't buff them via a single class's passives, and tie a colossal 30% damage bonus to that same class's DPS skill when using a frost staff. That still makes frost staves useless for most classes, and makes all other weapon types feel vastly inferior for frost Wardens.

I'm very concerned that they took a tanking weapon, with all that that implies, and added damage too it. Forums have endlessly complained about tanky damage dealers in pvp.

Looking at it from the other direction, imagine the outcry if dual wield or 2H got block cost reduction and 20% block mitigation.

CP5 · February 2023

Darkstorne wrote: »

Just in case this feedback is being collected, I'd like to chime in with a Warden pain point: I'm concerned that Warden's frost damage being so heavily tied to Frost Staff weapons is a problem for the game, as it conflicts with the build diversity and viability design direction, as set out in the recent combat deep dive letter.

Winter's Revenge (main class source of frost damage) states this on its tooltip: damage increases by 30% if cast with a destruction staff equipped.

Piercing Cold passive skill: Increases your damage done by 2%, which increases to 12% when wielding an Ice Staff.

As someone who plays my Frost Warden with 1H+Shield for group content, and 2H for solo content, to create the kind of class fantasy we can see in some boss NPCs like Urfon Ice-Heart from the Orsinium DLC (art for him above), I have to pass up on so much extra damage I am pretty much objectively playing the class wrong. Giving class skills a 30% damage bonus when used with a specific weapon type, coupled with a passive that boosts that damage by another 10% when used that same weapon type... surely that's a terrible direction for this game to head in?

Imagine buffing Crystal Weapon damage by 30% when used with a 2H weapon, and a Sorc passive boosting all damage by a further 10% when using a battleaxe.

Imagine buffing Radiant Destruction damage by 30% when used with dual wield weapons, and a Templar passive boosting all damage by a further 10% when using maces.

Please, if frost staves need some love, buff frost staves. Don't buff them via a single class's passives, and tie a colossal 30% damage bonus to that same class's DPS skill when using a frost staff. That still makes frost staves useless for most classes, and makes all other weapon types feel vastly inferior for frost Wardens.

As someone who enjoys my frost staff on my warden dps and tank I agree heavily here. Unless every weapon had some sort of unique bonus to make weapon choices more interesting (which even then would run the risk of having meta options) it would still be better to not graft specific weapons to classes.

ESO_Nightingale · February 2023

CP5 wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

Just in case this feedback is being collected, I'd like to chime in with a Warden pain point: I'm concerned that Warden's frost damage being so heavily tied to Frost Staff weapons is a problem for the game, as it conflicts with the build diversity and viability design direction, as set out in the recent combat deep dive letter.

Winter's Revenge (main class source of frost damage) states this on its tooltip: damage increases by 30% if cast with a destruction staff equipped.

Piercing Cold passive skill: Increases your damage done by 2%, which increases to 12% when wielding an Ice Staff.

As someone who plays my Frost Warden with 1H+Shield for group content, and 2H for solo content, to create the kind of class fantasy we can see in some boss NPCs like Urfon Ice-Heart from the Orsinium DLC (art for him above), I have to pass up on so much extra damage I am pretty much objectively playing the class wrong. Giving class skills a 30% damage bonus when used with a specific weapon type, coupled with a passive that boosts that damage by another 10% when used that same weapon type... surely that's a terrible direction for this game to head in?

Imagine buffing Crystal Weapon damage by 30% when used with a 2H weapon, and a Sorc passive boosting all damage by a further 10% when using a battleaxe.

Imagine buffing Radiant Destruction damage by 30% when used with dual wield weapons, and a Templar passive boosting all damage by a further 10% when using maces.

Please, if frost staves need some love, buff frost staves. Don't buff them via a single class's passives, and tie a colossal 30% damage bonus to that same class's DPS skill when using a frost staff. That still makes frost staves useless for most classes, and makes all other weapon types feel vastly inferior for frost Wardens.

As someone who enjoys my frost staff on my warden dps and tank I agree heavily here. Unless every weapon had some sort of unique bonus to make weapon choices more interesting (which even then would run the risk of having meta options) it would still be better to not graft specific weapons to classes.

Yeah, I'm still against how specific it is that you must use a frost staff. It'd be way less restrictive if we went back to increased frost damage, however i couldn't say whether the performance would be there like it is now which is what scares me. We spent a long time getting to where we are

Darkstorne · February 2023

katorga wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

Just in case this feedback is being collected, I'd like to chime in with a Warden pain point: I'm concerned that Warden's frost damage being so heavily tied to Frost Staff weapons is a problem for the game, as it conflicts with the build diversity and viability design direction, as set out in the recent combat deep dive letter.

Winter's Revenge (main class source of frost damage) states this on its tooltip: damage increases by 30% if cast with a destruction staff equipped.

Piercing Cold passive skill: Increases your damage done by 2%, which increases to 12% when wielding an Ice Staff.

As someone who plays my Frost Warden with 1H+Shield for group content, and 2H for solo content, to create the kind of class fantasy we can see in some boss NPCs like Urfon Ice-Heart from the Orsinium DLC (art for him above), I have to pass up on so much extra damage I am pretty much objectively playing the class wrong. Giving class skills a 30% damage bonus when used with a specific weapon type, coupled with a passive that boosts that damage by another 10% when used that same weapon type... surely that's a terrible direction for this game to head in?

Imagine buffing Crystal Weapon damage by 30% when used with a 2H weapon, and a Sorc passive boosting all damage by a further 10% when using a battleaxe.

Imagine buffing Radiant Destruction damage by 30% when used with dual wield weapons, and a Templar passive boosting all damage by a further 10% when using maces.

Please, if frost staves need some love, buff frost staves. Don't buff them via a single class's passives, and tie a colossal 30% damage bonus to that same class's DPS skill when using a frost staff. That still makes frost staves useless for most classes, and makes all other weapon types feel vastly inferior for frost Wardens.

Looking at it from the other direction, imagine the outcry if dual wield or 2H got block cost reduction and 20% block mitigation.

Imagine if that was for a single class only though, via a class skill and passive, yes. Imagine if ZOS decided to address Sorc's shield complaints by making them a whopping 30% more effective with dual wield weapons equipped, and boosting all damage shields by a further 10% with dual maces equipped. Like... Why? What a weird way to address the issue that creates more problems than it solves.

Pelanora · February 2023

I think it only works to tie a class to a weapon if you've about 10 to 15 classes to choose from. Doesn't work in such a small selection of choices this game has.

acastanza_ESO · February 2023

@ZOS_Kevin the team needs to address why none of our feedback have appear to have been worked on for this patch. There has been more than enough time to address literally any of our complaints this PTS cycle, complaints that we've been making for multiple patches now, but everything is stacking up to release this with zero changes unless something extremely a-historical happens next week.

ForumBully · February 2023

That wasn't notes...didn't even amount to a flyer.

Syiccal · February 2023

Guess we're all playing dk!

ForumBully · February 2023

v8.3.2.1 was a magnificent display of just how much the feedback is appreciated.

Pelanora · February 2023

acastanza_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin the team needs to address why none of our feedback have appear to have been worked on for this patch. There has been more than enough time to address literally any of our complaints this PTS cycle, complaints that we've been making for multiple patches now, but everything is stacking up to release this with zero changes unless something extremely a-historical happens next week.

There just has to be a fundamental headspace issue, where its 'we know best' which just DOESN'T WORK in designing services for customers.

I just don't think human centered design has arrived in Zos. They've called themselves a service company, even likened themselves to netflix, but that concept just doesn't seem to be well understood in all divisions.

I can't see any other explanation accounting for being so stubborn about engaging with the people you're selling your service to.

TechMaybeHic · February 2023

I think we could get our hopes up on Kevins attempt to communicate, but the PTS notes today are not much of a surprise seeing as this was 5 days ago.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Since there have been a few asked about follow up, we want to touch base now. We're going through everyone's feedback over the last week and a half and plan to touchbase with the dev team again. Just a little insight, it takes some time and multiple parties to go through feedback with detail, arrange a time to chat with the dev team after they've had a chance to read everything, and be able to discuss the feedback and get answers back. The intent is not to drop off communication here. They just take time to coordinate.

Our hope is to have more feedback over the next few days. We just want to make sure we have a chance to talk to all parties involved.

Just not a lot that can get turned around even that quick and it sounds like they hadn't even heard the issues yet. They must not be running at a capacity to handle a lot, though; to not have even seen some of this before then

AD42 · February 2023

PTS Patch Notes v8.3.3. We play PVP in 3 classes. dk nb warden. Others are not needed. In pve, we will add a necromancer.

KlauthWarthog · February 2023

The lack of combat changes on week 4 is not unusual, those tend to happen on weeks 3 and 5...
... but I am not inclined to expect a lot more for update 37. They did not start this PTS cycle with class balance changes in mind, they will not start them halfway through.

ZOS_Kevin · February 2023

Hi all, we took your feedback to the combat team regarding the state of Sorcerer. We have a few comments to share.

We know survivability has been a concern with Sorcerer, given the feedback received and some of the data. We increased Sorcerer survivability this update by giving a sizable buff to shields. We'll continue evaluating and investigating as we go live as well.

We've also seen feedback regarding Pet vs non-Pet builds. Specifically, wanting more options for non-Pet builds. While there will be no changes to this in U37, we want to acknowledge this sentiment and the team is monitoring this. We want to make sure when thinking about this and reviewing feedback, we are keeping class presentation for Pet Sorcerer in mind while also allowing for class diversity for those who want to play non-Pet Sorcerer.

Regarding Sorcerers and their lack of unique buff/debuffs, this is intentional and there are no current plans to change this. Sorcerers do have some unique abilities in their kit, like silences. However, not locking Sorcerer into having unique buffs/debuff allows for more class diversity in group environments.

Lastly, we want to reiterate the notion of classes having strengths and weaknesses. Sorcerer, like every other class, cannot be good at everything. This is part of building class identity. There are ways for players to bridge the gap through gear, consumables, etc. That does not negate us from addressing problem areas, but it does mean there will be times where elements of a class will struggle compared to others. That is okay and a part of building unique gameplay experiences.

ZOS_Kevin · February 2023

In addition to taking feedback to the team about Sorc, we also took your feedback to the team regarding the state of Templars. We want to follow up on how the team uses feedback to inform combat and balance changes.

The combat team is always looking at data from various points of play (PvE, PvP, low-end to high-end damage parse, group content and solo play, etc.) and collective feedback across the board to make informed balanced adjustments. Many of the previous adjustments to Templar were directly made off of those points.

While there are no planned changes for Templar in U37, outside of anything already highlighted in patch notes, we're evaluating everchanging data and will continue to adjust around issues when they arise. Your continued feedback will be apart of that process.

ForumBully · February 2023

Yep...that sounds right.

ForumBully · February 2023

Templar feels VERY uniquely pointless right now

ZOS_Kevin · February 2023

Lastly, in chatting with the combat team, we want to hit on the overall commentary around class performance. We’ll always continue to keep an eye on varying areas of class performance. By using data and player feedback from across all mediums of communication, we’ll make targeted adjustments to outliers to improve classes and the overall health of gameplay. We’re not making any promises today for when these adjustments could happen, however we’re always monitoring and evaluating when these changes can be safely made.

ZOS_Kevin · February 2023

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin, hey if your team could look into Sun Shield’s size being increased based off of highest stamina or magicka alternatively from health, as an either/or like Conjured Ward, that would be an incredible change to the utility of the skill, currently the ability is useless in PvP outside of being massively outnumbered.

Max resource scaling regardless of the resource would be great, weapon damage scaling would be even better… though it might be a long shot.

Edit; Also, adding a Stamina morph to Toppling Charge would be a godsend. Thanks.

Wanted to touch on this feedback on Sun Shield after chatting with the Combat Team. The current iteration of Sun Shield helps to keep the skill inline with the class identity of the Templar. Sorcerers get more unique functionality with Conjured Ward as this skill also fits in line with its class identity.

Also regarding usage of the skill, it is working as intended. Sun Shield is moreso a tool for tanks vs. being used for damage dealers.