U35 what is wrong?

Stx · January 5

Lots of bad changes to combat and skill design but by far the worst thing for me personally was the removal of the old jabs animation and it being replaced with a nighthollow staff goofy looking animation. It still looks really bad and I still cringe when I see it. I’m praying that in 2025 we see better animations for main class abilities.

Aldoss · January 5

I'm not really interested in writing a big reply, but U35 got me and my wife to cancel our subs more so because of how ZOS debuted the changes and less about what specifically they changed. It was a drastic change that really changed the tide for how ZOS was going to start issuing future combat balance updates.

Tensions were already high leading into U35 because of the overwhelming meta shifts that U31 brought. Dark Convergence 1.0 and Hrothgar 1.0 were possibly the most broken sets to ever make it into the game. DC would pull you through walls, cyro lag was on par with what we have now which resulted in massive and game breaking pulls, and hrothgar was pushing 4x the dmg numbers it currently does, in a meta where 25k hp was considered "tanky".

That initial series of patches paved the way for a lot of animosity towards ZOS. They basically lost whatever goodwill and social capital they had regarding faith in their ability to properly balance the game each patch, so when PTS day 1 of U35 was published, it's really no wonder that people were up in arms about it.

Just like every patch, this kicked off the 21 day countdown for ZOS to attempt to balance their lofty proposal, only to show that very little forethought and planning had gone in to the decision to completely revamp the LA/HA system.

Players either loved or hated the changes, but the general consensus was that most people were frustrated by the changes to the system.

Then, you take into consideration the changes to dots, which in my mind, kicked off the march towards homogenization of the class skills. Instead of allowing class skills to be unique, pretty much everything was reworked to be a carbon copy of other skills so that a warden's fetcherflies did the same as a NB's cripple.

I'm sure in some cases this made rotations easier, but I don't think it really mattered. If someone was struggling with a rotation before, they struggled with it after too.

In the end, the thing that "solved" these problems (while also creating dramatic consequences in their own regard) were the introduction of oakensoul and arcanist, making the rift that U35 caused even more superfluous.

Through it all, very little communication was had between the devs and the players and it likely was the catalyst that resulted in ZOS completely ceasing all forms of communication with its players during PTS cycles and adopting a strategy of only communicating through spoiler dev notes in the patch notes. It wasn't until I called them out on it last year that they stopped this strategy.

Let's not also forget, U35 was the patch that debuted Mara's Balm 1.0 which further solidified the tank meta that we are all so so so tired of.

Finally, the big kicker was ZOS admitting that their approach towards making these sweeping changes was implemented poorly and they appeased us by saying that they'd do a big Q&A with the community. This won them some initial favor, but then the Q&A was never discussed again by ZOS, who clearly just assumed that we would all forget about it and move on. They never told us why they never followed through with it. Not even, "We made a mistake by suggesting it." They never mentioned it again.

The flaws of the game that people are complaining about on the forums today are very much built on a foundation that U35 created. It was a fundamental shift in how ZOS handled major changes and communication and I haven't seen them revert back to a company worthy of mine and my wife's wallet ever since.

For that reason, I will continue to bring up U35 in threads where it finds relevance, just like any other historically important or relevant event might be brought up in IRL conversations. The history informs the present.

Oceanchanter · January 5

This is a genuine, open question to everyone in this thread, and there's no intended malice behind it.
I ask this question to understand what the goal is of bringing the U35 back over and over again.

What do you expect from ZOS to do about it?
Or rather, what is the intention behind talking about it over and over again in almost every thread?

spartaxoxo · January 5

Aldoss wrote: »

Finally, the big kicker was ZOS admitting that their approach towards making these sweeping changes was implemented poorly and they appeased us by saying that they'd do a big Q&A with the community. This won them some initial favor, but then the Q&A was never discussed again by ZOS, who clearly just assumed that we would all forget about it and move on. They never told us why they never followed through with it. Not even, "We made a mistake by suggesting it." They never mentioned it again.

They did let us know the Q&A was cancelled and change into something else, fyi.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi everyone. We know everyone has been asking about the Q&A related to combat. After internal conversations with the team, we have decided to shift from a Q&A. Instead, we've gone through the questions many have been asking and taken those back to the combat team to address the core themes we saw asked across the community. With that, the combat team has drafted an ESO Combat Vision statement, designed to give the community a clearer picture around the goals the combat team has always strived for and will continue to strive for. You can find the statement here for the forum discussion link. While we know the Q&A was initially proposed, we hope the statement helps to clarify some questions around the vision for ESO combat. Thanks for your patience around this topic.

alpha_synuclein · January 5

Oceanchanter wrote: »

What do you expect from ZOS to do about it?
Or rather, what is the intention behind talking about it over and over again in almost every thread?

Noone is really believing that ZOS will do anything at this point. But the U35 is being contunuosly brought up because a lot of the issues that the game faces today is rooted in this update. And we don't want another one.

SkaiFaith · January 5

Marto wrote: »

I think people too often forget or ignore what Update 35 actually was, or how it was really needed for the health of the game. Heck, a lot of the current issues with balance can be tracked back to U35 not going as far enough as the devs originally wanted to.

To give OP and other users more clarity, here's what Update 35 did, in broad terms. There's really no point going over specifics since so many of those have been tweaked over the years.

- Light attacks used to scale with your stats in a more straightforward way, and made up a massive portion of DPS. With U35 and a couple other patches, they were changed to deal a flat amount amount of damage that increases (to a certain point) with your stats. This resulted in a 10-30% reduction to light attack damage in parses, but an increase in damage for people with suboptimal setups or weaving skills.
(IMO, this successfully raised the floor and lowered the ceiling, but no one in the community acknowledged it because youtubers and build-makers never test sub-optimal setups with sub-optimal skill.)

- Buffs used to last 10s. They were changed to last 20s.
- Powerful and rarer buffs used to last 3-5s. They were changed to last 7-15s.

- Single-Target DoT skills used to last 10s. They were changed to last 20s.
- Ground-AoE DoT skills were mostly unchanged
- The cost of abilities was mostly unchanged or reduced, and because you needed to cast them less often, this meant recovery and resource management became a LOT easier

- DoTs were nerfed to deal about 10-20% less DPS.
(Before U35, ESO had gone through years of a DoT meta, to the point of people not even slotting spammables, and just putting as many DoTs as possible on a target. With rotations that were literally twice as fast as what we have today)
- Direct damage abilities were mostly unchanged.

- Reduced Healing over Time by ~20%
- Reduced direct Healing by ~10%

To anyone who still thinks U35 ruined the game, I ask you:

Do you want tanks in PVP to have 20% stronger heals than they do right now? Do you want gankers to deal double the damage they do right now with their opening attack?

Do you want DoT skills to deal 10-20% more damage than they do right now? Imagine that sort of buff on the Arcanist beam, or being hit with 2-3 skills in PVP and dying before you can cleanse.

Do you want healers to just click 1 heal and no one ever dies? Do you want healers in trials to not exist because 10 DD can just cast Vigor and survive?

Do you want 1 of your PVE item sets to be recovery only because otherwise you run dry and need to heavy attack? Or do you want to put so much into recovery you are ridiculously squishy?

Do you want the game to return to Major Brutality lasting 10s? Do you want rotations that require you to swap your bar every 5-6 seconds?

Do you want 50% of your DPS to be light attacks only?

ESO before U35 was a mess. An even bigger mess than we have right now.

I think I could find myself on the guillotine in Wayrest if I mention my first big post on the forums in 2022 right after Update 35... But I agree and I would just say: I would die and I would die a lot before U35. After Oakensoul and U35 I've been able to solo Ink Slayer and achieve much more. So... I get it, for some it was bad, but for some others it was not (Admittedly I don't raid).

Waseem · January 5

Players rather min/max a build that can be sustained by an extremely competent player and copy+paste his skills/champion point and potions, but guess what.. they can't copy the actual players, so they LOSE and QUIT - Instead of sticking to builds which are viable..

Just recently I noticed that ( example ) Kyne Aegis on hardmode getting done with only 1 tank? so the group had about 16 resets ( wipes )

this is an easier trial, with 2 tanks it can be done with no wipes or restarts, but guess what ! some top tier PvE players do it with 1 tank, so the norm now is to have 16 wipes with 1 tank over a flawless easier run with 2 tanks.

Zenimax can't fix the brain of copy + pasters

so here where we are, copy pasters quit and ruin their guilds because they wanted to play the game harder and struggle more instead of playing moderately.

THE NORM SHOULD BE THE EASY

The training and progression should be THE HARD

not all players are equal

I know LOW IQ healers running " Spaulder of Ruin " AND BEING UNABLE TO HEAL 60% of the trial making the team lose on repeat.
fix the players!

alpha_synuclein · January 5

Waseem wrote: »

Players rather min/max a build that can be sustained by an extremely competent player and copy+paste his skills/champion point and potions, but guess what.. they can't copy the actual players, so they LOSE and QUIT - Instead of sticking to builds which are viable..

Just recently I noticed that ( example ) Kyne Aegis on hardmode getting done with only 1 tank? so the group had about 16 resets ( wipes )

this is an easier trial, with 2 tanks it can be done with no wipes or restarts, but guess what ! some top tier PvE players do it with 1 tank, so the norm now is to have 16 wipes with 1 tank over a flawless easier run with 2 tanks.

Zenimax can't fix the brain of copy + pasters

so here where we are, copy pasters quit and ruin their guilds because they wanted to play the game harder and struggle more instead of playing moderately.

THE NORM SHOULD BE THE EASY

The training and progression should be THE HARD

not all players are equal

I know LOW IQ healers running " Spaulder of Ruin " AND BEING UNABLE TO HEAL 60% of the trial making the team lose on repeat.
fix the players!

People aren't born with the knowledge how to solo tank stuff or sustain spaulder. It's very important, especially for supports, to actually practice those things. There are no dummies for tanks. And if we wipe, so what? Why is it so bothersome to restart few times if it gives someone the opportunity to learn something?

Besides, those runs are usually set like this from the start. So it's not like you don't know what you're getting into when you join.

Vonnegut2506 · January 5

Oceanchanter wrote: »

This is a genuine, open question to everyone in this thread, and there's no intended malice behind it.
I ask this question to understand what the goal is of bringing the U35 back over and over again.

What do you expect from ZOS to do about it?
Or rather, what is the intention behind talking about it over and over again in almost every thread?

You realize the person who started the thread asked why people disliked U35 so much. It seems like a given that the replies in the threads would be about U35, doesn't it?

DeadlySerious · January 5

Oceanchanter wrote: »

This is a genuine, open question to everyone in this thread, and there's no intended malice behind it.
I ask this question to understand what the goal is of bringing the U35 back over and over again.

What do you expect from ZOS to do about it?
Or rather, what is the intention behind talking about it over and over again in almost every thread?

Well, they could start by reverting the jabs animation and then focus on other walk backs that should have happened before U35 ever went live. That would be a decent start.

Marto · January 5

SkaiFaith wrote: »

I think I could find myself on the guillotine in Wayrest if I mention my first big post on the forums in 2022 right after Update 35... But I agree and I would just say: I would die and I would die a lot before U35. After Oakensoul and U35 I've been able to solo Ink Slayer and achieve much more. So... I get it, for some it was bad, but for some others it was not (Admittedly I don't raid).

And I'm willing to bet a lot of those deaths were caused by the insanely fast rotation speed before U35. Where there was no room for error, and skipping just one GCD was enough for everything to go out of sync.

Rotations being 5-10s slower is just better for the game. It lets the player react to dangerous situations and dodgeroll/block/heal, without being horribly penalized for it. It lets you adapt if there's suddenly a ranged enemy, or if the boss loses aggro.

Recasting a skill too early or too late is now less penalized than before. It means that the delta between your lowest DPS and your highest DPS is smaller.

You can't use a static rotation on the dummy as representative of what playing the game is actually like.

SkaiFaith · January 5

Marto wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

I think I could find myself on the guillotine in Wayrest if I mention my first big post on the forums in 2022 right after Update 35... But I agree and I would just say: I would die and I would die a lot before U35. After Oakensoul and U35 I've been able to solo Ink Slayer and achieve much more. So... I get it, for some it was bad, but for some others it was not (Admittedly I don't raid).

And I'm willing to bet a lot of those deaths were caused by the insanely fast rotation speed before U35. Where there was no room for error, and skipping just one GCD was enough for everything to go out of sync.

Rotations being 5-10s slower is just better for the game. It lets the player react to dangerous situations and dodgeroll/block/heal, without being horribly penalized for it. It lets you adapt if there's suddenly a ranged enemy, or if the boss loses aggro.

You can't use a static rotation on the dummy as representative of what playing the game is actually like.

True. Could you imagine playing Arc 5 in Infinite Archive solo, when a Marauder and 2 Fabled spawn simultaneously to Shards mechanic, with the combat of pre-U35?
"A savage chronical carpal tunnel has appeared on both wrists"

liliub17_ESO · January 5

Waseem wrote: »

Players rather min/max a build that can be sustained by an extremely competent player and copy+paste his skills/champion point and potions, but guess what.. they can't copy the actual players, so they LOSE and QUIT - Instead of sticking to builds which are viable .....

Zenimax can't fix the brain of copy + pasters

so here where we are, copy pasters quit and ruin their guilds because they wanted to play the game harder and struggle more instead of playing moderately.

THE NORM SHOULD BE THE EASY

The training and progression should be THE HARD

not all players are equal

I know LOW IQ healers running " Spaulder of Ruin " AND BEING UNABLE TO HEAL 60% of the trial making the team lose on repeat.
fix the players!

Again, the game play up to trials, vet dungeons, PvP, etc., should be considered "training". Think of The Wailing Prison and how it teaches basic skills and then extrapolate that concept to gameplay in a slower fashion over the next 20 or 30 levels. I'm not advocating for all difficulty to be cranked up in overland, but with the expectation of ZOS that all players will run pocket companions, the difficulty sliders continues to slide to easy-mode*. *except for the newer boss mechanics which tend to be annoying and, quite frankly, stupidly out of place.... And if nearly all content is in easy-mode, there's no need or ability for learning strategy to be better. It's the mad rush to champion levels that ZOS now pushes that exacerbates the whole thing. Look at the last Golden Endeavors - there were no fewer than four endeavors tied directly to leveling a character to at least 45 during the endeavor (three weeks this time?). Yes, there were other things to do, yes you could use more than one character if you had the slots. But the end goal of the devs seems to have been to get as many as possible to champion levels and "end game" without, necessarily, the experience in game mechanics to be effective once you got there.

It's not necessarily the "brain of copy + paste" that needs to be fixed - it's the concept of improvement through play and even failure. But it's very difficult when the culture of the gaming relentlessly pushes the idea of min/max and zerg ... it creates a ready source of income for the game.

This is more a case of "fix the bean counters' long term strategy concepts" or "fix the game devs' hubris" than it is fix the player.

But the question was asked of how to fix U35. We're due for ... U45 at this point? U44? Each patch has to attempt to fix the snarl the previous caused and much of it originates with U35(ish). Because few-to-none of the devs seem to know how to communicate effectively with the very people who pay the bills (that would be the players, for the most part, by the way), it means they would need to think long and hard on why this update specifically continues to have a prolonged negative impact on the game. So maybe, just maybe, a long hard look needs to be had at the reams of feedback from the PTS for U35 and all updates since. Maybe, just maybe, that feedback needs to be honestly considered.

Do I think this will happen? :: shrugs :: Miracles happen, and it's a new calendar year. Anything's possible.

BagOfBadgers · January 5

Marto wrote: »

You can't use a static rotation on the dummy as representative of what playing the game is actually like.

TLDR; ZOS used a static rotation to adust DPS in U35.

The problem was, ZOS used dummy parses as the metric for the adjustments, telling us not to overact as parses were near'ish to before! I lost the use of 4 toons in one patch, I was mid level at the time and it hit hard (V crags HM and Vet DLC Dungeons). It took the endgame out to. So what you might say, “I didn't see any difference” and that was the other problem. ZOS told, I repeat told us that it would lift the floor, it didn't and nor did they tell players how to get their DPS up. The reason people keep on about it was U35, on the whole, made the game worse around combat and as that is a significant part of the game, it hit a significant number of players negativity. Out of the crew I rocked with at the time, only my partner still plays, the others left and have not returned.

Charon_on_Vacation · January 5

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

As people point out, U35 changed combat drastically, but does anyone stop to consider WHY they made the changes, when they were so exceedingly unpopular with the end-game crowd -- and KNEW that they would be before they rolled them out to production? They had a long-term goal in mind to weather the blistering feedback that has been occurring ever since.

I'm 55. I've played games since Space Invaders in the grocery store when I was in second grade. I've played games basically my whole life. I was a terror at FPS's like Q2, UT, and CS. I could always count on being in the top quartile playing Battlefield. What I'm saying is that I have good reflexes and timing. However, I could never get the hang of weaving.

I came to the game in the COVID craze (along with several IRL friends) and sort of maxed out around 45K. I "retired" and came back after U35 and the introduction of Oakensoul and the Arcanist to find that I could finally access end-game content. Yay! It was like unlocking the rest of the game I was paying for. I've spent the past year and a half doing trials, gearing up several toons for each DPS, healer, and tank metas, and getting vet clears, thanks to these changes.

What I need is for the hard core players of this game to recognize that while the weaving/animation canceling aspects of combat might be easy FOR THEM, this is a tremendously skillful thing to do well. It's NOT just clicking at the same time through a loop. You have to master each skill in your rotation down to the animation frame if you want to achieve god-tier DPS. That's CLEARLY not a thing that many people can do, and that's WHY they did what they did with U35 and Oakensoul and the Arcanist.

If I'm plotting the data points on a graph, it seems like ZOS would like to finally remove the glitch-that-stuck that enabled weaving in the first place from the game entirely. If they do it all at once, then half of everyone will leave immediately. In another couple of years, I suspect changes will be made to make it worthless to do (weave), and then they can finally just remove it. When your DPS meta relies on a mythic that nullifies all LA attack damage, and people running Drake's Rush and imbibing heroism pots makes ultimate generation much less dependent on basic attacks, where else is this headed?

if they wanted to get rid of the light/heavy attack system, they could have done so a long time ago.
without much effort and without changing dps.

Marto · January 5

BagOfBadgers wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

You can't use a static rotation on the dummy as representative of what playing the game is actually like.

TLDR; ZOS used a static rotation to adust DPS in U35.

The problem was, ZOS used dummy parses as the metric for the adjustments, telling us not to overact as parses were near'ish to before! I lost the use of 4 toons in one patch, I was mid level at the time and it hit hard (V crags HM and Vet DLC Dungeons). It took the endgame out to. So what you might say, “I didn't see any difference” and that was the other problem. ZOS told, I repeat told us that it would lift the floor, it didn't and nor did they tell players how to get their DPS up. The reason people keep on about it was U35, on the whole, made the game worse around combat and as that is a significant part of the game, it hit a significant number of players negativity. Out of the crew I rocked with at the time, only my partner still plays, the others left and have not returned.

Now where do you get that assumption?

Because ZOS sure as hell weren't doing perfect rotation parses to decide what to change in U35. If they did, U35 would just consist of numbers going up or down.

Changing durations is about changing what a rotation is. What it includes, what it feels like, and how you build one.

Post U35, a player with moderate experience could intuit that you should recast long buffs or DoTs (20-30s) less often than short buffs (10-15s). It's also easier now to see the the pros and cons of different types of skills. Long DoTs deal more reliable damage over longer fights, ground AoEs deal more damage over a shorter period by you can miss.

Rotations pre-U35 actually required you to look up guides and builds more than they do now, because the durations were so inconsistent and the ability costs were so high. The job of a build maker was more about matching the recovery to the cost/duration of the rotation as a whole.

DeadlySerious · January 5

Marto wrote: »

BagOfBadgers wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

You can't use a static rotation on the dummy as representative of what playing the game is actually like.

TLDR; ZOS used a static rotation to adust DPS in U35.

The problem was, ZOS used dummy parses as the metric for the adjustments, telling us not to overact as parses were near'ish to before! I lost the use of 4 toons in one patch, I was mid level at the time and it hit hard (V crags HM and Vet DLC Dungeons). It took the endgame out to. So what you might say, “I didn't see any difference” and that was the other problem. ZOS told, I repeat told us that it would lift the floor, it didn't and nor did they tell players how to get their DPS up. The reason people keep on about it was U35, on the whole, made the game worse around combat and as that is a significant part of the game, it hit a significant number of players negativity. Out of the crew I rocked with at the time, only my partner still plays, the others left and have not returned.

Now where do you get that assumption?

Because ZOS sure as hell weren't doing perfect rotation parses to decide what to change in U35. If they did, U35 would just consist of numbers going up or down.

Changing durations is about changing what a rotation is. What it includes, what it feels like, and how you build one.

Post U35, a player with moderate experience that intuit that you should recast long buffs or DoTs (20-30s) less often than short buffs (10-15s). It's also easier now to see the the pros and cons of different types of skills. Long DoTs deal more reliable damage over longer fights, ground AoEs deal more damage over a shorter period by you can miss.

Rotations pre-U35 actually required you to look up guides and builds more than they do now, because the durations were so inconsistent and the ability costs were so high. The job of a build maker was more about matching the recovery to the cost/duration of the rotation as a whole.

Well it's a good thing nobody has to look up any builds or how to's now because there isn't anyone to create that content anymore.

BagOfBadgers · January 5

"Marto wrote: »

Now where do you get that assumption?

Gilliam the Rogue made that statement, as they had done many, many hours of parsing pre U35, then with the changes,with little difference in the DPS (they still work at ZOS, I think and it was in the hundreds of hours)

So U35 was based off many static rotations done at ZOS.

Soarora · January 5

Oceanchanter wrote: »

This is a genuine, open question to everyone in this thread, and there's no intended malice behind it.
I ask this question to understand what the goal is of bringing the U35 back over and over again.

What do you expect from ZOS to do about it?
Or rather, what is the intention behind talking about it over and over again in almost every thread?

ZOS can’t just undo U35 after all this time. But we remember what they did, we didn’t forgive and forget. We talk about it because if we don’t, ZOS might think it got swept under the rug. It didn’t, ZOS needs to earn our faith in them back by making good changes rather than think it’ll just come back on its own. U35 lead to a lot of cancelled ESO+, and there hasn’t been a new update that’s exceeded expectations to make people subscribe again.

SilverBride · January 5

Soarora wrote: »

U35 lead to a lot of cancelled ESO+, and there hasn’t been a new update that’s exceeded expectations to make people subscribe again.

We don't have the data to support this. Players saying they are going to unsubscribe doesn't mean they actually did. Or if they did, did they just resubscribe again when things cooled down? Only ZoS knows how many unsubscribed.

Vonnegut2506 · January 5

Soarora wrote: »

Oceanchanter wrote: »

This is a genuine, open question to everyone in this thread, and there's no intended malice behind it.
I ask this question to understand what the goal is of bringing the U35 back over and over again.

What do you expect from ZOS to do about it?
Or rather, what is the intention behind talking about it over and over again in almost every thread?

ZOS can’t just undo U35 after all this time. But we remember what they did, we didn’t forgive and forget. We talk about it because if we don’t, ZOS might think it got swept under the rug. It didn’t, ZOS needs to earn our faith in them back by making good changes rather than think it’ll just come back on its own. U35 lead to a lot of cancelled ESO+, and there hasn’t been a new update that’s exceeded expectations to make people subscribe again.

I cancelled my subscription for a year after U35 and stopped playing altogether. This thread has just reignited the bitter feelings towards ZOS, and I have cancelled my subscription once again for both accounts. Unless they really hit the January live stream out of the park and do something to make me think the game isn't headed towards maintenance mode with their "bite-sized" content delivery, I'm probably done this time for good.

DigiAngel · January 5

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

U35 was so bad I took a year off. I still don't play or enjoy the game as much as I did before the patch, and the minute I can find a good replacement MMO I will leave and not return. U35 proved once and for all that the developers of this game do not listen to well thought out player feedback and will do any ridiculous change that they see fit. Changes since then have only reinforced this belief.

100% this.

Valion · January 5

Aldoss wrote: »

I'm not really interested in writing a big reply, but [...]

Well, that did not work out too well, did it?
I feel you.

Well, glad that nonetheless you took the time!

Soarora · January 5

SilverBride wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

U35 lead to a lot of cancelled ESO+, and there hasn’t been a new update that’s exceeded expectations to make people subscribe again.

We don't have the data to support this. Players saying they are going to unsubscribe doesn't mean they actually did. Or if they did, did they just resubscribe again when things cooled down? Only ZoS knows how many unsubscribed.

Of course not, but at least in my circle the combination of AWA + U35 made my friends stop playing for the most part, and personally I can vouch I stopped my eso+. I would buy eso+ again despite having all the DLCs if ZOS started making enough good choices.

Marto · January 5

BagOfBadgers wrote: »

"Marto wrote: »

Now where do you get that assumption?

Gilliam the Rogue made that statement, as they had done many, many hours of parsing pre U35, then with the changes,with little difference in the DPS (they still work at ZOS, I think and it was in the hundreds of hours)

So U35 was based off many static rotations done at ZOS.

What statement? That ZOS used parsing in their testing? Of course they did, but that's only one testing methodology. It's not the beginning and end of their design thought process.

And all I said about the slower rotations making the game better by giving you the time to react to what's going on? I'm not pulling that out of my ass. Here is Gilliam's statement about that.

Currently, many [Damage over time or buff abilities] fall within a 10-second window, meaning to maximize your efficiency, you must activate them once every 10 seconds. With 10 total active ability slots at your disposal, this often creates a situation where you want to load up almost every slot with one of these abilities, adding to your combat output for each duration-based effect you utilize. Between this and the engagement of weaving, this creates a reality where high actions per minute (APM) is required to be effective, as well as a robust rotation to keep as many of these effects up as possible. This in turn reinforces a need to glue your eyes to your action bars, taking you out of the action happening on screen. While this can create exhilarating combat experiences where you need to constantly monitor different activities on screen, it can also be overwhelming and particularly challenging for you to do so at the rate required to be effective.

As such, coming in Update 35, we are increasing the duration of many of these effects in game, primarily damage over time, buffs, and debuffs. By extending the duration, we hope to reduce the stress of many combat rotations, allowing for you to focus more on the action in front of you rather than the action of juggling buffs and debuffs on your ability bar and making the game far more accessible.

Their concern was first and foremost to create a better combat pace and a better power baseline. To create a solid foundation, from which they can balance encounters and balance player power.

It's like I said in my first post in this thread: ESO was a mess before update 35.

A way, way bigger mess than any of the problems you or I could say the game currently has.

sarahthes · January 5

I'm just going to chime in now that I think combat is actually in an ok place overall (in PvE, I cannot speak to PvP because I've been avoiding it for about 6ish months). Some minor adjustments are needed, but in endgame all classes except warden are being used for DPS, and all classes except dk have a place in healing, and all classes except templar and nb are used in tanking. This is at the highest level, but everyone knows that trickles down to the masses eventually. Get warden DPS into a bit better place and we are pretty good overall.

(I am basing this off of the rosters I see being posted in PC NA endgame discords for open runs, btw - there's a lot of call for nb for specific fights, templar for others, and of course dk/arc/sorc/cro are somewhat ubiquitous, although they may be jailed).

The one thing I don't want to see going forward is sweeping combat design changes like we had in update 35. I know the reason I stopped playing around then wasn't due to the changes themselves, specifically, but due to change fatigue.

BagOfBadgers · January 5

Marto wrote: »

What statement? That ZOS used parsing in their testing? Of course they did, but that's only one testing methodology. It's not the beginning and end of their design thought process.

And all I said about the slower rotations making the game better by giving you the time to react to what's going on? I'm not pulling that out of my ass. Here is Gilliam's statement about that.

Cool and no one needs to know about backside and what it produces.

The statement was made after that post you linked. It was made to the players to prove that ZOS was justified in their changes and knew best. Anyone that understands ESO combat, static rotation is very different to in game active combat, eg, “Boards don't hit back!”.

I'm happy for you that you see it as good update. I lost a lot, Stam/Mag Templar and Warden DPS were kicked to the long grass. Then when ZOS told us we're wrong about the changes they spoke down to us and justified it using parses as evidence and that parses was the tool they used to make the adjustments.

Marto · January 5

If you don't believe me when I say pre-U35 combat pace was terrible, try this: Equip 5 pieces of New Moon Acolyte, which will increase the cost of your skills by 5%. Not exactly the reverse of what U35 did with cost reduction, but it will give you a decent idea.

Then go to a training dummy, and practice a rotation pretending that all your DoT and Buff skills last 10s, recasting them early. With short skills like Warden Scorch, Sorcerer Curse, or Dragonknight Talons needing to be recast every 3s. And ground AoEs lasting 12-15s.

Ignore the numbers in your parse, they obviously don't mean much. Just pay attention to how the parse feels, if you can do it reliably, if you run out of stamina/magicka, and how much you need to focus on it.

I assure you, it doesn't feel great.

spartaxoxo · January 5

Marto wrote: »

BagOfBadgers wrote: »

"Marto wrote: »

Now where do you get that assumption?

Gilliam the Rogue made that statement, as they had done many, many hours of parsing pre U35, then with the changes,with little difference in the DPS (they still work at ZOS, I think and it was in the hundreds of hours)

So U35 was based off many static rotations done at ZOS.

What statement? That ZOS used parsing in their testing? Of course they did, but that's only one testing methodology. It's not the beginning and end of their design thought process.

And all I said about the slower rotations making the game better by giving you the time to react to what's going on? I'm not pulling that out of my ass. Here is Gilliam's statement about that.

Currently, many [Damage over time or buff abilities] fall within a 10-second window, meaning to maximize your efficiency, you must activate them once every 10 seconds. With 10 total active ability slots at your disposal, this often creates a situation where you want to load up almost every slot with one of these abilities, adding to your combat output for each duration-based effect you utilize. Between this and the engagement of weaving, this creates a reality where high actions per minute (APM) is required to be effective, as well as a robust rotation to keep as many of these effects up as possible. This in turn reinforces a need to glue your eyes to your action bars, taking you out of the action happening on screen. While this can create exhilarating combat experiences where you need to constantly monitor different activities on screen, it can also be overwhelming and particularly challenging for you to do so at the rate required to be effective.

As such, coming in Update 35, we are increasing the duration of many of these effects in game, primarily damage over time, buffs, and debuffs. By extending the duration, we hope to reduce the stress of many combat rotations, allowing for you to focus more on the action in front of you rather than the action of juggling buffs and debuffs on your ability bar and making the game far more accessible.

Their concern was first and foremost to create a better combat pace and a better power baseline. To create a solid foundation, from which they can balance encounters and balance player power.

It's like I said in my first post in this thread: ESO was a mess before update 35.

A way, way bigger mess than any of the problems you or I could say the game currently has.

I do agree with you on the weaving, but then why did they have to also nerf the high end up at the same time? If they didn't want to do that, why didn't the change the encounters to match their new standard so that those mid and early endgame didn't have all their progress basically wiped? Why didn't they show understanding that a certain power baseline is required due to these encounters? And that inclusion comes from hitting that power.

They had to change a lot over the years to have both simple rotations and make combat feel good again.

ETA
We're in a better spot now, and I admit I am a not a theory crafter, but seems to me a lot of that is fixing what was broken about U35/The Oakensoul overnerf. And it's still not all fixed either, as well as it appears some of the fixes caused their own problems.

BananaBender · January 5

Marto wrote: »

If you don't believe me when I say pre-U35 combat pace was terrible, try this: Equip 5 pieces of New Moon Acolyte, which will increase the cost of your skills by 5%. Not exactly the reverse of what U35 did with cost reduction, but it will give you a decent idea.

Then go to a training dummy, and practice a rotation pretending that all your DoT and Buff skills last 10s, recasting them early. With short skills like Warden Scorch, Sorcerer Curse, or Dragonknight Talons needing to be recast every 3s. And ground AoEs lasting 12-15s.

Ignore the numbers in your parse, they obviously don't mean much. Just pay attention to how the parse feels, if you can do it reliably, if you run out of stamina/magicka, and how much you need to focus on it.

I assure you, it doesn't feel great.

To me the combat was much better before U35. You actually had to think about your resources, now the only time you have to pay attention to it is if you are on Coral Riptide. You also had to keep an eye on your uptimes more, which to you might feel like a bad thing, but to me it kept the combat way more interesting and rewarded people knowing their class and the fight.

Also, now none of the recovery sets have any place in PvE. You can fix your sustain with potions and food or maybe slotting a few skills of different costs. But all of the many sustain sets are pretty much deadweight at this point.