U35 what is wrong?

Stamicka · 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.

I don’t have to do this test because I played ESO even when Wall of Elements was 8 seconds not 10. The game felt great and the PvE community was way bigger then than it is now.

When you increase DoT durations all you’re doing is increasing the amount of spammables somebody needs to use in a row. I personally don’t find it engaging to spam the same button 9+ times in a row, that isn’t fun.

Vonnegut2506 · January 5

Stamicka wrote: »

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.

I don’t have to do this test because I played ESO even when Wall of Elements was 8 seconds not 10. The game felt great and the PvE community was way bigger then than it is now.

When you increase DoT durations all you’re doing is increasing the amount of spammables somebody needs to use in a row. I personally don’t find it engaging to spam the same button 9+ times in a row, that isn’t fun.

They didn't even get Dot standardization right which was pointed out to them several times on the PTS forum. On my stamina DK right now, post-U35, I have two skills with 8 second DoT's, a 10s, a 12s, a 15s, three 20s, and two 24s. How in the world is keeping track of all those different timers more engaging combat. At least when most DoT's were 10 seconds, the rotation felt more natural as you hit the DoT's at the same time one after the other. Now, good luck juggling all the different times.

Stamicka · January 5

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

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.

I don’t have to do this test because I played ESO even when Wall of Elements was 8 seconds not 10. The game felt great and the PvE community was way bigger then than it is now.

When you increase DoT durations all you’re doing is increasing the amount of spammables somebody needs to use in a row. I personally don’t find it engaging to spam the same button 9+ times in a row, that isn’t fun.

They didn't even get Dot standardization right which was pointed out to them several times on the PTS forum. On my stamina DK right now, post-U35, I have two skills with 8 second DoT's, a 10s, a 12s, a 15s, three 20s, and two 24s. How in the world is keeping track of all those different timers more engaging combat. At least when most DoT's were 10 seconds, the rotation felt more natural as you hit the DoT's at the same time one after the other. Now, good luck juggling all the different times.

I agree. Micromanaging a whole bunch of different duration DoTs is also not fun, that's why I didn't like the Scalebreaker patch. The key is a nice balance between spammables and DoTs and optional dyanamic rotations for those who are better at managing different timers. The game had a nice balance between spammables and DoTs before Scalebreaker and hybridization, but those two things have messed up the balance ever since.

In the past most mag builds had only 3 or 4 DoTs to manage. Templar had spear shard, wall of elements, and vampire's bane (or later solar barrage) to manage. Nightblade had wall of elements, path, and cripple to manage. Sorcerer had curse, liquid lightning (rip) and wall of elements to manage.

Things weren't homogenized either, each of those classes felt different from one another and had unique things about them. Players could also optionally do a more micromanaged rotation if they wanted more DPS. For example, a nightblade could refresh wall of elements at the same time as twisting patch for an easier rotation, but a little less DPS. Or they could go a more dynamic route where they reapplied DoTs only when they ran out.

I really consider 2-4 DoTs to manage with around 8 or 10 seconds of duration with maybe 1 odd ball duration to be the perfect mix between DoTs and spammables. This is how ESO was for years and years until Scalebreaker happened. I still have no idea why they went through with that ridiculous patch.

CatoUnchained · January 6

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.

I think that most of the time people do what they say they're going to do or did.

And we have a mountain of data to support the assertion that people are unsubbing and that the population is declining. Why do you think ZOS is pulling back their time and financial investments into ESO? Is it more likely due to an influx of players and sales, or is it more likely due to players leaving and taking their money with them?

SilverBride · January 6

CatoUnchained wrote: »

And we have a mountain of data to support the assertion that people are unsubbing and that the population is declining.

Where?

CatoUnchained · January 6

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.

How would you explain why NMA became the meta set to run for six months to a year pre U35?

spartaxoxo · January 6

SilverBride wrote: »

CatoUnchained wrote: »

And we have a mountain of data to support the assertion that people are unsubbing and that the population is declining.

Where?

The developers keep cutting down content. They have a whole no content quarter dedicated to something they used to do alongside content.

The Steam Charts show a decline in users.

Threads stay on the first page of the forum longer than they used to stay

Queue times have increased again for dungeons.

In-game sales of items have dropped a lot

Leaderboards are less competitive. I've literally gotten congratulations mails from leaderboarding content when I didn't even try to and didn't do incredible. I would not consider myself an endgame player.

SilverBride · January 6

That is not data. Those are speculations based on perceptions which are not always accurate.

sarahthes · January 6

CatoUnchained wrote: »

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.

How would you explain why NMA became the meta set to run for six months to a year pre U35?

In PvE? We were running Bahsei medusa (before Crit cap) and Bahsei tzogvin or kinras (after).

alpha_synuclein · January 6

BananaBender wrote: »

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.

I have the same feeling. Sustain was always an important part of a build and hybridization made it much easier already.

As for DoTs, I quite enjoyed pre-U35 DoT rotation on necro. It was different to what I was used to previously (I started as a magsorc). It was very engaging and very rewarding when done well. Admittedly, not very pug friendly, but I created a simpler, fully static version for unpredictable groups. Yes, it was very much possible.

Now I have 6 DoTs in active use and they are mostly a fodder for Runecarver...

Nilandia · January 6

SilverBride wrote: »

That is not data. Those are speculations based on perceptions which are not always accurate.

Circumstantial evidence is still evidence.

SilverBride · January 6

But it's not proof.

Stamicka · January 6

SilverBride wrote: »

That is not data. Those are speculations based on perceptions which are not always accurate.

You can’t just tell people who’s friends quit and who’s guild disbanded that they can’t prove that others are leaving the game… lol

spartaxoxo · January 6

SilverBride wrote: »

That is not data. Those are speculations based on perceptions which are not always accurate.

Those are data. The devs have factually reduced content. We don't populate the Steam Charts ourselves. Some of it is circumstantial evidence but not some of it is data.

December 2021 January 2022 is from pages 599 to 619 which is 20 pages

December 2024 to January 2025 is from pages 4 to 20 which is 16 pages

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/general-discussion/p619
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/general-discussion/p599

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/general-discussion/p4
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/general-discussion/p20

The most viewed, non-sticky post on page 619 has 32.3k views
The most viewed, non-sticky post on page 4 has 5.5k views

The holiday thread has less views than a randomly selected time period from years ago. And that was stickied with dev commentary, which generally helps a thread get views.

My methodology was to randomly type in a number and then compare that number to the same time period here but not January, which I did land on first twice. The reason I excluded January is because it's early in the current month. I wanted both years to have the same amount of time to get replies.

This was only one successful pull but I think it's perfectly logical that a game with less Steam users also has less replies on its official forums, since you'd expect PC players to post more often than console thanks to not needing a different device to do so.

I'll admit for sales data, I am relying on perception. But many PC guild leaders who DO have access to hard data about how much they and everyone else sells have rang the alarm on this a lot. So, I am relying on witness testimony. But it is strong witness testimony.

It is not all just my speculation.

Vonnegut2506 · January 6

It won't matter what you present as evidence. People who want to keep their heads in the sand will happily keep it there.

SilverBride · January 6

ZoS are the only ones that have accurate data.

spartaxoxo · January 6

SilverBride wrote: »

ZoS are the only ones that have accurate data.

Sony, Microsoft, and Steam also have accurate information about their install base.

Steam charts are hard data about Steam users.

Edit

SilverBride wrote: »

But it's not proof.

It is evidence. Things like Witness Testimony is admissible in a court of law. It's not "smoking gun" levels but that is not the only level of evidence needed for a reasonable conclusion based on evidence.

Stamicka · January 6

SilverBride wrote: »

But it's not proof.

SilverBride wrote: »

ZoS are the only ones that have accurate data.

The burden of proof is actually on you. Steam is a large enough subset of ESO’s population to where its trends likely match the trends of the overall population.

Are you able to give us a good reason why Steam would follow different trends than the rest of the population?

Now also consider that you can go to Google trends and search for ESO. Google trends shows a downward trend for ESO similar to Steam. If you look at Twitch metrics, ESO is losing viewers and popularity.

So there’s not much actual data we can get our hands on, but all the data we can get our hands on shows a downward trend.

Do you have any piece of data where there’s an upward or stable trend? Nothing supports that.

SilverBride · January 6

I stand by my opinion.

sarahthes · January 6

Stamicka wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

But it's not proof.

SilverBride wrote: »

ZoS are the only ones that have accurate data.

The burden of proof is actually on you. Steam is a large enough subset of ESO’s population to where its trends likely match the trends of the overall population.

Are you able to give us a good reason why Steam would follow different trends than the rest of the population?

Now also consider that you can go to Google trends and search for ESO. Google trends shows a downward trend for ESO similar to Steam. If you look at Twitch metrics, ESO is losing viewers and popularity.

So there’s not much actual data we can get our hands on, but all the data we can get our hands on shows a downward trend.

Do you have any piece of data where there’s an upward or stable trend? Nothing supports that.

Steam doesn't give exact numbers, but if Steam has a 10% drop (and there haven't been problems with Steam itself), you can estimate that non-steam has also dropped by some percentage around 10%, let's say 5-15% since we are purely guessing.

SilverBride · January 6

Stamicka wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

But it's not proof.

SilverBride wrote: »

ZoS are the only ones that have accurate data.

The burden of proof is actually on you...

Do you have any piece of data where there’s an upward or stable trend? Nothing supports that.

The burden of proof for what? I never made any claims that there was any kind of trend, one way or another.

All I did was disagree that there is a mountain of data to support that people are unsubbing and that the population is declining.

And that is all I'm going to say about it.

Tannus15 · January 6

The biggest issue with U35 was the fact that it ever happened.

It was, and remains, one of those moment which exposed the lack of understanding the combat balance team has for actually playing the game.
It put on display how they balance with spreadsheets, not game play.

Week 1 on the PTS was so bad, that entire raid groups got all their people to install the PTS so they could record HM runs of content they had already mastered on live just to show how the changes were going to negatively affect it.
Groups that had vKA HM on farm, dawn breaker groups, would struggle to clear with literally nothing they could do because of the difference between incoming damage ticks vs out going healing ticks. the "values" were the same over a full minute, but because of the timing, it was impossible to guarantee keeping someone alive.

The trial community knew this instantly. At a glance looking at the notes we all could see the problems and had to prove to ZoS how badly they had stuffed up.

In addition, ZoS nerfed the living hell out of everyone for no reason, and they in the last week of the pts threw random buffs at classes to try and fix the disaster they made.

Sorcerer is a really good example.

Most skills, the pets, the whole shebang got nerfed, and then at the last moment they buffed daedric prey from +20% pet damage to +45% pet damage.
Ever since sorcerer dps has been overly reliant on pets and the prey damage buff. it's been the key issue with 1 pet or no pet dps. You have to run pets, you have to run prey. they took away everything and over buffed prey and made it a must use skill.

Look at nightblade. They nerfed everything and then in the last week of PTS added the infamous 10% damage buff to Concealed weapon. over the next 2 years they slowly changed and messed with this skill before they eventually got rid of the buff.

Pretty much every class got gutted and they added some weird crutch to carry the class which they then had to fix at some point.

And we all knew. We all saw it and knew, immediately.

It should never have hit PTS in the first place, and it definitely shouldn't have gone live. The game was objectively worse after the patch, and the proof I have is how they have been trying to band aid fixes every since.

Tannus15 · January 6

This is the best part.

This is the last week of the PTS for U35

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/614365/pts-patch-notes-v8-1-4

Just look at those last second changes. Warden, Sorcerer and Nightlbade were so dead at this point in the PTS that the final week these huge buffs got dumped.
In the final pts update.

Templar became the execute bot, sorc became go pet or go home, nightblade had a weird buff added to a skill you don't use.

This PTS was WILD. Reading the U35 patch notes is absolute misery. It's nerf after nerf after nerf. But reading the PTS notes week by week is crazy.
Things were SO bad every week was one terrible change after another reverted by an end game community desperately trying to keep the game playable.

The funny thing is, people think ZoS don't pay attention to PTS feedback, because they never revert everything. but take a look at U35 and clearly, CLEARLY ZoS react to feedback.
They didn't roll it all back, but they reverted a LOT because of feedback.

The patch notes are all still there. Reading them is a fun time.

Vonnegut2506 · January 6

I would argue that ZOS did not listen to the PTS feedback, but the overwhelming negative tone of the feedback forced them to do something. The wrong things obviously, but at least they could try and save face by saying it won't be as bad because of these half-baked fixes. Thing is, it was still just as bad, and they still haven't learned to listen to feedback; otherwise Grave Lord Sacrifice would not exist, and Polar Wind would have been nerfed due to PvP instead of Arctic Blast.

Turtle_Bot · January 6

Tannus15 wrote: »

This is the best part.

This is the last week of the PTS for U35

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/614365/pts-patch-notes-v8-1-4

Just look at those last second changes. Warden, Sorcerer and Nightlbade were so dead at this point in the PTS that the final week these huge buffs got dumped.
In the final pts update.

Templar became the execute bot, sorc became go pet or go home, nightblade had a weird buff added to a skill you don't use.

This PTS was WILD. Reading the U35 patch notes is absolute misery. It's nerf after nerf after nerf. But reading the PTS notes week by week is crazy.
Things were SO bad every week was one terrible change after another reverted by an end game community desperately trying to keep the game playable.

The funny thing is, people think ZoS don't pay attention to PTS feedback, because they never revert everything. but take a look at U35 and clearly, CLEARLY ZoS react to feedback.
They didn't roll it all back, but they reverted a LOT because of feedback.

The patch notes are all still there. Reading them is a fun time.

I still remember those changes... Sorc as a class (not just a single build build, but the entire class) was literally so dead from all of the proposed nerfs during weeks 1-4 of that PTS cycle that it literally took panic buffing 2 skills by 100% or more each in that final week just to make the class "playable" on their spreadsheets (for the record, it still wasn't playable, but at least it's best PvE build (pets) could now be used for overland content and normal dungeons again).

Tannus15 · January 6

@SilverBride for the record, after U35 went live, we pushed through until the end of the year and then my guild had a very serious discussion about closing up or not.

Our prog, vRG HM was shut down. We had lost 6 months of progression and no one wanted to do it anymore. They had nerfed us so hard, the content felt out of our reach.

I know of several other guilds that did close up shop. Half the veteran players who had cleared content already just left.

Anecdotal, sure, but from what I saw U35 gutted the end game trials community.

spartaxoxo · January 6

Tannus15 wrote: »

SilverBride for the record, after U35 went live, we pushed through until the end of the year and then my guild had a very serious discussion about closing up or not.

Our prog, vRG HM was shut down. We had lost 6 months of progression and no one wanted to do it anymore. They had nerfed us so hard, the content felt out of our reach.

I know of several other guilds that did close up shop. Half the veteran players who had cleared content already just left.

Anecdotal, sure, but from what I saw U35 gutted the end game trials community.

U35 gutted my Templar. I didn't remember the exact timeline but also Oakensoul was nerfed too shortly after IIRC. This resulted in not only nerfs to both the builds I was using but also the collapse of all the pickup groups that I had been trying to do vet trials in.

I wish before the Oakensoul nerfs I had just joined in the cheese instead of still stubbornly trying to make Templar work. It would not be until this year that I even got the opportunity to try them again at any appreciable number. There were a couple of small attempts. And certainly not on Magplar, which I never felt like making good again.

colossalvoids · January 6

A lot of us clearly remembering the time, all but the biggest discords literally died out and crucial people have left so ones remaining scattered around forming new groups but were mostly unsuccessful because burn out, discussions of companies actions and overall feel of the new game. No one really enjoys dev hostility towards your gaming group, that certainly doesn't help things when you're already getting short end of the stick more or less constantly.

Climate doesn't fully recovered either, zos is absolutely getting piled on every time any of their actions are brought up in any discord, it wasn't this black and white back (meaning completely black) then as it is now.

Ph1p · January 6

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The most viewed, non-sticky post on page 619 has 32.3k views
The most viewed, non-sticky post on page 4 has 5.5k views

I would stick to more reliable data like Steam charts, as forum engagement is not a meaningful measure for several reasons:

Those two factoids are (likely unintentionally) cherry-picked. Go to page 618 and the biggest post has 5k views. Go to page 5 and there is a post with 75k views, while page 8 has one with 130k...
Some threads have lots of views because they are old and have a timeless topic. Others pick up a viral trend or the controversy of the day, but are completely forgotten a week later. None of this necessarily correlates with the number of players in the game, of which only a small share is active here anyway. Frankly, this is the kind of methodology used by unreliable websites like MMO Populations.

spartaxoxo · January 6

Ph1p wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The most viewed, non-sticky post on page 619 has 32.3k views
The most viewed, non-sticky post on page 4 has 5.5k views

I would stick to more reliable data like Steam charts, as forum engagement is not a meaningful measure for several reasons:
Those two factoids are (likely unintentionally) cherry-picked. Go to page 618 and the biggest post has 5k views. Go to page 5 and there is a post with 75k views, while page 8 has one with 130k...

Some threads have lots of views because they are old and have a timeless topic. Others pick up a viral trend or the controversy of the day, but are completely forgotten a week later. None of this necessarily correlates with the number of players in the game, of which only a small share is active here anyway. Frankly, this is the kind of methodology used by unreliable websites like MMO Populations.

That's a very fair correction. I agree that I don't think it's particularly strong evidence in isolation. That's especially true of the views because of the reasons you noted. Although, dead games do tend to have little activity on forums and the like.

I do think though when paired with much more reliable evidence like Steam Charts, it does help to paint a picture that the overall trend is players are engaging less.

Also yeah I just picked the first for the time period for each. Going to the next page and getting such different results is exactly why a more rigorous study requires a lot of random samples and not just the one. On it's own, just one sample is not reliable. I probably should have just skipped that part.