Now that U46 is live how are we feeling?

Rkindaleft · June 6

Hating U46 (Knew / thought it was going to be bad and its exactly what I knew / thought was going to happen)

disky wrote: »

I enjoy what I've seen. I was looking forward to subclassing and I'm not disappointed so far. As for the arguments which state that this will just create a series of primary meta builds which are expected for endgame PvE...I don't see how this is any different from the way things were before subclassing went live. There always were a set of builds which dominated the scene. This just shakes things up a bit. During this period, the devs are going to be watching very closely and they're going to be focused on addressing the more egregious balance issues, so while it may be a little rough in the interim, it's also interesting and new, and eventually the rough edges will be smoothed out. What we will be left with once the dust settles is a fun feature which dramatically increases the potential for build variety in everything but the hardest of hardcore PvE.

I consider myself a hardcore PvE player, I have 7 trial trifectas and have held server record scores for 2 trials, I am only missing Dream Master (which we are very close to, our group has 3 clears with 35 vitality and 2 clears with 36 with execute deaths) and Swashbuckler Supreme (the new patch isn't live on console so I'm not going to count Ossien Cage). I'm not saying this to brag but rather to show that I'm very informed about the requirements of playing at the highest level and understand the game's combat very well - and I'll tell you one of the reasons of the complaints from hardcore PvE players is because Subclassing has removed options from them, not added options. Now, what is seen as "meta" does depend on the trial, but for a DPS perspective, lets take what I would say is a very close to optimized trial group from the last couple of patches (at least for me as a console main, also this doesn't include Lucent Citadel because Arcanist is just the best there):

Zen/Alkosh Dragonknight
Elemental Catalyst Necromancer
Martial Knowledge Sorcerer
MAYBE 1-2 Templar DPS
3-5 Arcanist DPS

This is not particularly diverse, but it's still much more diverse than what we now have on PC live. On live, thanks to Subclassing, a close to optimized group is now 7 beam players and 1 Zen player.

If you didn't want to play Arcanist (which, in endgame, is considered by a lot of people to be boring and not fun or engaging to play) you could at least have the option to play one of the support DPS. Now for those groups you're just gimping yourself and making things harder for the group by not beaming.

I'd also be caution the people who think that ZOS will be keeping a close watch on this. They were going to "keep an eye" on Grave Lord's Sacrifice and then they proceeded to ignore that skill for over a year. They also didn't achieve balance before Subclassing was a thing when balance was easier to balance, now it's harder because there's a zillion more combinations. The only thing I see happening is that ZOS are going to nerf the skills and passives that became OP with Subclassing, instead of making the skills and passives that are Subclassed weaker, so the people who don't want to Subclass or prefer the class identity oriented playstyle will just have their builds ruined for no reason.

Elowen_Starveil · June 7

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

Rkindaleft wrote: »

If you didn't want to play Arcanist (which, in endgame, is considered by a lot of people to be boring and not fun or engaging to play) you could at least have the option to play one of the support DPS. Now for those groups you're just gimping yourself and making things harder for the group by not beaming.

This cracks me up. If a full-sweat two-bar build takes about 200 APM, the arcanist takes about 170. Yeah, "boring." <eyeroll> What's the difference? Combat in this game is a Crypt of the Necrodancer-like rhythm mini game. The particular skills hardly make a difference. You just keep hitting buttons in time with the GCD. Hour after hour after hour. I've just quit a couple hours of grinding morphs on subclass skill lines, and I'm sick of it.

Dino-Jr · June 7

There are way to many stupid flappy winged sorc summons in every town.

Wish they changed that model to something less annoying.

silky_soft · June 7

Hating U46 (Knew / thought it was going to be bad and its exactly what I knew / thought was going to happen)

This is the worst state this game has ever been in. I have never left so many battlegrounds because they are so terribly negative one sided. It's definitely not random how the teams are formed. There is no motivation to continue to play any pvp

There needs to be a mercy area where 4/8 players stand and the match ends. With whatever optimisations that have been done, it's so ping dependent now that playing as 250+ is just pointless against low ping. They'll machine gun skill you down before you first animation is done. Especially when we are just constantly smashed with akamai.

Just solo pve and housing. That's it. That's the game now. It might as well be allowed to play offline and sync every now and then.

My wife took one look at the new patch and hasn't bothered to play since. Even after buying the 'pass'.

Weesacs · June 7

silky_soft wrote: »

This is the worst state this game has ever been in. I have never left so many battlegrounds because they are so terribly negative one sided.

BGs are like that just now, surely they can't be any worst lol

I'm on console so haven't experienced the new update yet but I was curious as to how BGs would pan out.

Zeraw86 · June 7

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

I think it's very cheap for €50 compared to the previous model. Solstice is also very empty in terms of players and seems unfinished and not particularly impressive.

BlackAxiom · June 7

Loving U46 (Knew / thought it was going to be amazing and its a home run from ZOS)

Zeraw86 wrote: »

Ich finde es ist sehr wenig für 50€ im Vergleich zum vorherigen Modell,
auch Sonnenwende ist sehr leer was Spieler angeht und wirkt unfertig und nicht wirklich beeindruckend.

Think it's because the zone story is pretty short, No new system to grind on the new zone. So there's no real reason to be on that zone if you already completed it... Most people probably stuck in Skyreach leveling their subclassing

ThelerisTelvanni · June 7

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

Well if we talk about the amount of new content I hate it.

However on the other hand you can see that the devs are trying to do something about some pain points and that I like. You can see that they are trying to andvance some things like this time the dialoge system. But over all it is to little they do.

At the end of the day if this little new content is the new usual I might come in for a few days, maybe a week or so every few months. It's not worth spending more time on it.

Muizer · June 7

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

Subclassing doesn't make me want to replay content that I have already done or try content I haven't. That's the bottleneck for me with ESO right now.

NeoniKa · June 7

Changed my mind from postive to negative about U46 (thought it was going to be amazing, but its a mess)

I absolutely hate the new UI and the horrendous green puzzle icon infesting the inventory of all my alt characters.

This U46 was a massive downgrade that forced most of us to use a bunch of new addons to solve lots and lots of issues that didn't exist before U46, and we it didn't fix all. I would pay to remove everything introduced by U46.

Aylish · June 7

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

I like the furniture vault and some skill changes.
I dislike almost everything else.

Solstice is too small and has too little features (example: missing world events) for the price of 50€ and the other half doesn‘t look any larger than the western island.

Additionally, I don‘t like subclassing at all. I didn‘t like the idea before the release and I don‘t like it now that I tried it.

Grizzbeorn · June 7

Honestly, we're feeling kinda fat.
Probably that pound of pasta I had for dinner last night. That's what I get for eating while playing...

oldbobdude · June 7

Forgot one option. “Don’t care one way or other”

tiriusavarao · June 8

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

I'm mostly here for the story and the exploration. While others have stated they feel the zone is rather empty, I really like it. Just wish there was a bit more of it in terms of size. There's certainly a lot of re-used assets, but I've discovered I find the Summerset/Murkmire architectural mish-mash quite enjoyable. The two NPC villages feel unique and alive, and I like the landscaping and the new furniture items. Sunport itself is OK, but the locations of high-traffic areas such as the crafting and trading halls and the bank are not pleasant compared to the wayshrine. I do like that the building interiors feel much more cramped and windy than in Summerset, it sets the place apart.

Side quests have been OK, some are a bit generic, but some surprised me in my enjoyment of them, such as the one in Shor's Strand or the one in Corelanya Manor (I particularly appreciated the NPCs asking my character about their history and being given several options on how to respond, even if it happened only once). The new single quest NPCs feel more alive than in the previous releases. Main quest is a bit on the short side, but the team-ups with the old gang have been enjoyable, and the story flows well enough. I'm also liking the "emotive response" options in the dialogue and that we are given some options on chosing our path to the goal (diplomatic/violent response, etc.) I've yet to try Ossein Cage.

The whole subclassing thing to someone like me is... an optional extra. I'll toy around with it, but I doubt it will impact my play style. As such I cannot get excited over it. The UI revamp likewise has me neither hot nor cold, but it's good enough that I can just continue onward without issues.

My issues with the release are mostly that I'd like more things to do. There are not enough repeatable quests nor rewards to keep questing for. Perhaps ZOS should consider more types of dailies for these releases, like the crow quests in Clockwork, and certainly more of them (Southern Elsweyr got this right). If West Solstice has to keep us busy for months, I can't see how it can sustain that. There are also some "repeat offenders" in this release, such as the dialogue options having our characters ask about things they really ought to know already (why not an A/B choice for "Remind me..." vs. "Yes, I know...") and the gated releases of collectibles like motifs being held back (trials are fun, but I want my rewards to be there on release).

moderatelyfatman · June 8

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

I was really hoping that with everyone getting a big buff to damage that more classes would get into endgame runs. Unfortunately the opposite is likely to be true for the reasons below.

@Rkindaleft
I'm really glad you picked up that with subclassing it's easier to hit the crit cap and get enough pen only on an arcanist due to Herald of the Tome buffs. Add to that the arcanist class script is the only one that can generate crux and Banner is the meta scribing skill.
So together, you have a situation where the supports no longer need Alkosh or EC if all the dps are on arcanists.

So we now a situation where arcanist beamer is both the meta for dps and support classes and where anything else will require extra work (probably not happening with endgame or prog groups). Soon there will be a generation of endgame supports who won't even know about Alkosh and EC and it will become impossible to do this portion of the game without an arcanist.

PS: Do we need a Zen player or a Zen Arcanist for the 8th position?

Rohamad_Ali · June 8

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

I'll tell you how I feel after I get done going around the Dolmens another 2k times leveling.

moderatelyfatman · June 8

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I'll tell you how I feel after I get done going around the Dolmens another 2k times leveling.

The levelling is account bound so you can slot the skills on all your toons and do your daily writs and random dungeons. Six toons was enough for me for one skill line without training gear.

moderatelyfatman · June 8

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

Dino-Jr wrote: »

There are way to many stupid flappy winged sorc summons in every town.

Wish they changed that model to something less annoying.

Sorry about that. I'll get my Bear to stand in front of my flappy bird so you won't have to look at her.

dark_hunterxmg · June 8

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

I like that u46 allowed werewolves to have a little more variety by being able to use different passives. They did get a little boost from that.

However, every human player received and even bigger boost through subclassing by being able to receive all of the bonuses from a line and additionally having Monomyth Reforged available to make the perfect turtle/burst setup with very little drawback. It's really easy to tell who is wearing this item and who isn't when I fight them.

On top of this, heavy attacks still don't work correctly. They stop randomly and miss targets that should get hit. It is taking entirely too long to fix this basic combat mechanic.

Eyr0n · June 9

Changed my mind from negative to positive about U46 (thought it was going to be a hot mess but its acutally pretty nice)

Was afraid that in a couple of days everyone would be running the same meta cheese setup, but I'm actually having a blast theorycrafting a ton of new builds for pvp.
That update opened the gate to a lot of new specs and fun effective builds

BretonMage · June 9

Hating U46 (Knew / thought it was going to be bad and its exactly what I knew / thought was going to happen)

I feel like I'm in a shop where everything unique is just unrealistically and wildly too expensive, and the only 2 t-shirts I hate, Herald and Assassination, are the ones I can realistically afford.

Statusdead · June 9

Hating U46 (Knew / thought it was going to be bad and its exactly what I knew / thought was going to happen)

BretonMage wrote: »

I feel like I'm in a shop where everything unique is just unrealistically and wildly too expensive, and the only 2 t-shirts I hate, Herald and Assassination, are the ones I can realistically afford.

100%

sarahthes · June 9

Rkindaleft wrote: »

disky wrote: »

I enjoy what I've seen. I was looking forward to subclassing and I'm not disappointed so far. As for the arguments which state that this will just create a series of primary meta builds which are expected for endgame PvE...I don't see how this is any different from the way things were before subclassing went live. There always were a set of builds which dominated the scene. This just shakes things up a bit. During this period, the devs are going to be watching very closely and they're going to be focused on addressing the more egregious balance issues, so while it may be a little rough in the interim, it's also interesting and new, and eventually the rough edges will be smoothed out. What we will be left with once the dust settles is a fun feature which dramatically increases the potential for build variety in everything but the hardest of hardcore PvE.

I consider myself a hardcore PvE player, I have 7 trial trifectas and have held server record scores for 2 trials, I am only missing Dream Master (which we are very close to, our group has 3 clears with 35 vitality and 2 clears with 36 with execute deaths) and Swashbuckler Supreme (the new patch isn't live on console so I'm not going to count Ossien Cage). I'm not saying this to brag but rather to show that I'm very informed about the requirements of playing at the highest level and understand the game's combat very well - and I'll tell you one of the reasons of the complaints from hardcore PvE players is because Subclassing has removed options from them, not added options. Now, what is seen as "meta" does depend on the trial, but for a DPS perspective, lets take what I would say is a very close to optimized trial group from the last couple of patches (at least for me as a console main, also this doesn't include Lucent Citadel because Arcanist is just the best there):

Zen/Alkosh Dragonknight
Elemental Catalyst Necromancer
Martial Knowledge Sorcerer
MAYBE 1-2 Templar DPS
3-5 Arcanist DPS

This is not particularly diverse, but it's still much more diverse than what we now have on PC live. On live, thanks to Subclassing, a close to optimized group is now 7 beam players and 1 Zen player.

If you didn't want to play Arcanist (which, in endgame, is considered by a lot of people to be boring and not fun or engaging to play) you could at least have the option to play one of the support DPS. Now for those groups you're just gimping yourself and making things harder for the group by not beaming.

I'd also be caution the people who think that ZOS will be keeping a close watch on this. They were going to "keep an eye" on Grave Lord's Sacrifice and then they proceeded to ignore that skill for over a year. They also didn't achieve balance before Subclassing was a thing when balance was easier to balance, now it's harder because there's a zillion more combinations. The only thing I see happening is that ZOS are going to nerf the skills and passives that became OP with Subclassing, instead of making the skills and passives that are Subclassed weaker, so the people who don't want to Subclass or prefer the class identity oriented playstyle will just have their builds ruined for no reason.

We've been playing around with optimizing a little and adding in more support sets in some pugs and the issue we are running into now is that nobody wants to play them.

Fight times with them are faster than without them for some content at least. We pugged a 2:27 Taleria HM last night with almost no optimization and with 8 dds and 2 healers, rather than 9 dds/solo heal. We had a zenkosh dd, a wm/colo dd, and a mk/atro DD who forgot to bring atro.

Cooperharley · June 9

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

Hasn't launched on console yet, but I imagine that i'll enjoy subclassing and the new zone even though it'll likely not take too long to get all the achievements and things

The downside of subclassing is that it'll be extremely homogenized in any sort of difficult content, but outside of that it should be fun to mess around with. The second you start talking about getting trifectas in dungeons, there's going to be a singular setup and that sucks for sure, but it is what it is. Most things ZOS have tried to implement to give the players "options" has resulted in extreme homogenization.

Dunno about overall sentiment, but it's not looking great across all platforms (eg, in-game, reddit, forums). The game for me has gone from being this multiplayer/huge MMO feel to a solo game for me & not necessarily because I want it to be that way. Most of my friends have left throughout the years minus a few due to a lack of veteran player retention mechanics by ZOS and the remaining ones are all on PC, so something like crossplay will be huge for me personally. The game is definitely not nearly as active as it used to be, so I hope they change some things up in the near future.

Major_Mangle · June 9

Hating U46 (Knew / thought it was going to be bad and its exactly what I knew / thought was going to happen)

Probably never been so demotivated to play ESO as right now. You essentially do the same thing you did last patch but with new skills on your bar (subclassing). The new zone is a downgraded Summerset, the story is poorly written as always and the new trial follows the same dull formula they´ve been doing since Elsweyr. It´s reskin after reskin after reskin every new update. They ignore 80% of the PTS feedback people give and at this point I don´t even understand why they do it if they´re not gonna adress any of the problems people bring up, especially from combat balance PoV. Majority of the friends I used to play with or planned to play with has jumped ship as well which doesn´t help the motivation to play exactly.

Prism_ADC · June 9

Changed my mind from postive to negative about U46 (thought it was going to be amazing, but its a mess)

I was decently excited before it launched. But as a newer player, I lack the skill points to really dabble in much, and levelling the skill lines seems slow.

FeedbackOnly · June 9

Loving U46 (Knew / thought it was going to be amazing and its a home run from ZOS)

Arcanist is going to need some damage nerfs no ....so many green everywhere.

It's fun though, I feel less locked into what class I have to play for trials.

Adaarye · June 9

Changed my mind from postive to negative about U46 (thought it was going to be amazing, but its a mess)

I love subclassing but the lack of content is horrible.

The main story quest is not up to par compared to most past zone stories or ES lore in general.

Cooperharley · June 9

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

Adaarye wrote: »

I love subclassing but the lack of content is horrible.

The main story quest is not up to par compared to most past zone stories or ES lore in general.

I personally feel the quality of the writing, especially from player dialogue choices, has heavily degraded year after year unfortunately.

ADarklore · June 10

Inconclusive (Severe mixed feelings about the state of the game. Some love / some hate)

What's shocking to me, is the more I try different builds and explore the world with subclassing... the less I'm enjoying it. In fact, I've gone back to a pure Templar build. Since they added some buffs to Templars in the last patch, it feels even more like a 'complete kit' using all three Templar lines now.

I will still enjoy being able to swap out a class line to get Nightblade Shadow line for when I want to do Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild quests... but other than that, I'm not seeing a reason to switch out of full Templar.