Thank you for this post! This really is some incredible communication.

A few things related to the feedback in this post;

Dragonknight Animation Visual Overload

• The new animations themselves are great. Most of them look good, feel good to weave/cancel, and fit thematically. However, pretty much everyone I have spoken to agrees that there is a little too much "visual overload" in the sense that there are so many particles and effects attached to the animations, that it is difficult to tell what is actually happening in combat (especially PVP combat!). A big part of ESO's combat is being able to identify what your opponent is doing in order to counterplay it, and these animations are so flashy that you often cannot tell when someone enters a corrosive, uses a fossilize, what skills they're casting in general, etc. I think doing a pass to try and dial back the particles associated with the animations would be VERY beneficial for reducing the visual clutter before it goes live. Also, the audio queues are super loud and bass-heavy compared to the base game animations, it is quite noisy when there is more than one DK around

Dragonknight Power Level

• I think the team did an absolutely amazing job with this rework. The class feels powerful, the toolkit feels fluid and intuitive, and most of all - It incentivizes you to play pure class very well. This is EXACTLY what the goal should be for every class - making them all "OP" in their own ways, so they feel good to play and so that subclassing is no longer "meta" in the majority of situations.
• From the PVP perspective, it does worry me that you're suggesting the class is not strong enough yet, and needs even MORE power. Perhaps that might be true when the other classes get their reworks, if the DK happens to fall behind at that point in time. As it stands now, the DK on the PTS is undoubtedly the king of PVP. This isn't a bad thing - as I keep mentioning, the reworked classes pretty much should all be stronger than the pre-rework classes, in order to achieve the aforementioned goals. But perhaps be careful when considering further buffs to the class, as we wouldn't want them to later necessitate nerfs that might harm the long term goals for the reworks overall.
• It is going to be a tough year though, because the reworked classes will inevitably stronger than the base game classes, which is going to lead to an enormous amount of frustration from people who do not play the reworked classes. I think overall it is just important to keep the end goal in mind - making the classes strong, and making pureclassing better than subclassing for most scenarios.

The Healing Changes

• This has obviously been a touchy subject for the community. I think the reality is that HOTS (and shields) need to be reigned in, but the solution on offer is not great. Personally, I still think going ahead with the proposed idea of upping the limit to 5 hots before the healing reduction is worth at least trying for a patch. There are plenty of issues with it that many have pointed out, but if our options for the next update are trying this solution out or dealing with another 4-5 months without any adjustment to these mechanics - I'd lean towards trying it out every time.
• I do sincerely hope the team stays focused on this topic over the course of the year. Not just how out of hand stacking HOTS has gotten, but stacking mechanics in general. HOTS, Shields, buff sets, max HP, etc are all things that should be considered for adjustment.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Malyore wrote: »

With that being said, I hope there are considerations for the many threads and feedback that have been asking to have a toggle option to lessen the visual effects of either all players, or just other players, abilities.

Yes! We do have this feedback and request into the dev team, and they are investigating options. As that is more of an evergreen request that would benefit players throughout every part of the game and not specific to Update 49, we didn't list it here. But it is in the dev team's hands.

Wonderful, thank you so much!

So excited to see that the housing player caps will be increased

Also .. let me just say..

150 slots in the inn rooms IS AMAZING!!

We can make small cozy cluttered builds now! Like a magical wizard study! I'm super excited to experiment with this!

Thank you to the team!

I might be a minority here, but I am not a huge fan of Molten Weapons overriding your weapon appearance with an entirely new model. I feel like it goes against the visual customization/freedom you're going for with the transmog system. I think it would be better suited by some visual effect more akin to something like Tome Bearer's Inspiration than a total model swap.

Just want to say that the attempt at better communication this PTS cycle shows. These summaries are a fantastic idea!

I pretty much agree with everything React said above. Specifically:

1) HoTs and Shields need to be reigned in, and I think taking a nerf for the next live update that misses the mark is still a better option to see how the meta adjusts with a big change like this. After all, vast sweeping changes to Cyrodiil balance can't really be tested in PTS. That being said, this change to healing cannot be the final version of the change, as it harms solo and small scale players too much and is not focused enough on the actual problem of reigning in the outrageous amounts of stacking power you can achieve.

2) The DK balance changes are good, and DK will be very powerful in PvP. Some abilities certainly need work (see Decimus' comment above), but be cautious with buffing the already powerful abilities hear. Like others, I do worry that some of the later classes on the docket will feel woefully outclassed in a couple patches' time, but I think it's a necessary evil as the team really did a good job in their stated goal with the first class overhaul.

3) Visually, I like all of the changes (especially after the tweak to DK's armor skill). The difference in visual fidelity between the Arcanist and the rest of the classes was glaringly obvious, so being able to not only increase fidelity of old classes but also reinforce their thematic elements is awesome.

This is a very welcome change in communication!

Echoing some of the other comments about tuning up some of the damage, please be careful with some of the skills that are already in a good place, like dragonfire for example. I'd hate for it to be tuned up only for it to be nerfed to the ground later.

In particular, I think ardent flame and earthen heart need some passives love. As it is, channel builds fare much better if they take draconic power along with aedric and assassination. Some up-tuning of passives or the overall interaction between skill lines for ardent and earthen would give pure DK a fighting chance. It would also help non channeling DK builds, whether pure or subclasses, to compete

I'm concerned about "General Dragonknight Class Power". You know that isn't just DK, right? All pure-classes are underperforming, compared to multi-classed characters (from PvE DD standpoint) on the dummy, and it's getting worse in content, since Herald+Assassination are so OP - two crit damage lines + pen line is extremely useful in content.
Pure DK don't have nor crit damage, nor pen - you're dependent on your group bringing Kosh/EC. Unless pure DK would parse higher than Herald+Assassination, there's not much reason to bring pure DK in the group - why would you take someone who needs more support sets from the group to reach lower damage? This isn't practical.
Let's imagine: you buff pure DK to be comparable to Herald/Assassination damage-wise (to runeblades setup, since it's already comparable to beam setup) - it has higher cleave than runeblades build, so lower ST DPS is fine. In this case, you may bring more support sets to get more cleave from a full pure DK comp. In this case, you still have other pure classes being worse.
The easiest option would be to start moving, just moving, skills and passives from Herald/Assassination to other skill lines, to make them less potent, without nerfing pure classes. That's better than waiting for these classes' refresh.

Jess, I am often critical on here and always ready to call things out when I'm not happy with them... but in this case, I just wanted to say that this kind of communication about what's happening on PTS is really exciting to see!

I realize that it's more work for the team, but I think it's a great step toward restoring players' confidence in the PTS process and I hope you guys can continue to find ways like this to make PTS feel like more of an interactive process between the devs and the community.

AltmerGF wrote: »

I might be a minority here, but I am not a huge fan of Molten Weapons overriding your weapon appearance with an entirely new model. I feel like it goes against the visual customization/freedom you're going for with the transmog system. I think it would be better suited by some visual effect more akin to something like Tome Bearer's Inspiration than a total model swap.

I don't like the molten weapons either. They look great as a crown store pack but not as a skill that everyone's going to be spamming.

No mention of 2H has me worried... Really hope the current PTS animations are not final.

Great communication and adaptiveness so far this PTS cycle, thank you @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

When speaking to the DK power levels, I think you guys need to address a few major pain points that will inevitably bring up the total pure class DPS.

Also, thank you for a recap about our feedback. This is the type of transparency and communication we were looking for. Thank you! Can't say it enough because it's nice to finally see tangible results for your new ideology. Actions speak louder than words.

1. Passives. Over 50% of your playerbase, if not 70%+ engages as a damage dealer, even supports need to deal damage at some point to get to max level. You're on the right track by making every skill line perform well for every role, but Earthen Heart and Draconic Power should reflect this. Right now, Ardent is clearly The winner. The general principle should be 2 passives for damage dealing, 2 for utility/support/sustain, per line. 7% dot and 10% damage done is not enough to carry 2 lines, they will be subclassed out easily for anyone that's not a die hard DK fan. There's many opportunities with the currently boring passives that give 3 ultimate, 8% healing, 10% block, and 3k armor. These lack creativity and value.
   • Consider moving Flame Lash's 300 weapon/spell damage out, and into Earthen or Draconic. Right now, you're enabling a situation where players pick a stronger, low effort spammable like Dragonbreath or Beam, then back bar Flame Lash. It gets worse when you realize Flame Lash punishes you for casting it, why would I want to fire it off for +100% damage if I also lose -300 w/s damage. It's counter intuitive and needs to move to something else.
2. You've made a point of saying DK breaks the dot homogenization by lowering from 20~24s dots to 5~10s, which we were all excited for, but then you didn't properly reward the added effort, complexity, or sustain issues that change in rotation causes. Let's not forget, DK lost the +20% dot duration and +25% dot damage passive, you can't simply cut the duration in half than increase the damage by half, these abilities need more OOMPH, including Shifting Standard to make up for what they lost.
   • Like the previous point, low cooldown abilities barely warrant their bar slot in comparison to Flame Lash with even only 1 stack. If an ability takes 5-10s to see it's full potential, but still only does 0~30% more than 1 stack of whip, it's not worth the slot. Dragonbreath, Talons, and Heart Core need massive changes. Venomous Claw is the only ability worth its weight, but the tooltip before the stacking damage is still way too weak, making the heal morph massively inferior.
   • Think about "per cast" damage values, not just how much damage something does per second over a parse. For example, FOO and Igneous Weapons have insanely high value over their longer durations totalling 8~12k, in comparison, Flame Lash is between 2.4~4.8k. as a spammable, this makes complete sense. As long as you know a fight will continue for the 15~60s, refresh FOO or Igneous over Flame Lash.
   • Now do the same comparison for Deep Breath (2.2k), Dragonbreath (3k), and Talons (3.4k). As you can see, Deep Breath is never worth casting, Dragonbreath is only worth it if you have 0 stacks, and Talons is only worth it if you have 1 stack. This doesn't make any sense, pure class DK rotations are wasting time and effort trying to make these bad skills work, and it's why their total DPS is subpar.
3. Hybridize and give some oomph to helping hands. Make it worth casting a heavy attack for off balance no matter the weapon, but don't force all players into a heavy attack rotation.
   • Example: "Fully Charged heavy attacks apply off balance and x flame damage if the target is not already off balance. (Effectively a 22s cooldown per target). Additionally, all fully charged heavy attacks return 1k stamina and 1k magicka (or go with 1.5k to whichever is higher)."
4. Why did we remove Eruption? If it was to emphasize that DK DPS is a mobile brute, I'm all for it, but why? The tank and healing morphs can be combined.
   • Example: "Heals based on highest resource or max health, whichever is higher. While in the aoe, increase the effect by 50%. Enemies are slowed by -40%, allies get x buff in the ring and for 4s after they leave."
   • Move but reduce the movement penalty, 70% in an 8m radius is toxic for PvP. Remove major protection, it heals the tank for 50% more now. Reduce the buff lingering duration to make positioning a little more important, but still forgiving. Now Eruption could make a comeback.
5. Avalanche is a very cool passive, but it's a little TOO passive funny enough. If we want to promote pure classing and class identity, why not give other abilities the functionality to add Avalanche stacks from Ardent Flame and Draconic Power? It feels too slow, a bit unforgiving, and too passive.
   • Example: "Stack cap 24, each stack = +0.5% damage, +1 stack every 4s, -1 stack every 4s. Dragonbreath, Talon, Claw, and FOO now give +1 stack on expiration, in addition to Spike Armor and Magma Fist."
   • 2 abilities per line for tons of options. 12% cap for a bit more juice. Longer window to lose them, and when you lose them, they're not as potent so it's less detrimental. Someone only picking up Earthen could passively get 12% damage over about 40-60s, but a pure class could lower that to 30s easily with all the skill options.
6. As a stamina main, I'm somewhat dissapointed that Poison has been removed, but I can understand and support the decision if stamina is still viable with a better return to a different class in the future. However, this is not the case. Spammables and Executes across all classes need to be based on highest resource if the morphs don't already support 2 options, why this tech is locked to Arcanist's right now is beyond my comprehension.
   • Molten Whip and Engulfing Dragonfire are locked out from stamina players. Make both scale based on highest resource, or even consider doubling down on the split cost dynamic you have for Flame Lash.
   • Magma Fist and Helping Hands passive are locked out from magicka players. Why? Is this suppose to be thematically interesting?
   • To all of these examples, I'd say they hurt identity and force people away from playing as they want. What is the purpose of a stamina DK anymore? Show them some love.

Revert flame lash and power lash to original and just make it AOE Damage when goes to power lash (just with the pts improve no big change)

make it work with off balance if the targets immobilize and stunned like used to be .. no one fan with heavy attack or any wave attack to proc this so change the passive to something useful please.

otherwise the most pick skill will be molten whip there is no compering.


i hope this will be delivered


@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Malyore wrote: »

With that being said, I hope there are considerations for the many threads and feedback that have been asking to have a toggle option to lessen the visual effects of either all players, or just other players, abilities.

Yes! We do have this feedback and request into the dev team, and they are investigating options. As that is more of an evergreen request that would benefit players throughout every part of the game and not specific to Update 49, we didn't list it here. But it is in the dev team's hands.

This sounds hopeful. Thank you Jessica!