Update 49 PTS – Week 2 Summary

MXVIIDREAM · January 24

Major_Mangle wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Any plans to address that people can still queue out of IC even when carrying more than 100 telvar? On PTS it's still possible to use the dungeon or battleground queue to bypass the queue limitations.

The niche with that is that if they leave the battleground or dungeon they get a penalty anyway I don’t think that should be changed a lot of us go into ic while we wait for ques so I don’t think this change or addressing this in the way you think is a good idea especially if already queued for those things

Major_Mangle · January 24

MXVIIDREAM wrote: »

Major_Mangle wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Any plans to address that people can still queue out of IC even when carrying more than 100 telvar? On PTS it's still possible to use the dungeon or battleground queue to bypass the queue limitations.

The niche with that is that if they leave the battleground or dungeon they get a penalty anyway I don’t think that should be changed a lot of us go into ic while we wait for ques so I don’t think this change or addressing this in the way you think is a good idea especially if already queued for those things

The people who abuse this to safely farm telvar do not give a damn about such penalty I can guarantee you that. This exploit undermines the entire design of IC and telvar and needs to be fixed once and for all, so if people find loopholes with another queue it should be fixed before live.

imPDA · January 24

Major_Mangle wrote: »

The people who abuse this to safely farm telvar do not give a damn about such penalty I can guarantee you that. This exploit undermines the entire design of IC and telvar and needs to be fixed once and for all, so if people find loopholes with another queue it should be fixed before live.

BG and Dungeon queues will not allow to escape IC as efficient as it is now with Cyrodiil queue, they are simply long. It can be abused reliably only in one scenario - if you queue dungeon with 4 people in a group, because it pops immediately, then you can kick members and avoid penalty.

I personally would prefer this to stay as it is now, because you can wait for BG or Dungeon playing IC.

In ZOs shoes I would monitor how much people will leave BG or dungeon after teleporting out of IC. If they have proper logging, it will be easy enough, and if it still be used frequently, restrict this queue too, but from my pov, restricting dungeon and bg queues is too much for now.

MXVIIDREAM · January 24

My genuine thoughts and a lot of what I’ve been seeing

Molten whip

needs to be reverted back to how it was weapon damage and spell damage 100 per stack 3 stacks include 3% damage done per stack to monsters keeps roughly the same damage done as before but I genuinely believe the stacking with breath should remain to at least give players the option to use this with breath or else I think people are going to subclass it and use arcanist anyway

avalance

Great great idea, sadly a little ineffective in combat bosses immune phases and just combat in general make this a little redundant I propose 2/3seconds to build stacks 4 seconds of no damage to lose them
Much better uptime for 90% of combat this alone could fix a lot of the underwhelming dk performance in most pve scenarios

blessings of the peak

Adding crit damage to this is a brilliant idea however for the sake of all roles I believe it should be crit damage and crit healing this benefits both support dps and tanks

I wouldn’t mind also seeing 300/600crit resistance rank 1 and 2 added into blessings of the peak, with PvP the way it is and how impen got the treatment it did a while ago I would like to see every class also now have crit resistance worked into them over the refreshes and I think this is the correct skill line to work it into
I think it would go a great way to slowing down some of this insane burst we have reached in PvP
I picked the numbers out of my own experience it’s roughly equal to the champion point tree cp aswel as 600 Crit Resistance ≈ ~9% reduction in incoming crit bonus damage so it seems a fair number to me

Including these changes I’m ecstatic if dk went live exactly as is including the additional pts Notes above

Appreciate you reading

Edit: not sure why the avalanche part went bold as a whole thing sorry about that looking at the code and it’s just avalanche in bold or I’d change it sorry again

Lord_Hev · January 24

Please do not listen to the feedback from players who have never even been inside a normal group dungeon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POze2zNgqPQ

As it stands now, tanks are not even needed for the wandering bosses. On live the content will be completely trivialized, no grouping will be encouraged, and it will suffer the same problems as baseline overland. The encounters, especially bosses need to be buffed so that a proper tank is HEAVILY encouraged to progress. The mob packs should also have their statistics buffed closer to trial-tier mobs to compensate for the volume of players that will flood through and trivialize the engagement.

MashmalloMan · January 25

The VFX slider is a really good idea, but if you can't specify what effects are reduced at an individual level, please continue to rethink how transparent visuals for skills like Lightning Form and Elude behave. These are very disorienting.

I've been really happy to see you acknowledge this by removing it from Dragon Blood for DK and Bubble for Templar. I'm praying Sorcerer is so lucky at the end of the year. Even if you like the effect, I feel like it could be done so much better than simply making us transparent and invalidating all of our hard work to customize the appearance of our characters. The worst part is loosing track of what abilities are actually being cast, forcing us to use add-ons for GCD and cast tracking. I want as little add-ons impeding my experience as possible, so it really sucks to play that way for the better part of 12+ years due to being a Sorc main.

I'm not sure if there is others like these, but I'd also suggest redoing Blade Cloak at some point as it clashes with many self applied effects forcing one or the other to appear. That skin like shimmer is really unnecessary, the ability would look even cooler by further highlighting the floating daggers part of that ability.

Malyore · January 25

ZOS_Jose wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

New VFX Brightness & Intensity [Feedback]: We have seen feedback related to the overall brightness, size, and intensity of the updated skills VFX. We are working on some sliders so you can better customize your experience and adjust the brightness and intensity of how your abilities and/or other players’ abilities appear on your screen. This will not make it into Update 49, but we did want to let you know we’re working on it and will share more info when we have it.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
This sounds good, but i see you specify new vfx and updated skills, is this only for the skills part of Visual Refresh or also items i mentioned in my thread?
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/681702/accessibility-request-a-list-of-strobing-flashing-effects-occurrences/p1

edited to tag Jessica

Heya Luna, nice to meet you! This is Jose Camacho, Gameplay Engineer, first post actually!

I am responding as I'm currently investigating the in-game slider setting implementation. As it is now, the in-game slider setting reduces the transparency of any VFX sourced from either yourself, remote players, NPCs, with settings for each sourcing category individually. That means you can reduce the visibility of everyone, just other players, just NPCs, or any combination!

As for which VFX this applies to, the slider applies to all VFX we can catch belonging in the sourcing category. For example, if the slider for your own VFX intensity is lower, then all VFX caused by you from your own abilities, mounts, etc will be lowered. We hope to include item sets in that category but more testing is needed as we investigate. The hope is to include the options for environment as well but more investigation work needs to be done.

Really excited to bring this to you as we've seen this request over the years like with your recent post and want to make ESO a more accessible game for all!

I can't tell you how happy I am to see this. All of the various effects and implementation for their control sounds like it's definitely on the mark for what many of us have been wanting. Thank you!! The ESO team has been really superb this year.

With that being said, are there any plans to allow the VFX on things like mounts and armor sets (namely the sets with permanent VFX) to have their transparency adjusted to the point that they are invisible? @ZOS_Jose

evLRise · January 25

SirIronclad wrote: »

Not a single mention of 2H animations has me very worried. If their current PTS version hits live as is, a lot of players who have issues with the new style will have been ignored.

Yes, there seems to be a majority that likes the new animations. But at the same time, there's been a lot of feedback pointing out how they lack impact, look too much like you're swinging a light sword/lightsaber, a little bit too flashy and not enough like they would fit in an Elder Scrolls title. The iconic 2H ult sound will also be missed.

They actually look way more in line with actual sword moves from manuscripts. Definitely not close to realistic, but way closer by comparison.

SirIronclad · January 25

evLRise wrote: »

They actually look way more in line with actual sword moves from manuscripts. Definitely not close to realistic, but way closer by comparison.

I get that in reality two-handed swords are way lighter than you'd assume from how they're displayed in the majority of fiction. But I'd still like my 2H animations in ESO to have more oomph than the current PTS versions have.

Since they want to modernize the game, I think it's time they think about diversifying the different weapon types in each skill line more. At the very least, get them closer to destruction staves. That should be the case for animations as well. The new animations look way too much like sword fighting, considering they will be used for maces and axes as well.

At the same time, the devs ought to take new art in a direction that still suits the Elder Scrolls IP. And there's been so much feedback pointing out the new 2H style being at odds with that. I think the issue is that it just doesn't look grounded enough.

Radiate77 · January 25

SirIronclad wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

They actually look way more in line with actual sword moves from manuscripts. Definitely not close to realistic, but way closer by comparison.

I get that in reality two-handed swords are way lighter than you'd assume from how they're displayed in the majority of fiction. But I'd still like my 2H animations in ESO to have more oomph than the current PTS versions have.

Since they want to modernize the game, I think it's time they think about diversifying the different weapon types in each skill line more. At the very least, get them closer to destruction staves. That should be the case for animations as well. The new animations look way too much like sword fighting, considering they will be used for maces and axes as well.

At the same time, the devs ought to take new art in a direction that still suits the Elder Scrolls IP. And there's been so much feedback pointing out the new 2H style being at odds with that. I think the issue is that it just doesn't look grounded enough.

We are getting an animation toggle from @ZOS_Jose and his team that will tone down effects, with a setting including multiple options.

For those who don’t like the 2H animations, or DK ones, toning down the flashiness of the skills will leave the abilities looking more grounded and realistic. Very excited to see how it plays out.

ChaoticWings3 · January 25

Radiate77 wrote: »

SirIronclad wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

They actually look way more in line with actual sword moves from manuscripts. Definitely not close to realistic, but way closer by comparison.

I get that in reality two-handed swords are way lighter than you'd assume from how they're displayed in the majority of fiction. But I'd still like my 2H animations in ESO to have more oomph than the current PTS versions have.

Since they want to modernize the game, I think it's time they think about diversifying the different weapon types in each skill line more. At the very least, get them closer to destruction staves. That should be the case for animations as well. The new animations look way too much like sword fighting, considering they will be used for maces and axes as well.

At the same time, the devs ought to take new art in a direction that still suits the Elder Scrolls IP. And there's been so much feedback pointing out the new 2H style being at odds with that. I think the issue is that it just doesn't look grounded enough.

We are getting an animation toggle from @ZOS_Jose and his team that will tone down effects, with a setting including multiple options.

For those who don’t like the 2H animations, or DK ones, toning down the flashiness of the skills will leave the abilities looking more grounded and realistic. Very excited to see how it plays out.

I actually didn't know about that. Would you possibly be able to link that information for reference?

Besides the flashiness of the skills, the only issue with 2H animations for me was probably the change to reverse slash looking less like an execute and more like a regular slash. I think I just prefer the slight jumping animation but that's me.

SirIronclad wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

They actually look way more in line with actual sword moves from manuscripts. Definitely not close to realistic, but way closer by comparison.

Since they want to modernize the game, I think it's time they think about diversifying the different weapon types in each skill line more. At the very least, get them closer to destruction staves. That should be the case for animations as well. The new animations look way too much like sword fighting, considering they will be used for maces and axes as well.

I agree with this idea as well since the animations look really good on greatswords but the other weapons look a little more awkward since axes and maces would have a bit more weight to them in different ways.

Radiate77 · January 25

@ChaoticWings3 Page 1 of this thread.

ZOS_Jose wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

New VFX Brightness & Intensity [Feedback]: We have seen feedback related to the overall brightness, size, and intensity of the updated skills VFX. We are working on some sliders so you can better customize your experience and adjust the brightness and intensity of how your abilities and/or other players’ abilities appear on your screen. This will not make it into Update 49, but we did want to let you know we’re working on it and will share more info when we have it.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom
This sounds good, but i see you specify new vfx and updated skills, is this only for the skills part of Visual Refresh or also items i mentioned in my thread?
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/681702/accessibility-request-a-list-of-strobing-flashing-effects-occurrences/p1

edited to tag Jessica

Heya Luna, nice to meet you! This is Jose Camacho, Gameplay Engineer, first post actually!

I am responding as I'm currently investigating the in-game slider setting implementation. As it is now, the in-game slider setting reduces the transparency of any VFX sourced from either yourself, remote players, NPCs, with settings for each sourcing category individually. That means you can reduce the visibility of everyone, just other players, just NPCs, or any combination!

As for which VFX this applies to, the slider applies to all VFX we can catch belonging in the sourcing category. For example, if the slider for your own VFX intensity is lower, then all VFX caused by you from your own abilities, mounts, etc will be lowered. We hope to include item sets in that category but more testing is needed as we investigate. The hope is to include the options for environment as well but more investigation work needs to be done.

Really excited to bring this to you as we've seen this request over the years like with your recent post and want to make ESO a more accessible game for all!

Fruity_Ninja · January 25

I’m actually blown away at the level of communication @ZOS_JessicaFolsom , this feels like a new ZOS. Well done, posts like this are a big step in the right direction.

Malyore · January 25

Fruity_Ninja wrote: »

I’m actually blown away at the level of communication @ZOS_JessicaFolsom , this feels like a new ZOS. Well done, posts like this are a big step in the right direction.

Yeah, I can't believe how it feels almost like an indie/fan level of developer communication with their audiences (which is a good thing. It's very connected, responsive, and down to earth). Allthewhile, it's being done for a worldwide online videogame. They have really turned themselves around, and honestly are shifting the standards for how large scale companies and games imprinted with the Microsoft brand should be behaving. I hope this new model serves them well and influences others at Microsoft

ZOS_Jose · January 26

Radiate77 wrote: »

SirIronclad wrote: »

evLRise wrote: »

They actually look way more in line with actual sword moves from manuscripts. Definitely not close to realistic, but way closer by comparison.

I get that in reality two-handed swords are way lighter than you'd assume from how they're displayed in the majority of fiction. But I'd still like my 2H animations in ESO to have more oomph than the current PTS versions have.

Since they want to modernize the game, I think it's time they think about diversifying the different weapon types in each skill line more. At the very least, get them closer to destruction staves. That should be the case for animations as well. The new animations look way too much like sword fighting, considering they will be used for maces and axes as well.

At the same time, the devs ought to take new art in a direction that still suits the Elder Scrolls IP. And there's been so much feedback pointing out the new 2H style being at odds with that. I think the issue is that it just doesn't look grounded enough.

We are getting an animation toggle from @ZOS_Jose and his team that will tone down effects, with a setting including multiple options.

For those who don’t like the 2H animations, or DK ones, toning down the flashiness of the skills will leave the abilities looking more grounded and realistic. Very excited to see how it plays out.

Hey yall, just to clarify, we are working on toning down the intensity and transparency of Visual Effects, not animations. The difference being Visual Effects are usually like the Flames or Electricity that are part of player abilities. Animation is the set choreography players will do when they activate an ability like a swipe or punch (as examples). To clarify this investigation won't be touching animations but will looking into reducing the intensity of Visual Effects in order to help players with sensitivities to bright lights, amongst other reasons. We are looking at all possible sources of those visual effects (item sets, abilities, etc) but ultimately we will have to wait and see for what the investigation brings out so we can deliver things in the hopefully best manner. Thanks for the interest everyone and we will keep yall updated!

imPDA · January 26

Fruity_Ninja wrote: »

I’m actually blown away at the level of communication @ZOS_JessicaFolsom , this feels like a new ZOS. Well done, posts like this are a big step in the right direction.

This kind of communication can also kill them, because listening for people on forum does not mean doing better for game, because not everyone registered on the forum, not everyone registered will read all posts and leave reaction, not everyone who left their reaction actually understand what he is reacting about. Like, everyone on the forum can be agree with point A, but it is only let's say, 1k of users or 1-2% of all active users. I saw this even on more active game forums. It can help to highlight the problem, but they should not redo things just because forum said so, it is not bold move. It can't solve the problem - misunderstanding, and consequences of misunderstanding. They need better advisers, who knows the game and playerbase, but they lost multiple content creators already and their attention.

Why new DK spikes turned out to be like that? Because game designers don't know what it has pretty good visual already, and players will not like new ones, so it can stay as is. Consequences of this error? Time spent on making new visual and then REMAKING the visual because forum said so, and it led to "tight bandwidth". Waste of time in other words. And forum is correct, this visual is bad, but feedback does not solve the problem - it solved consequence of problem. Initially bad design was approved by somebody, it could be prevented if they ask some big PvE/lore/roleplay streamer publicly or secretly, because I feel like they have no sense of what players want to see. For every good design decision, they have one really bad, and this inconsistency if frustrating, like they really can't understand what is bad and that is good.

New bright animations - it is also the problem, because designers never took part in raid probably, and now they are looking for "fix", implementing sliders to reduce visual load as far as I know, fixing the consequence, but not initial design.

Same for PvP, but it became complicated as hell over time, and I bet combat designers will never set up BG stream again, because previous shown how far from understanding of actual game they are.

BloodstainedFay · January 26

imPDA wrote: »

This kind of communication can also kill them, because listening for people on forum does not mean doing better for game, because not everyone registered on the forum, not everyone registered will read all posts and leave reaction, not everyone who left their reaction actually understand what he is reacting about. Like, everyone on the forum can be agree with point A, but it is only let's say, 1k of users or 1-2% of all active users. I saw this even on more active game forums. It can help to highlight the problem, but they should not redo things just because forum said so, it is not bold move. It can't solve the problem - misunderstanding, and consequences of misunderstanding. They need better advisers, who knows the game and playerbase, but they lost multiple content creators already and their attention.

Why new DK spikes turned out to be like that? Because game designers don't know what it has pretty good visual already, and players will not like new ones, so it can stay as is. Consequences of this error? Time spent on making new visual and then REMAKING the visual because forum said so, and it led to "tight bandwidth". Waste of time in other words. And forum is correct, this visual is bad, but feedback does not solve the problem - it solved consequence of problem. Initially bad design was approved by somebody, it could be prevented if they ask some big PvE/lore/roleplay streamer publicly or secretly, because I feel like they have no sense of what players want to see. For every good design decision, they have one really bad, and this inconsistency if frustrating, like they really can't understand what is bad and that is good.

New bright animations - it is also the problem, because designers never took part in raid probably, and now they are looking for "fix", implementing sliders to reduce visual load as far as I know, fixing the consequence, but not initial design.

Same for PvP, but it became complicated as hell over time, and I bet combat designers will never set up BG stream again, because previous shown how far from understanding of actual game they are.

Listening to people on the forum hopefully means listening to a lot of different opinions.
I personally think old DK spikes were one of the ugliest abilities in the game and it's 100x better now, especially after the impromptu rework. I'm also a personal big fan of the new 2hander abilities- even though I agree some visual sliders would be great to have for all abilities in general. And taking the time to research how to properly implement those sliders is a good thing, not just a bandaid "fix" to complaints about the new animations- but as an accessibility feature in general.

React · January 26

ZOS_Jose wrote: »

Hey yall, just to clarify, we are working on toning down the intensity and transparency of Visual Effects, not animations. The difference being Visual Effects are usually like the Flames or Electricity that are part of player abilities. Animation is the set choreography players will do when they activate an ability like a swipe or punch (as examples). To clarify this investigation won't be touching animations but will looking into reducing the intensity of Visual Effects in order to help players with sensitivities to bright lights, amongst other reasons. We are looking at all possible sources of those visual effects (item sets, abilities, etc) but ultimately we will have to wait and see for what the investigation brings out so we can deliver things in the hopefully best manner. Thanks for the interest everyone and we will keep yall updated!

This is great to hear. One of the biggest complaints I've been hearing in the PVP community (and one that I share) is that the particles/visual effects are often so bright and flashy with these reworked skills that you cannot tell what is happening at all. Visual clarity is an important part of PVP for many reasons - being able to tell what your opponents are doing is crucial to proper counterplay. Conversely, using animation cancelling to somewhat obfuscate your own animations adds a level of skill expression to combat that is welcomed amongst the endgame community.

Kaltivael · 2:06AM

Didn't they say something they were going to do something about movement speed while Battlespirit was active? Can't find anything on it.

Did they mean a cap % or lowering Expedition to the normal buff %s like vitalty / defile / mending etc?

imPDA · 4:37AM

Kaltivael wrote: »

Didn't they say something they were going to do something about movement speed while Battlespirit was active? Can't find anything on it.

Did they mean a cap % or lowering Expedition to the normal buff %s like vitalty / defile / mending etc?

Movement speed is faster while on a road. I don't remember exact value I tested, but it is noticeable, you move like sprinting, but without sprinting, and spring still works on top of it.

Darrell9090 · 6:57AM

None of these changes have addressed my initial concern for the ranking side of things. I know you guys are focused on the dps side I think the ranking side needs fixed to. When you guys changed standard you removed an important tool for tanks to burn casters and archers. This is especially important when the team has whipped due to mechanics. If 8 casters or archers or both are up resign an ally becomes pointless at that point unless there’s a way to melt the adds as a tank. I can taunt everyone of them odds are one will in aggro moment index a healer or dps. My initial recommendation to fix this to still give tanks a flexible damage ultimate is let the standard of might do damage at the end of the 10s damage timer as burst damage for a few seconds. If the tank has managed to keep any add within the standards radius it does 5 percent or so more damage guaranteeing the flame status effect. This will help dungeon runs especially if your with randoms who die more often. I want to make sure we don’t loose essential tools if my group whites due to mechanics I can’t in anyway handle the adds I will be forced to kill myself in a fight. That can be devastating especially if it took them 10m to get a boss to that lower percentage of hp. I think alterations to standard that way would make sense and it at the end of the the damage buff timer so the tank is not making the ultimate stronger when the damage burst same with a dps.
I’m still going to say removing expedition on pull chains hurts your tanks as well. If we are running bracing anchor we are slower than the group. Chains has always given us a small speed boost to keep up. Especially if we are pulling a big enemy that’s a free speed boost to help group properly. I think the pull version of chains should at least keep its 4 seconds. Those 4 seconds also become crucial in moments a tanks blocked along big hits now a mechanic is happening if we don’t have the stam to run chaining the boss for a speed boost saves us.

keto3000 · 8:48AM

Is there a FAQ for the PTS? Seems like first-time users or returning players have a rough time determining which features and what's possible on it.