An Open Letter to ZoS About Parse Culture, DPS Inflation, and the Erosion of ESO’s Gameplay Identity

Gabriel_H · May 20

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

It has been overwhelmingly my experience that the people who do the best damage also have the fastest reaction times, best raid awareness, and desire to actually do the hardest content.

I did OO with my regular raid team, all of whom do excellent damage, have multiple trial trifectas, and can swap roles freely. We went in completely blind, figured out all the mechanics, and cleared the trial in about 90 minutes, have gone back several times to get everyone their wing achievements and no deaths.

Meanwhile, the social guild I hang out in, have managed to scrap a single clear. ALL of them sincerely believe they make up what they lack in damage with their superior ability to perform mechanics. I have played with them. They are wrong.
This is why I roll my eyes whenever this argument gets brought up. Yes, there are a few parse monkeys that do good damage on a dummy but can't move out of an aoe if you drag them, but there is one of those for every ten "my build shouldn't matter as long as I know the fight" people who also can't move out of an aoe if you drag them

Cool story. I ran it once with some friends, then a second time with a group of absolutely green trial newbies who have barely set foot in a vet trial, let alone done any HMs or trifectas. They completed it in around 90 minutes.

If your social guild can't move out of an AoE, then they aren't good at dealing with mechanics no matter what they think. You see that flaw in your argument, right?!

According to your logic the social guild full of people who pride themselves on their ability to do mechanics and not caring about their dps should have had a much easier time with OO than the guild full of these people who parse and play meta and burn through content so fast they wouldn't know a mechanic if it hit them on their head.

And yet that's not the case. The guild full of people parsing in easy triple digits have been clearing easily and collecting achievements for people. Its almost like.... People who invest the time to learn how to do really high damage also take the time to learn how to do other things.

I made no point of logic. I made an observation based on what you said: "but there is one of those for every ten "my build shouldn't matter as long as I know the fight" people who also can't move out of an aoe if you drag them" - if they aren't moving out of the AoE they don't know the fight.

Umbracat449 · May 20

Pinktraining wrote: »

The current damage inflation is primarily due to HA-builds, more precisely, HA Sorc. The excessive buff to Sorc has led almost everyone to use HA Sorc instead of other classes.
Sorc can deal massive AoE damage with just Lightning Staves and Wall of Elements, and can reliably inflict Major Breach on targets using Elemental Susceptibility—all with just Staves, which is absurd. Not to mention, Sorc also possesses Overload, Shattering Spines, and Daedric Tomb—three powerful AoE damage abilities—as well as Surge and Ward, two of the strongest healing/defense skills in the game.

Shoving so many powerful abilities into one class, while allowing weaker classes like NB and DK to continue struggling at the bottom, erosion of gameplay identity is entirely predictable. But ZOS stubbornly refuses to listen and insists on continuing to buff Sorc, which is truly disappointing.

This is just wrong, and you've been told it's wrong in other threads you've posted it.
Sorc does not do massive aoe damage. It does not have the strongest heal in the game.

Ele sus is not a sorc skill.

noblecron · May 20

I agree with some of your points but I don't think the issue is entirely ZOS's fault. I think it's a case of mmo culture as a whole. Every mmo, players want the highest numbers and push the meta as much as they can for clears and stuff. FF14 does it, gw2 does it, wow does it.

Now granted ZOS could adjust the numbers nerf stuff and such like mmos but time and time again every time they do, this community does an aggressive rage against them and then you end up with scores of folk leaving.

So at the end of the day it's a case of ZOS is dammed if they do, dammed if they don't and on top of that they have to deal with mmo culture.

Reginald_leBlem · May 20

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

It has been overwhelmingly my experience that the people who do the best damage also have the fastest reaction times, best raid awareness, and desire to actually do the hardest content.

I did OO with my regular raid team, all of whom do excellent damage, have multiple trial trifectas, and can swap roles freely. We went in completely blind, figured out all the mechanics, and cleared the trial in about 90 minutes, have gone back several times to get everyone their wing achievements and no deaths.

Meanwhile, the social guild I hang out in, have managed to scrap a single clear. ALL of them sincerely believe they make up what they lack in damage with their superior ability to perform mechanics. I have played with them. They are wrong.
This is why I roll my eyes whenever this argument gets brought up. Yes, there are a few parse monkeys that do good damage on a dummy but can't move out of an aoe if you drag them, but there is one of those for every ten "my build shouldn't matter as long as I know the fight" people who also can't move out of an aoe if you drag them

Cool story. I ran it once with some friends, then a second time with a group of absolutely green trial newbies who have barely set foot in a vet trial, let alone done any HMs or trifectas. They completed it in around 90 minutes.

If your social guild can't move out of an AoE, then they aren't good at dealing with mechanics no matter what they think. You see that flaw in your argument, right?!

According to your logic the social guild full of people who pride themselves on their ability to do mechanics and not caring about their dps should have had a much easier time with OO than the guild full of these people who parse and play meta and burn through content so fast they wouldn't know a mechanic if it hit them on their head.

And yet that's not the case. The guild full of people parsing in easy triple digits have been clearing easily and collecting achievements for people. Its almost like.... People who invest the time to learn how to do really high damage also take the time to learn how to do other things.

I made no point of logic. I made an observation based on what you said: "but there is one of those for every ten "my build shouldn't matter as long as I know the fight" people who also can't move out of an aoe if you drag them" - if they aren't moving out of the AoE they don't know the fight.

That IS my point. That the player who doesn't care about their damage but is amazing at mechanics is so rare it's almost mythical. That the people who think they are really good at mechanics are often wrong.

Reginald_leBlem · May 20

Umbracat449 wrote: »

Pinktraining wrote: »

The current damage inflation is primarily due to HA-builds, more precisely, HA Sorc. The excessive buff to Sorc has led almost everyone to use HA Sorc instead of other classes.
Sorc can deal massive AoE damage with just Lightning Staves and Wall of Elements, and can reliably inflict Major Breach on targets using Elemental Susceptibility—all with just Staves, which is absurd. Not to mention, Sorc also possesses Overload, Shattering Spines, and Daedric Tomb—three powerful AoE damage abilities—as well as Surge and Ward, two of the strongest healing/defense skills in the game.

Shoving so many powerful abilities into one class, while allowing weaker classes like NB and DK to continue struggling at the bottom, erosion of gameplay identity is entirely predictable. But ZOS stubbornly refuses to listen and insists on continuing to buff Sorc, which is truly disappointing.

This is just wrong, and you've been told it's wrong in other threads you've posted it.
Sorc does not do massive aoe damage. It does not have the strongest heal in the game.

Ele sus is not a sorc skill.

Honestly I skipped over it, it was so wrong and had that tone that made me assume AI nonsense

frogthroat · May 20

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

Umbracat449 wrote: »

Pinktraining wrote: »

The current damage inflation is primarily due to HA-builds, more precisely, HA Sorc. The excessive buff to Sorc has led almost everyone to use HA Sorc instead of other classes.
Sorc can deal massive AoE damage with just Lightning Staves and Wall of Elements, and can reliably inflict Major Breach on targets using Elemental Susceptibility—all with just Staves, which is absurd. Not to mention, Sorc also possesses Overload, Shattering Spines, and Daedric Tomb—three powerful AoE damage abilities—as well as Surge and Ward, two of the strongest healing/defense skills in the game.

Shoving so many powerful abilities into one class, while allowing weaker classes like NB and DK to continue struggling at the bottom, erosion of gameplay identity is entirely predictable. But ZOS stubbornly refuses to listen and insists on continuing to buff Sorc, which is truly disappointing.

This is just wrong, and you've been told it's wrong in other threads you've posted it.
Sorc does not do massive aoe damage. It does not have the strongest heal in the game.

Ele sus is not a sorc skill.

Honestly I skipped over it, it was so wrong and had that tone that made me assume AI nonsense

Yeah, especially this one: "Sorc can deal massive AoE damage with just Lightning Staves and Wall of Elements," - that's just oozing of AI slop. Even without the em-dash after the ele sus comment. Probably scraped a lot of popular, easy to access youtubers' very old build guides for this one.

Reginald_leBlem · May 20

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Pinktraining wrote: »

However, in my experience, among the "parse monkeys" who only know how to DPS on training dummies, only about 1 in 10 will perform poorly in actual combat. But among those players who think "my build shouldn't matter as long as I know the fight," about half of them will perform poorly in actual combat, even worse than the "parse monkeys," because lower DPS increases fight time, putting more pressure on tanks and healers, and these players don't even know the purpose of their skills.

Of course there will be poorer players than others, but the notion it will increase pressure on tanks and healers isn't a valid one. As a tank, I can burn through my resources in less than a minute. My ability to tank beyond that minute comes down to my skill of managing resources, recovering them, and mitigating their loss without compromising my survivibility. If I can do that for a minute, I can do it for two minutes, or twenty minutes. Does the probability of me making a mistake increase the longer the fight goes? Absolutely - BUT - to steal a line from my friend up there: I work hard to be good at the game so that doesn't happen.

And there in lies the contradiction. If I'm good at the game then it doesn't matter how long the fight lasts, yet others will claim that you can only be good at the game if the fight is as short as possible.

This makes me wonder what content you run, and with who. Because length of time isn't neutral. The longer a fight more adds spawn, many fights have enrage mechanics, soft dps checks, or even "you shall not pass" hard checks such as Xalvakka hardmode.

Vulkunne · May 20

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

It has been overwhelmingly my experience that the people who do the best damage also have the fastest reaction times, best raid awareness, and desire to actually do the hardest content.

I did OO with my regular raid team, all of whom do excellent damage, have multiple trial trifectas, and can swap roles freely. We went in completely blind, figured out all the mechanics, and cleared the trial in about 90 minutes, have gone back several times to get everyone their wing achievements and no deaths.

Meanwhile, the social guild I hang out in, have managed to scrap a single clear. ALL of them sincerely believe they make up what they lack in damage with their superior ability to perform mechanics. I have played with them. They are wrong.
This is why I roll my eyes whenever this argument gets brought up. Yes, there are a few parse monkeys that do good damage on a dummy but can't move out of an aoe if you drag them, but there is one of those for every ten "my build shouldn't matter as long as I know the fight" people who also can't move out of an aoe if you drag them

Cool story. I ran it once with some friends, then a second time with a group of absolutely green trial newbies who have barely set foot in a vet trial, let alone done any HMs or trifectas. They completed it in around 90 minutes.

If your social guild can't move out of an AoE, then they aren't good at dealing with mechanics no matter what they think. You see that flaw in your argument, right?!

Actually, I think the op is right on this one. Because if it's the uh wonderful Opulent Trial we're talking about I've spent days with green horns and vet alike and we didn't get even one clear. I hear lots of things, about people getting lucky w/ a no death group, people doing this, doing that and I can't speak for any of them. All I know is we don't sign up for Opulent Ordeal anymore. No one I know wants anything to do with it.

And I am a Trials Vet, I have done Trifectas and am knowledgeable about builds. But Opulent doesn't care about any of those things. That's why I don't think you're being completely transparent saying you joined a random group of green horns and you just knocked it in 90 minutes. This Trial just doesn't work like that. Unless it was like a really realy fast progression group all painted their faces green. I mean if you got your clear then hats off and I mean that. But many of us don't care for it.

Reginald_leBlem · May 20

Vulkunne wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

It has been overwhelmingly my experience that the people who do the best damage also have the fastest reaction times, best raid awareness, and desire to actually do the hardest content.

I did OO with my regular raid team, all of whom do excellent damage, have multiple trial trifectas, and can swap roles freely. We went in completely blind, figured out all the mechanics, and cleared the trial in about 90 minutes, have gone back several times to get everyone their wing achievements and no deaths.

Meanwhile, the social guild I hang out in, have managed to scrap a single clear. ALL of them sincerely believe they make up what they lack in damage with their superior ability to perform mechanics. I have played with them. They are wrong.
This is why I roll my eyes whenever this argument gets brought up. Yes, there are a few parse monkeys that do good damage on a dummy but can't move out of an aoe if you drag them, but there is one of those for every ten "my build shouldn't matter as long as I know the fight" people who also can't move out of an aoe if you drag them

Cool story. I ran it once with some friends, then a second time with a group of absolutely green trial newbies who have barely set foot in a vet trial, let alone done any HMs or trifectas. They completed it in around 90 minutes.

If your social guild can't move out of an AoE, then they aren't good at dealing with mechanics no matter what they think. You see that flaw in your argument, right?!

Actually, I think the op is right on this one. Because if it's the uh wonderful Opulent Trial we're talking about I've spent days with green horns and vet alike and we didn't get even one clear. I hear lots of things, about people getting lucky w/ a no death group, people doing this, doing that and I can't speak for any of them. All I know is we don't sign up for Opulent Ordeal anymore. No one I know wants anything to do with it.

And I am a Trials Vet, I have done Trifectas and am knowledgeable about builds. But Opulent doesn't care about any of those things. That's why I don't think you're being completely transparent saying you joined a random group of green horns and you just knocked it in 90 minutes. This Trial just doesn't work like that. Unless it was like a really realy fast progression group all painted their faces green. I mean if you got your clear then hats off and I mean that. But many of us hate it and want nothing more to do with it or any newer trials like it. I refuse to even consider going back there or wasting anymore of my precious time talking about it any further beyond this point. But you all can do what you want.

The trial depends heavily on people using their eyes and communicating, especially grapple because it has two spawn points instead of just one, and the drop off point is small so its easy to fall off the edge when avoiding the flesh atro

Gabriel_H · May 20

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

This makes me wonder what content you run, and with who. Because length of time isn't neutral. The longer a fight more adds spawn, many fights have enrage mechanics, soft dps checks, or even "you shall not pass" hard checks such as Xalvakka hardmode.

Adds spawn on a timer or boss health loss, or a combination of both - If the adds are dead by the time the next set spawn then time is irrelevent.

"Many" fights don't have enrage mechanics. They are very few and far between.Where enrage mechanics do exist they are typically linked to some other mechanic. For example: vDSR HM Reef Guardian, 2.6m health to burn in under 60 seconds. That's a lot for one person, but who says it has to be one person?

As for hard dps checks, like Xalvakka or Nahviintaas, I'm not saying that a casual should be able to walk in and do it, but it's nowhere near the level you seem to be implying it is. A group averaging 100k dps each will get it done quicker, but the mechanic only needs a group averaging 50k dps each.

Edit: Let me put it as simply as I can.

The mindset appears to be: Having high dps gets things done quicker, which means clearing the content without having to deal with some, or worry about other mechanics, and this makes that person a "good player".

My argument is: Having less dps, but an understanding of, and ability to execute, the mechanics, while taking longer still results in clearing the content within the time needed, also makes that person a "good player".

JiubLeRepenti · May 20

Pinktraining wrote: »
The current damage inflation is primarily due to HA-builds, more precisely, HA Sorc. The excessive buff to Sorc has led almost everyone to use HA Sorc instead of other classes.

Global DPS has always been increasing for years, even before HA builds became widespread.

2017 on 3M: best parses were around 35-40k
2018 on 3M: best parses were around 50k
2019 on 21M: 70–80k
2020 on 21M: 90k+
2021 on 21M: 100k+
2022 on 21M: 110k+
2023–2024 on 21M: 120k+
2025 on 21M: 140k+

(By the way, I’m talking about “reachable” DPS in real situations, not brainrot parses with 30 pre-buffs, unplayable Highland Sentinel, and Vampire’s Frenzy bringing you down to 1k HP and allowing you to hit 250k).

To me, the gap widened in 2021 with hybridization and the fact that a magsorc could run a pair of Relequen/Pillar. In 2021, you could reach 100k, whereas the best parses two years earlier were around 80k (from what I remember).

Then came the Oakensoul Ring. Before its nerf a few months after release, you could reach 60k+ on 3M quite easily. I’m not sure what the best parses on 21M were in U35 with it, though.

And after that the HA builds.

And after that the subclassing system.

And after that, we'll have the pure class system.

The game has kept getting easier and easier year after year for the past ten years. ZOS could cut DPS in half and it would still be too powerful to me.

Justosay · May 20

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Justosay wrote: »

Well, I think the "what is your dps" issue can be solved:
if the group/raid's dps (or "NN% of totall HP per single hit" as an option) surpass a certain value:
a) The boss becomes invulnerable for a MM seconds
or
b) The boss applies a selfbuff that significantly reduces all damage taken.

So "level of difficulty" will be "more complex mechanics and timing"

The inherent issue with meta vs non-meta in ESO is that the current meta is outperforming everything else by about 20%. Reducing the gap to below 5% will solve some of the problem, but there will still be people who demand that extra 5%, even though it itself is about 20% more than it needs to be if people just learned and did the mechs.

Other games get around this problem with things like threat generation. It forces players to throttle their dps giving it a cap, so the extra 5% or 20% doesn't matter, because you can't get there. ESO's taunt system is better than that imo, and a non-threat system means you can have some who front load damage, and others who make up for their lower front load with higher execute.

ZOS have tried to get around this already with invulnerability modes, it's annoying and breaks the flow of the fight. I'd prefer a mechs all at once mode. i.e. If the boss does mechs at 90%, 80% and 70% and it gets burned so fast that it "skips" the 90 & 80 they all happen at 70%. This would force players to throttle and have to think about the mechs, but good look getting the community to agree to that.

I disagree with much of what the OP said. It's missing a lot of context and experience, but they are no wholly wrong that the mindset of far too many is numbers, numbers, and numbers.

Well, I think you're missing the point: it's not about "meta versus non-meta". And every game has an "overpowered" problem.
So, it's about limiting the damage per second you can deal to any mob. It's not right that you can kill a mob in one hit, and different games have their own mechanisms to prevent this. The same mechanism can be used to prevent "overpower" in any boss' fight. This makes every boss the same for all players. It also increases the importance of healers and tanks. It requires knowledge of the boss fight script. But this doesn't prevent you from getting better gear, as it makes it easier to follow the script and allows you to exceed the minimum requirements for the fight.

Reginald_leBlem · May 20

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

This makes me wonder what content you run, and with who. Because length of time isn't neutral. The longer a fight more adds spawn, many fights have enrage mechanics, soft dps checks, or even "you shall not pass" hard checks such as Xalvakka hardmode.

Adds spawn on a timer or boss health loss, or a combination of both - If the adds are dead by the time the next set spawn then time is irrelevent.

"Many" fights don't have enrage mechanics. They are very few and far between.Where enrage mechanics do exist they are typically linked to some other mechanic. For example: vDSR HM Reef Guardian, 2.6m health to burn in under 60 seconds. That's a lot for one person, but who says it has to be one person?

As for hard dps checks, like Xalvakka or Nahviintaas, I'm not saying that a casual should be able to walk in and do it, but it's nowhere near the level you seem to be implying it is. A group averaging 100k dps each will get it done quicker, but the mechanic only needs a group averaging 50k dps each.

Edit: Let me put it as simply as I can.

The mindset appears to be: Having high dps gets things done quicker, which means clearing the content without having to deal with some, or worry about other mechanics, and this makes that person a "good player".

My argument is: Having less dps, but an understanding of, and ability to execute, the mechanics, while taking longer still results in clearing the content within the time needed, also makes that person a "good player".

Oh ok, when you say "less dps" you mean doing 50k each, in content, while doing mechanics. So, still an organized group and dps wearing meta or close to sets.

You are not having the same conversation I am.

I've been in pug groups for night market where people literally don't know what a set IS. You ask what they are wearing and they tell you "high elf" because they read the style and think that's the name of the piece. They spend most of their time light attacking. They may or may not be using a back bar.

The social guild people are not pulling 50k st in content.

You THINK you are anti meta but you aren't, so of course you don't think its a big deal if your fights take slightly longer-- it is in fact only slightly longer.

And there are actually quite a few hard dps checks in the game. Did you know Bloodspawn will destroy the room if you don't kill him before he finishes smashing the room? Did you know Yolnakriin will enrage if the fight lasts too long and burn the platform? Did you know first boss on vMoL will destroy more and more pillars until he kills the last one if you don't kill him fast enough?
I could keep going.

Clearly, you aren't playing with the people who genuinely think damage doesn't matter if you didn't know about any of these.

AScarlato · May 20

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

Justosay wrote: »

Well, I think the "what is your dps" issue can be solved:
if the group/raid's dps (or "NN% of totall HP per single hit" as an option) surpass a certain value:
a) The boss becomes invulnerable for a MM seconds
or
b) The boss applies a selfbuff that significantly reduces all damage taken.

So "level of difficulty" will be "more complex mechanics and timing"

This is just punishing people for working hard to be good at the game.

It's amazing to me that so many people are so quick to jump on people for wanting to maximize damage. That is a valid way to play the game, equally as valid as someone wanting to role play in sets that have cool effects but don't do damage.
People pulling extremely high damage numbers don't just spawn into being. It takes time and skill, and just as much love for the game, if not more. Time spent farming gear, mythic items, experimenting in content, and yes, even parsing is all time spent PLAYING THE GAME.

Wild you think they should be rewarded by punishing them for doing too much damage.

Agree 100%. They shouldn't add mechanics that invalidate the effort some people put into doing their job well, in this case doing damage.

Gabriel_H · May 21

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

You THINK you are anti meta but you aren't, so of course you don't think its a big deal if your fights take slightly longer-- it is in fact only slightly longer.

No, dude.

Firstly, I'm not anti-meta. I'm anti-imposing unnecessary restrictions on players. Being able to do 100k dps isn't necessery. See the difference?

Secondly, you seem to have made a fair few erroenous presumptions based on your own bias. Lets go back to my first reply to you. I'll bold the bits you seem to have ignored.

"Not for nothing, but you are kind of proving the OPs point, and honestly it's a somewhat reductive argument. You class being "good at the game" as doing as much damage as possible. While a skill in itself (a good weaver is skilled), doing the mechs correctly and consistently is also a skill. Which is harder? Which is the intent of ZOS? Damage or mechs?

If the former, then there wouldn't be much in the way of mechs. If the latter, then there wouldn't be both soft and hard dps checks. The reality is, it is both that matter.

So, if ZOS changed things tomorrow and moved to a totally mech based fight, where damage wasn't that important - much like OO is tbf, and people completed such content without anyone dying, in an allotted time, and on a hardmode would they not be good at the game?

Just something for you to think about."

Reginald_leBlem · May 21

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

You THINK you are anti meta but you aren't, so of course you don't think its a big deal if your fights take slightly longer-- it is in fact only slightly longer.

No, dude.

Firstly, I'm not anti-meta. I'm anti-imposing unnecessary restrictions on players. Being able to do 100k dps isn't necessery. See the difference?

Secondly, you seem to have made a fair few erroenous presumptions based on your own bias. Lets go back to my first reply to you. I'll bold the bits you seem to have ignored.

"Not for nothing, but you are kind of proving the OPs point, and honestly it's a somewhat reductive argument. You class being "good at the game" as doing as much damage as possible. While a skill in itself (a good weaver is skilled), doing the mechs correctly and consistently is also a skill. Which is harder? Which is the intent of ZOS? Damage or mechs?

If the former, then there wouldn't be much in the way of mechs. If the latter, then there wouldn't be both soft and hard dps checks. The reality is, it is both that matter.

So, if ZOS changed things tomorrow and moved to a totally mech based fight, where damage wasn't that important - much like OO is tbf, and people completed such content without anyone dying, in an allotted time, and on a hardmode would they not be good at the game?

Just something for you to think about."

I said multiple times that the people who parse high are almost universally doing mechanics correctly far more consistently than people who explicitly don't care about damage

You countered with something that isn't even relevant, because if your dds are consistently hitting dps checks in hardmode content.. your dds are almost certainly prioritizing damage.

I'm saying the dps that does very little damage but executes mechanics flawlessly is a myth. Because if someone is invested enough in the game to learn specific fights and how to perform them they are also invested enough in the game to have 2 functional dps sets and a mythic item, monster set, or arena weapon.
On the flip side, if someone can't be bothered to farm a couple of cohesive sets or ask a friend to craft them but still insists on showing up to group content they will underperform.

And the comment about not believing in unnecessary requirements is just silly.
You clearly have some restrictions to the groups you run in, and justify them to yourself. Have you considered that EVERY raid lead will have some internal justification for why their restrictions are necessary?

Sometimes its as simple is "I'm tired of running with people who don't play the game the same way I do so I took the advice of someone oine and made my own group." Maybe they want an addon free group! Is that an unnecessary restriction to you? Who gets to decide? Maybe asking for a 130k parse isn't about finding damage so much as finding someone with the right mentality to spend a lot of time and energy fine tuning their gameplay to push for harder clears. Is it still an unnecessary restriction?

katanagirl1 · May 21

From the perspective of a mid tier player left behind in NM right now as I was posting in another thread, the super sweaty players stick together and there are very few players trying to bring more players into mid tier and running content. I’ve spent several days running with what I think is a casual group, they are determined to clear and they have been working very hard, slowly making progress. I think they have been in NM all day every day for 4-5 days now. I join up for a couple of hours or so. I hope that I can clear with them because they are super nice people. What I see when fighting mobs and elites is that the health bar goes down very slowly until my unsubclassed arcanist comes along and then that health bar melts. Opulent Ordeal isn’t something everyone can do. They struggle because it’s a different set of players every time they run, but that is not necessarily their fault. It’s timed, some of the elites take effort to get down in order to pick up the orb or drop it. The inclusion of the relics makes the fight more demanding, especially on the team with the lamp. The one time we got the three cycles of orbs done and got to the center it was unmitigated chaos and we ended up wiping.

I think many experienced players forget what it was like when they started. It takes time to build up situational awareness to quickly avoid aoes and stay behind the boss. It takes time to learn the mechanics like what we call “sharing is caring” to stand together in the yellow circle to spread the damage. More than once in the past we have told a player in a learning trial group to bash a boss when he has the red lines coming out of him and the player just couldn’t see them. That is also why dps in a fight is less than on the dummy of course, the dummy just stands there. Bosses have mechanics and you have to know what they are and when they happen.

So I’m not knowledgeable enough to really help newer players much, without a build for unsubclassed players to follow I just keep using the same build I had before. What the game needs is more really experienced players to help bring others up rather than leaving them to become discouraged while struggling on their own. Players who understand all of the buffs and skills and how to put those together with gear to make a strong character. It doesn’t have to be the best for these newer players, just something that improves upon what they have. Yes, there are some who think they are doing fine and won’t accept help, but there are others who want to improve but have no one to turn to and learn.

Vulkunne · May 21

katanagirl1 wrote: »

From the perspective of a mid tier player left behind in NM right now as I was posting in another thread, the super sweaty players stick together and there are very few players trying to bring more players into mid tier and running content. I’ve spent several days running with what I think is a casual group, they are determined to clear and they have been working very hard, slowly making progress. I think they have been in NM all day every day for 4-5 days now. I join up for a couple of hours or so. I hope that I can clear with them because they are super nice people. What I see when fighting mobs and elites is that the health bar goes down very slowly until my unsubclassed arcanist comes along and then that health bar melts. Opulent Ordeal isn’t something everyone can do. They struggle because it’s a different set of players every time they run, but that is not necessarily their fault. It’s timed, some of the elites take effort to get down in order to pick up the orb or drop it. The inclusion of the relics makes the fight more demanding, especially on the team with the lamp. The one time we got the three cycles of orbs done and got to the center it was unmitigated chaos and we ended up wiping.

I think many experienced players forget what it was like when they started. It takes time to build up situational awareness to quickly avoid aoes and stay behind the boss. It takes time to learn the mechanics like what we call “sharing is caring” to stand together in the yellow circle to spread the damage. More than once in the past we have told a player in a learning trial group to bash a boss when he has the red lines coming out of him and the player just couldn’t see them. That is also why dps in a fight is less than on the dummy of course, the dummy just stands there. Bosses have mechanics and you have to know what they are and when they happen.

So I’m not knowledgeable enough to really help newer players much, without a build for unsubclassed players to follow I just keep using the same build I had before. What the game needs is more really experienced players to help bring others up rather than leaving them to become discouraged while struggling on their own. Players who understand all of the buffs and skills and how to put those together with gear to make a strong character. It doesn’t have to be the best for these newer players, just something that improves upon what they have. Yes, there are some who think they are doing fine and won’t accept help, but there are others who want to improve but have no one to turn to and learn.

Gold Star.

On a similar note, the trial itself did kind of remind me that there are as of now, other more important things needing to be done, things that have been left not done for probably too long hah. So maybe better to let this go for right now, until next season and focus on the immediate issues instead. Cause yeah everyone has to be onboard or no one is onboard. It's something I don't care for, something I understand however, at this time I really feel a need to focus more on me rather than trying to sort everyone out. Because that is something that must be done to pass this Trial and one person (in any capacity) is not going to do it alone and you're not going to get it done by constantly making the same mistakes.

Very good, thanks for sharing.

SerafinaWaterstar · May 22

I help run prog groups for trials, and yes, fabulous top tier dps can be very useful, but much more useful is situational awareness & understanding of mechanics (with average dps, say 80/90k)

It’s tiring having to explain again and again to high dps people to ‘stop damaging the boss & focus on this add’. I know someone upthread said they rarely find ones that don’t know mechs, but my anecdotal evidence is that I find this A LOT.

There is a type of player who cares about high dps to the detriment of all else. They seem to hyperfocus on the boss and nothing else. So they die. A lot. And therefore reduce overall damage as a dd has to rez.

There are times in dungeons & trials when you can ‘burn the boss’ but you have to learn when.

Koshka · May 22

Blood_again wrote: »

How to tell that you didn't play the latest group content without saying it.

The Opulent Ordeal trial is the thing you're asking for.
Well, it is a part of the Night Market content that you hate in each and every post I've seen from you. Not your cup of tea, I see.

Both dungeons in the Feast of Shadows DLC.
Oh, how many parsers smashed themselves into the Voskrona Stonehulk Poxito immunity even on normal.
You either haven't seen it or ignore it, I guess.

As a result, your open letter is outdated by at least 8 months. Sorry.
Surely, you can try and check the NM trial. If you love ESO enough.

Was about to say this.
Idk, it always seems to me that people who claim that mechanics or supports don't matter anymore are talking about rnds or something.
I would really like to see them beating vOC twins hm by ignoring mechs and just trying to dps really hard.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · May 22

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

I help run prog groups for trials, and yes, fabulous top tier dps can be very useful, but much more useful is situational awareness & understanding of mechanics (with average dps, say 80/90k)

It’s tiring having to explain again and again to high dps people to ‘stop damaging the boss & focus on this add’. I know someone upthread said they rarely find ones that don’t know mechs, but my anecdotal evidence is that I find this A LOT.

There is a type of player who cares about high dps to the detriment of all else. They seem to hyperfocus on the boss and nothing else. So they die. A lot. And therefore reduce overall damage as a dd has to rez.

There are times in dungeons & trials when you can ‘burn the boss’ but you have to learn when.

I feel the same way about this. Nothing says there is too much dps than being forced to call for it to stop in the middle of the fight completely. Id elaborate more on this but I have so many times I am beginning to tire of it. It keeps happening anyway. We dont need more dps. They need to eliminate Subclassing. And regain control of combat. And institute rules and drawbacks and enforce them.

ZhuJiuyin · May 22

It's not that mechanics aren't important or DPS isn't crucial, but I think there's a cognitive bias.

Some people's experience is limited to Veteran, while others use HM as the standard, but sometimes the differences are significant, such as in RGhm-Bahsei and LChm-Xoryn's minigames. The need for DPS to stop and wait for mechanics in Veteran doesn't mean the same applies in HM, especially since HM often has stricter time requirements, such as the portals in Bahsei, where the longer the fight, the faster the portals spin.

Therefore, using the requirement to stop fighting and wait for mechanics in some bosses as an example doesn't necessarily prove that the game's damage is excessive, especially for players new to HM groups. They are often surprised to find that their DPS, considered sufficient in Veteran, isn't enough to clear HM. Several new players in our guild recently started RGhm; they always thought their DPS was high enough, but they struggled with the first boss because their DPS simply couldn't kill the boss before all the pools were sealed.