A Message from ESO's Game Director

hoangdz · July 30

First, thank you for the update. We feel assured that the game we enjoy is still here to stay. With that said, let’s talk about PvP combat balance. We are enduring DK and WW dominating the meta purely out of hope that the next reworked class will be right around the corner. Now that the next class rework is a year away, we expect ZOS and the development team to seriously consider adjusting these classes in both PvP and PvE.

My suggestion is to nerf DK’s class masteries and remove HP scaling heals from WW. This is urgent, so please consider these going forward.

RedMamba · July 30

hoangdz wrote: »

First, thank you for the update. We feel assured that the game we enjoy is still here to stay. With that said, let’s talk about PvP combat balance. We are enduring DK and WW dominating the meta purely out of hope that the next reworked class will be right around the corner. Now that the next class rework is a year away, we expect ZOS and the development team to seriously consider adjusting these classes in both PvP and PvE.

My suggestion is to nerf DK’s class masteries and remove HP scaling heals from WW. This is urgent, so please consider these going forward.

Also buff or change other class masteries in the meantime to bring them somewhat up to par

tomofhyrule · July 30

Arunei wrote: »

Yes, "aiming" for something does mean it's possible it might not happen in that time frame. But at the same time, acting like we've been told for sure that it will be "at least a year if not longer" for the next rework is silly. They didn't give us a concrete time frame for it, so why decide to automatically assume it's going to take a bunch of time it may not? I know the whole "hope for the best but expect the worst" thing, but it just seems strange me to to assume it will take that long when nothing really indicated HOW far into 2027 they're "aiming" for.

Well, for one thing, DK's refresh dropped March 9. Warden's refresh is sometime in 2027. That means the earliest Warden's refresh would drop would be with U52 which has been confirmed for January 2027. Therefore, by simple math, the shortest possible time between the DK and Warden refreshes is 10 months.

Refreshes also can only drop with full patch updates, so if it misses U52 in January, it'll have to wait for the next one which would probably be sometime in the Spring.

So yes, people are completely validated in saying that it will be "a long time" between refreshes if the shortest possible time between them is 10 months at minimum.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · July 30

@ZOS_Kevin
Can you ask for more clarification on the class refresh, are all classes going to now be refreshed at once or is the entire timeline pushed back so we can expect class refreshes for singular classes all the way into 2029?

Stamicka · July 30

It’s unfortunate timing that the year ESO looked to be taking a turn for the better, everything gets pushed back dramatically.

This won’t be good for the population concerns at all. Best of luck to the remaining developers though.

Vaqual · July 30

The classes need a balance pass asap. This was the #1 priority since subclassing dropped. I just can't believe how slow this is moving. If the refreshes need time, so be it. But you need to at least clean up dead passives for all classes.

I could have done this on my own a hundred times over by now.

RedMamba · July 30

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin
Can you ask for more clarification on the class refresh, are all classes going to now be refreshed at once or is the entire timeline pushed back so we can expect class refreshes for singular classes all the way into 2029?

also more details on what this looks like:
However, we are discussing some interim options for the classes still awaiting their full refresh to improve your player experience in the meantime.

Wuuffyy · July 30

hoangdz wrote: »

First, thank you for the update. We feel assured that the game we enjoy is still here to stay. With that said, let’s talk about PvP combat balance. We are enduring DK and WW dominating the meta purely out of hope that the next reworked class will be right around the corner. Now that the next class rework is a year away, we expect ZOS and the development team to seriously consider adjusting these classes in both PvP and PvE.

My suggestion is to nerf DK’s class masteries and remove HP scaling heals from WW. This is urgent, so please consider these going forward.

Nah, werewolf has had health-based healing this entire time. Actually at stronger values. Now isn’t the time to hop on your soapbox and aim at your target.

Burst heal was health-based and literally nerfed healing-wise from old live-

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/692088/werewolf-tooltips-pvp-significantly-nerfed-from-live-proof

You wouldn’t be happy with this anyways.

You’re already in the ‘gut werewolf’s masteries’ camp too. You and that same camp have also borderline flat-out stated that ‘one bar shouldn’t compete’ and ‘werewolf should be a meme spec’; this which I highly suspect is the same mindset that helped run werewolf into oblivion prior.

The ONLY reason I even proposed a suggestion for a remedy to its health-based healing is because it seemed like it might be too much for live. Now that I see live I can say that majority of werewolves I encounter I kill with relative ease on my DK and wolf and the ones I can’t are usually low-damage and built tanky.

Also, DK quite literally has a plethora of significant health-based heals now (which even I was clueless on before) and you know right now removing DK masteries wouldn’t do a thing regarding what they’re capable of in PvP. So you’d have werewolf be unable to heal themselves properly while DKs still have full capability to 2 shot at a minimum with corro/onslaught and whip.

SerafinaWaterstar · July 30

Personally, I don’t give a damn about the class refreshes and I play pvp! I just want Zos staff to find their feet again after what must have been a seismic shake up.

I’ve been in their place, surviving a round of redundancies, when staff that had been there for years were let go. And it takes a while for things to get back to the new ‘normal’, and can leave scars. All while trying to function as before.

To be frank, I am slightly disgusted by the lack of compassion or empathy from some comments here, only thinking about themselves and what they want, and complaining they’re not getting what they think they need ‘immediately’.

For example, why the outcry about balance when the majority of ‘end game’ players will just follow the meta anyway, both in pvp & pve.
And at lot of ‘normal’ players will just play what they like. So why is ‘balance’ so crucial? And what is meant by that, anyway?

HazierBlue · July 30

We're also entering a new chapter of collaboration across Bethesda. By working more closely with Bethesda Game Studios across The Elder Scrolls, we have new opportunities to share ideas, align our efforts, and create even better experiences for players, all while continuing to build the future of ESO.

This part still bugs me. Still not convinced that Bethesda will not be cannibalizing ESO to get ES6 done as soon as possible.

Ingenon · July 30

Thanks for the update!

Sorry about the dates slipping for the Class and Combat Refresh, Jerall Pass PvP zone, Skyrim’s Dynamic Encounters: Rimegales, and the new Trial. I agree with "quality experiences over calendar dates". Please let us know if these dates slip further.

HatchetHaro · July 30

CAB_Life wrote: »

HatchetHaro wrote: »

CAB_Life wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

alakeyfox wrote: »

1 rework a year will hammer the final nails in the coffin for the balance of the game.

As it stands - at the bare minimum we need class masteries removed from reworked classes, as well as remove WW ability to benefit from non-WW class masteries. Class masteries were introduced as a way to bridge the gap between reworked and unreworked classes, so it makes absolutely no sense to give them to the reworked classes, further raising their power floor.

Yes, Class Masteries need to be disabled for every class that has been reworked until the moment every class has been reworked.

This would be one bandaid yes. I honestly don’t know how they intend to keep players engaged, though. And negative online sentiment tends to multiply once it starts.

Arunei wrote: »

CAB_Life wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

React wrote: »

Good to hear the new PVP zone is releasing in January, that is at least something to look forward to. Fingers crossed it is well designed and worthwhile to participate in.

Hearing the news about the reworks is tragic, and has serious implications for the future of the game. These reworks NEED to be the number one priority for the studio. The game is currently in an unfinished state where DK and WW are so far ahead of everything that it isn't even fun to think about playing other classes. Delaying these reworks is going to SERIOUSLY harm your playerbase in both the short and long term.

Between this and the trials being delayed, it really feels like the studio is signing off on ESO's endgame. Sad to see, especially since it had felt like the game was on an upwards trajectory for the first time ever this year.

Why are we dooming when the letter literally states the game isn't going into maintenance mode? What about a delay to make sure something is done right mean they're "signing off" on anything? Would you rather them push out something before it's actually ready just so it can be said that it was released, the state of it be damned? The letter also states plainly they're looking into other ways to do stuff in the meantime, but we just ignore that part to make it seem like they're completely ignoring anything to do with Classes for now, I suppose.

And why are people assuming the reworks AREN'T a top priority? Just because things are taking longer doesn't mean they aren't focusing on things, but people also seem to think everyone working in a game studio can just be thrown onto X thing or Y thing. That's not how it works, though. The people who design levels would not be able to work on balancing. The people who work on art would not know coding. I'm sure there ARE people who could be moved to the team working on the refreshes, but they can't reroute everyone to working on a single thing.

Because the ‘next’ refresh is coming at least a year after the first if not longer. “Priority”, reasonably, would be dropping all the fluff between now and then and actually releasing the classes, patch after patch, in order until complete. The game is literally incomplete at the moment, with one class visually and mechanically head and shoulders above the rest. We have a decade of content for the game already. It hardly needs more at this very instant.

The letter said the next refresh is being aimed at for next year. That could be in January or February for all we know, they never said it wouldn't be until Spring or later. Just because they mentioned next year does not inherently mean mid or late year, it can also mean early.

And again, they cannot put everyone on a single project. Different people work on different things for a reason. They CANNOT realistically move a bunch of people onto one thing because not everyone is going to have the skills or experience to DO that thing. Also there's the whole "too many cooks" thing where having more hands on a project can actually make it take a lot longer to be completed and make things more complicated the more people there are that need to communicate and agree on things.

Okay. So obviously you can’t put the people in charge of the crown store or marketing on the class rework and expect efficiency. But—and I’ve been to ZOS HQ btw—you certainly have buckets of programmers, graphic designers, model and vfx asset designers, sound techs, bug testers, that are likely spread across multiple projects that should be focussing only on the class rework until it is complete. If you’re an environmental artist, you can probably get to work on refreshing the zones that we’ve already started and will probably not resume until who knows when.I don’t know why I need to clarify the obvious, but when I say everyone, I mean everyone that can possibly work on a specific task given their skillset.

That is not how game development (or by that metric, any software development) works. Brooks's Law applies fully here. Throwing more people at a project does not magically make it go faster. You might be familiar with the "too many cooks spoil the broth" and "nine women cannot make a baby in one month" concepts.

"Programmer" isn't one interchangeable job. Engine coders, network engineers, UI developers, and tools engineers don't work on combat balance or ability scripting. Taking a network engineer out of their domain of expertise and tasking them with combat design and balance is a recipe for disaster.

Even for creative roles, 3D modeling, effects, animation, and sound design all require the underlying combat design for the class reworks to be finalized first. The pipeline is sequential: combat design > concept art > modeling and animation > VFX and audio > QA and tuning. Throwing a fleet of sound techs and VFX artists at a class rework before the combat design is complete just either leaves those artists idle or churning out unusable assets. Besides, Brooks's Law still applies: having too many different VFX artists working on the same class rework risks delivering a mismatched visual identity with vastly different VFX styles on each ability.

Beyond these pipeline constraints, the demand to halt everything else just for class reworks and "idk environment artists can just do zone refreshes in the meantime" just completely ignores the rest of the playerbase. Yes, class reworks should still be a priority, but to completely abandon all other content, seasonal events, and balance updates that other players are excited about is objectively a terrible idea.

I think you'll find that the game’s current trajectory and timeline is—to use your phrasing—a “terrible idea” and if you've been around MMORPGs for any length of time you can see that the writing is now on the wall. The developer letter didn't assuage anyone’s fears and that should be evident from this thread and I'm sure the many videos to come from the usual commentators. Regardless of the complexities of reassigning workloads, which to be fair, you know as little about the inner workings of ZOS’s particular production pipeline as I do, it should be further evident that this game is not going to be in a place anytime soon where it is functional or satisfying to a broad portion of the player base. Nor will it be competitive. Each of these issues in isolation is a problem. Both of them synonymously is a crisis. And essentially telling your player base to wait until next year to continue and not even complete a feature that fundamentally affects every aspect of combat related gameplay is simply asking too much from an already exhausted player base.

Best of luck to those who stick around. I don't feel the need to continue this, because without getting into specifics that would sound accusatory or overly critical there's really just nothing else to say.

Player disappointment over the new roadmap and the content shifts to 2027 is completely understandable and valid, and no one is arguing that the game's combat balance is in a great spot right now.

But as someone who actually works in game development, game production pipelines aren't a secret "ZOS inner working"; they are fundamental constraints of game development across the industry, from indie to AAA.

If you want to give feedback that the class refreshes and balance should be a higher priority, like how many others here have done, then by all means; I share that sentiment, too! But let's stick to the realities of what game development entails, keep the feedback constructive, and avoid pivoting to doomposting about "the writing on the wall".

I hope you find enjoyment in whatever you play next. Take care.

Djiku · July 30

We all know that you can't follow through with waht you promised at the beginning of the year with the massive layoffs. It is truly tragic.
I am glad that we finally know what hte immediate future will hold. It doesn't look too promising to be honest, understandably so.
I was really hoping that we would at least get the Warden Rework this year, since you:ve already been working on it. No Rework at all for the rest of the year is, all things considered, very disappointing.
The Class and Combat Reworks are essential for the future of the game, imo. More than any other content!
I hope you make the Reworks a top priority, no, I am begging you to do it. Personally I would be totally okay with you putting all other content on hold to focus on the Reworks but I know that the game needs actual content too.
The Reworks are, to me, the most important thing to happen to ESO in many many years. Dragging these out even more would be devastating. One Rework per year would definitely NOT be enough!

On the bright side, I am looking forward to the midsize Cyrodiil Map that is, hopefully, coming in january and 3 Team BG's returning.
Greymoor, Wolfhunter and Markarth coming to the Basegame is also a great addition for the future.

Wuuffyy · July 30

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Personally, I don’t give a damn about the class refreshes and I play pvp! I just want Zos staff to find their feet again after what must have been a seismic shake up.

I’ve been in their place, surviving a round of redundancies, when staff that had been there for years were let go. And it takes a while for things to get back to the new ‘normal’, and can leave scars. All while trying to function as before.

To be frank, I am slightly disgusted by the lack of compassion or empathy from some comments here, only thinking about themselves and what they want, and complaining they’re not getting what they think they need ‘immediately’.

For example, why the outcry about balance when the majority of ‘end game’ players will just follow the meta anyway, both in pvp & pve.
And at lot of ‘normal’ players will just play what they like. So why is ‘balance’ so crucial? And what is meant by that, anyway?

Instead of remotely getting to be in the realm of truly empathetic I have multiple sitting in this forum post attempting to use this as a platform and vector of targeted nerf-calling.

Bringing up other classes can be a conversation any time, using the post on the roadmap for ways you want to bring what you don’t like down is of horrible merit.

Regardless, they undoubtedly knew of potential backlash especially citing a significantly delayed next reworked and even I feel the need to raise my concerns about the ‘priority’ right now. I’m personally having trouble understanding how we had 1 week remaining until likely-Warden-PTS before reworks (so it is still seemingly close to done) and now we have a minimum wait of Jan 2027 before any rework in the slightest.

Eldovar · July 30

Sidenote: no mention of crossplay.

Wuuffyy · July 30

Eldovar wrote: »

Sidenote: no mention of crossplay.

And that was a ways off anyways. They’ve yet to make a new statement on it but with class reworks being pushed back seemingly so far, I imagine that they’d really want to sort other things out and push this back a bit farther as well.

In other words, I personally expect a significant delay to crossplay based on circumstance alone.

i_azazei_i · July 30

Having the class reworks spread so far apart is only going to make power creep even worse than it already is. Dk and WW outperform every other non subclass build and even most subclasses builds. Stop all non class rework dev projects and get them out at the same time. With current pacing by the time the final class rework happens dk will be outdated and the cycle will continue. You no longer have the capacity for multitasking. Focus on one thing at a time or watch your game crumble.

Arunei · July 30

Wuuffyy wrote: »

I’m personally having trouble understanding how we had 1 week remaining until likely-Warden-PTS before reworks (so it is still seemingly close to done) and now we have a minimum wait of Jan 2027 before any rework in the slightest.

This is something odd, yes. I doubt the layoffs had much to do initially with the Warden delay, something about it was clearly giving them a problem that they delayed the PTS because of it at least once. Whatever that was has likely been compounded more by fewer people being present to work on it, but like...to this degree? The rework for Warden must have been going pretty poorly even before the layoffs if it's getting delayed this much.

The only thing other than that I can think of that would cause such a delay is that they plan on hammering out Warden, Sorc, and maybe one other Class to release all at once at some point next year? That doesn't really make sense, though, to delay a Class rework if most of it has already been worked on just to release it with others.

Zallion · July 30

Thing is, this makes the pressure to deliver a hundred fold.

Can’t afford to not stick the landing after such a lengthy postponement. Cause then what? 6 more months to patch and balance at best? That’s a long time after players are already waiting, a long long time.

While I get it, players will NEED to be thrown SEVERAL bones between now and then to keep the retention.

tomofhyrule · July 30

Arunei wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

I’m personally having trouble understanding how we had 1 week remaining until likely-Warden-PTS before reworks (so it is still seemingly close to done) and now we have a minimum wait of Jan 2027 before any rework in the slightest.

This is something odd, yes. I doubt the layoffs had much to do initially with the Warden delay, something about it was clearly giving them a problem that they delayed the PTS because of it at least once. Whatever that was has likely been compounded more by fewer people being present to work on it, but like...to this degree? The rework for Warden must have been going pretty poorly even before the layoffs if it's getting delayed this much.

The only thing other than that I can think of that would cause such a delay is that they plan on hammering out Warden, Sorc, and maybe one other Class to release all at once at some point next year? That doesn't really make sense, though, to delay a Class rework if most of it has already been worked on just to release it with others.

This is all true. And - even if there was a problem and Warden wouldn't have been able to make the original July 6 PTS date - it still doesn't answer the one question we've all been asking.

Why. Can't. The. Combat. Team. Communicate?

When we had the original "Warden?" thread after the last DevChat, most people were saying the same thing: "I'd be fine if they needed to delay Warden to make it good, but why can't they just tell us? Why are they just playing coy?"

The same still applies. It'd be a lot easier to swallow a now-6 month minimum delay for Warden if the team could just tell us something. Will we still have the three themes? Do you have a concept of a new skill? Can refreshes be done in parallel so we could likely see more than one drop simultaneously?

Wuuffyy · July 30

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

I’m personally having trouble understanding how we had 1 week remaining until likely-Warden-PTS before reworks (so it is still seemingly close to done) and now we have a minimum wait of Jan 2027 before any rework in the slightest.

This is something odd, yes. I doubt the layoffs had much to do initially with the Warden delay, something about it was clearly giving them a problem that they delayed the PTS because of it at least once. Whatever that was has likely been compounded more by fewer people being present to work on it, but like...to this degree? The rework for Warden must have been going pretty poorly even before the layoffs if it's getting delayed this much.

The only thing other than that I can think of that would cause such a delay is that they plan on hammering out Warden, Sorc, and maybe one other Class to release all at once at some point next year? That doesn't really make sense, though, to delay a Class rework if most of it has already been worked on just to release it with others.

This is all true. And - even if there was a problem and Warden wouldn't have been able to make the original July 6 PTS date - it still doesn't answer the one question we've all been asking.

Why. Can't. The. Combat. Team. Communicate?

When we had the original "Warden?" thread after the last DevChat, most people were saying the same thing: "I'd be fine if they needed to delay Warden to make it good, but why can't they just tell us? Why are they just playing coy?"

The same still applies. It'd be a lot easier to swallow a now-6 month minimum delay for Warden if the team could just tell us something. Will we still have the three themes? Do you have a concept of a new skill? Can refreshes be done in parallel so we could likely see more than one drop simultaneously?

They risk locking themselves into a commitment for something they want or need to change if they share this information.

Techwolf_Lupindo · July 30

"And three-sided Battlegrounds will return permanently on September 28, with Update 51 "

Good. Now that deathmatchers have there own que separate from everything else, the folks that was driven away from Battlegrounds can now return. Right?

hoangdz · July 30

Wuuffyy wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

First, thank you for the update. We feel assured that the game we enjoy is still here to stay. With that said, let’s talk about PvP combat balance. We are enduring DK and WW dominating the meta purely out of hope that the next reworked class will be right around the corner. Now that the next class rework is a year away, we expect ZOS and the development team to seriously consider adjusting these classes in both PvP and PvE.

My suggestion is to nerf DK’s class masteries and remove HP scaling heals from WW. This is urgent, so please consider these going forward.

Nah, werewolf has had health-based healing this entire time. Actually at stronger values. Now isn’t the time to hop on your soapbox and aim at your target.

Burst heal was health-based and literally nerfed healing-wise from old live-

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/692088/werewolf-tooltips-pvp-significantly-nerfed-from-live-proof

You wouldn’t be happy with this anyways.

You’re already in the ‘gut werewolf’s masteries’ camp too. You and that same camp have also borderline flat-out stated that ‘one bar shouldn’t compete’ and ‘werewolf should be a meme spec’; this which I highly suspect is the same mindset that helped run werewolf into oblivion prior.

The ONLY reason I even proposed a suggestion for a remedy to its health-based healing is because it seemed like it might be too much for live. Now that I see live I can say that majority of werewolves I encounter I kill with relative ease on my DK and wolf and the ones I can’t are usually low-damage and built tanky.

Also, DK quite literally has a plethora of significant health-based heals now (which even I was clueless on before) and you know right now removing DK masteries wouldn’t do a thing regarding what they’re capable of in PvP. So you’d have werewolf be unable to heal themselves properly while DKs still have full capability to 2 shot at a minimum with corro/onslaught and whip.

I stand by what I said, and fortunately for me, most of my predictions have been right. Trusting a 2 year roadmap with zero setback is incredibly short-sighted.

This is why I have always pushed for balance on-the-go. It is laughable that DK and WW get to reign in this state when plenty of constructive feedback that wouldn't severely nerf those classes has been given during PTS cycles.

Wuuffyy · July 30

hoangdz wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

hoangdz wrote: »

First, thank you for the update. We feel assured that the game we enjoy is still here to stay. With that said, let’s talk about PvP combat balance. We are enduring DK and WW dominating the meta purely out of hope that the next reworked class will be right around the corner. Now that the next class rework is a year away, we expect ZOS and the development team to seriously consider adjusting these classes in both PvP and PvE.

My suggestion is to nerf DK’s class masteries and remove HP scaling heals from WW. This is urgent, so please consider these going forward.

Nah, werewolf has had health-based healing this entire time. Actually at stronger values. Now isn’t the time to hop on your soapbox and aim at your target.

Burst heal was health-based and literally nerfed healing-wise from old live-

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/692088/werewolf-tooltips-pvp-significantly-nerfed-from-live-proof

You wouldn’t be happy with this anyways.

You’re already in the ‘gut werewolf’s masteries’ camp too. You and that same camp have also borderline flat-out stated that ‘one bar shouldn’t compete’ and ‘werewolf should be a meme spec’; this which I highly suspect is the same mindset that helped run werewolf into oblivion prior.

The ONLY reason I even proposed a suggestion for a remedy to its health-based healing is because it seemed like it might be too much for live. Now that I see live I can say that majority of werewolves I encounter I kill with relative ease on my DK and wolf and the ones I can’t are usually low-damage and built tanky.

Also, DK quite literally has a plethora of significant health-based heals now (which even I was clueless on before) and you know right now removing DK masteries wouldn’t do a thing regarding what they’re capable of in PvP. So you’d have werewolf be unable to heal themselves properly while DKs still have full capability to 2 shot at a minimum with corro/onslaught and whip.

I stand by what I said, and fortunately for me, most of my predictions have been right. Trusting a 2 year roadmap with zero setback is incredibly short-sighted.

This is why I have always pushed for balance on-the-go. It is laughable that DK and WW get to reign in this state when plenty of constructive feedback that wouldn't severely nerf thos classes has been given during PTS cycles.

Most of your ridiculous ‘predictions’ have been right based on your own skewed perspective yet I can pull a metric ton of clips with proof of mine right now.

I have also offered a metric ton of ways to avoid nerfing/significantly adjusting components especially ones that are critical to the werewolf identity and functionality.

For the record, I stand by what I said plus all of the proof and logic I have for it as well.

Destai · July 30

Cruxanero wrote: »

Talking about "throwing in some thank yous for your continued support": I totally understand that big gestures are out of the question, but what about the "mini thank yous" we got over the years and that were totally absent for more than a year now, like explorers event, double gold weekend, or even a free Eso+ week? Those take no effort to add and were always going a long way to please players and enjoyed by many. Not continuing them feels like a business decision to me, I just doubt it's a smart one.

I'm honestly so tired of those kinds of "thank you" phrases from them. I don't feel the gratitude from them. For me, they had two really big moments this where they could've shown it. The Warden topic and the handling of Tomes point expiration. They dropped the ball both times. It looks like the Tomes points will have an increased cap here soon, so that's progress on something. Not sure why we couldn't do that to start, but hey, we're here now.

They should honestly treat right now like another Anniversary year and go full Santa mode. Make all content double drops, especially stuff like Arenas. Push through account wide armory slots, you know, go big.

Destai · July 30

alakeyfox wrote: »

1 rework a year will hammer the final nails in the coffin in for the balance of the game.

100%

And this was my biggest concern with their initial approach. Roadblocks are expected, and having it derailed like this is just going to ruin the experience for so many people. Now they'll be pivoting trying to salvage and just add more things to undo/rework later.

This really seems like such a dark moment for the game.

hoangdz · July 30

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Most of your ridiculous ‘predictions’ have been right based on your own skewed perspective yet I can pull a metric ton of clips with proof of mine right now.
.

My predictions were accurate, not ridiculous. For instance:

1) When Relequen was discovered to proc twice, I created 2 threads to warn people that it could be abused by certain ranged builds. People were accusing me of being a noob for dying to a PvE set. Months later, the set was widely used by ranged builds, and was super obnoxious to deal with. Threads started popping up on the forums, while people were complaining about it on the live server.

2)When Hardened Ward received a burst heal, it took me 1 hour of dueling on PTS to conclude that Sorc would be extremely broken if allowed to go live. I made 3 threads suggesting Hardened Ward's burst heal changed to a HoT. People disagreed and told me that I was being pessimistic. 3 months after the patch went live, the forums was flooded with threads complaining about Hardened Ward being broken, and some of the people disagreeing with me earlier have changed their opinion.

3) When DK got reworked, I spent a week dueling DKs and concluded that Incinerate and its morph were giving too much sustain, which allowed DKs to forgo recovery stats completely and front load all of their regeneration to damage and defense. People were telling me that it's a L2P issue. Months later, HoF is on everyone's bar because it carries sustain infinitely better than anything we've seen in the game, letting stat inflation go out of control

4) When WW got reworked, several players including me have warned about the class being too tanky while dishing out insane pressure. Then there's people like you who keep painting us in a bad light. Now that the patch has been live, WW is doing exactly as predicted.

You can call it "ridiculous" all you want, but I am firmly confident in my knowledge of ESO PvP and ESO theorycrafting. You can post all your evidence too, but you won't be able to convince me or people otherwise because I have extensively tested your class for the entire duration of the PTS cycle and came to the conclusion that WW absolutely needs to be toned down.

Destai · July 30

Arunei wrote: »

And why are people assuming the reworks AREN'T a top priority? Just because things are taking longer doesn't mean they aren't focusing on things, but people also seem to think everyone working in a game studio can just be thrown onto X thing or Y thing. That's not how it works, though. The people who design levels would not be able to work on balancing. The people who work on art would not know coding. I'm sure there ARE people who could be moved to the team working on the refreshes, but they can't reroute everyone to working on a single thing.

Because the combat team hasn't communicated their priorities. AFAIK, they are working on Vengeance (we see how that's going) alongside the class reworks. They have split priorities from the outside looking in.

AlienatedGoat · July 30

Just like we had to wait until 2026 to see the results of the 2025 layoffs, I expect we'll have to wait until 2027 to see the results from this year's layoffs.

I remain cautiously optimistic.

Arunei · July 30

Wuuffyy wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

I’m personally having trouble understanding how we had 1 week remaining until likely-Warden-PTS before reworks (so it is still seemingly close to done) and now we have a minimum wait of Jan 2027 before any rework in the slightest.

This is something odd, yes. I doubt the layoffs had much to do initially with the Warden delay, something about it was clearly giving them a problem that they delayed the PTS because of it at least once. Whatever that was has likely been compounded more by fewer people being present to work on it, but like...to this degree? The rework for Warden must have been going pretty poorly even before the layoffs if it's getting delayed this much.

The only thing other than that I can think of that would cause such a delay is that they plan on hammering out Warden, Sorc, and maybe one other Class to release all at once at some point next year? That doesn't really make sense, though, to delay a Class rework if most of it has already been worked on just to release it with others.

This is all true. And - even if there was a problem and Warden wouldn't have been able to make the original July 6 PTS date - it still doesn't answer the one question we've all been asking.

Why. Can't. The. Combat. Team. Communicate?

When we had the original "Warden?" thread after the last DevChat, most people were saying the same thing: "I'd be fine if they needed to delay Warden to make it good, but why can't they just tell us? Why are they just playing coy?"

The same still applies. It'd be a lot easier to swallow a now-6 month minimum delay for Warden if the team could just tell us something. Will we still have the three themes? Do you have a concept of a new skill? Can refreshes be done in parallel so we could likely see more than one drop simultaneously?

They risk locking themselves into a commitment for something they want or need to change if they share this information.

At the very least they could have said "Warden won't be part of U51 because there are things we still need to work out in regards to it" before the layoffs happened. If they'd been working on it since the last PTS (obviously they have been) then it should be a decent amount done, one would think. If not, then they'd have known WELL before the layoffs that Warden needed more time. So why not just admit it before?

Either Warden wasn't anywhere near being done for whatever reason even before the layoffs, or it's near being done but one or more aspects of the reworks in general are causing an issue. Maybe it's something to do with Class Masteries? Maybe it's to do with memory limitations (remember, they told us before they can't give us even a handful of unique WW animations/emotes because of memory)? None of us know, and while they don't have to tell us specific details if they don't want to risk the "BUT THEY SAID <insert thing here>!" from the community if stuff falls through, they could at least give us a basic rundown of what's going on. And they could have done it before now, because whatever is causing it to be delayed THIS long is likely something that didn't just pop up out of nowhere. It's probably something they've known about for a while.