Core combat and is definitely one of the pain points with ESO.

IMO, ESO brings a lot in terms of immersion, lore, and narrative, however, when it comes to combat I really can’t always understand what the Devs perspective is. It’s not a surprise to anyone that a game is this size is going to have certain mechanical limitations, that’s understandable, but it seems like that is forgotten when content is, creatively, developed and then fails to deliver on the intended experience.

If we separate the game into PvE & PvP we see different examples of where the game seemingly trips over its one two feet. And whether it was fully intended or if it was because there were time constraints that caused things to just be “thrown together” I can’t honestly tell.

In the realm of PvE combat is more straight forward and more rewarding. That’s because we’re talking about a more consistent scope when it comes to mechanics. But, that’s not to say we don’t reach a point when things go off the rails. Take instances such as Vet Scrivners Hall … why are we interacting with mechanics that have zero visual cue (the trip wire)? One of the elements that makes combat in ESO both interesting and aggravating is the heavy use of RNG. I know that the game is leaning on “randomness” to try and deliver a different gameplay experience but that also can have very real drawbacks. If a game is going to rely heavily on RNG then there’s a higher requirement to actually polish the other combat mechanics that are being used. Otherwise what you run into is failure to accomplish despite doing everything (knowingly) right. That doesn’t provide a rewarding experience that provides aggravation and a lack of consistency. .. it’s less about “mastering the mechanics” and more about “did we have a good luck run”. … and it’s not just Scrivners, we see similar mistakes out of other advanced DLC content … V Graven Deep is another example. One can appreciate the coordination needed to manage mechanics, however, there are no teaching elements throughout the course of the content that set you up to properly address the high level of nuance here. Further, some mechanics (Soul Harvest) feel a bit out of place and more “copy & pasted” just to try and provide an additional element rather than something that was well thought out. … V Black Gem Foundry is another. .. the entirety of the instance has a consistent feel until the final boss which seems like just another example of “mechanic stuffing” in an unrelated way, solely for the purpose of trying to create the illusion of challenge. … Throwing the mechanical “kitchen sink” at players just for the sake of doing so doesn’t make for compelling content and if you’re seeing your player base run to Google because the mechanics aren’t clear then you made a real mistake. Even when mechanics are going to be a challenge or difficult to master they should always be intuitive and recognizable by the player. … many of the issues in PvE combat are overly minor and truly detail related but they can have big impacts and can see players being driven away from wanting to engage in the content; especially if we’re talking about a random group, even one that’s trying to work together. … All in all, PvE is the better combat experience IMO that really just needs a tad bit more polish and thoughtfulness.

That brings us to PvP … this is one of those areas where you’ll never make everyone happy, and that’s ok.

PvP has had its share of long term criticisms but I’ll keep my feedback to the present because that’s what’s relevant.

Subclassing did a lot to give us additional build and theory crafting as well as power creep to deal with more of the questionable mechanical instances in PvE .. but .. it ruined PvP. .. many players (myself included) saw this coming and made it clear why we thought so on the forms but the decision was made to do it anyway. … ok, we can really live with that if the Devs so a quality job with these class refreshes and from what we’ve seen with DK, well, it doesn’t look like the developers have a real broad sense of critical thinking?

Here’s an example: part of the scope of class refreshes are to bring base classes (non subclassed builds) up in power and competitive with subclassed builds. Ok, that’s perfectly sensible. But looking at the Lava Whip skill, the first one on the list. The Devs did a good job of reworking the animation and overall environmental feel and did a good job of raising the power. But where they made a massive mistake was that they didn’t confine the conversion of the skill to base DK class only! So this means that the stack conversion of Lava Whip, and more popular Flame Lash, can be subclassed by anyone and they too can have the same power elevation (and healing) that DK received. … well, then how was DK elevated if their own skills can be used against them? … We’re seeing lots of Flame Lash now slotted on subclassed builds, including subclassed DKs. This almost defeats the purpose because DK hasn’t been elevated, some DK skills have been elevated, and that’s not the same thing.

What should have happened was that subclassed builds would have access to the base mechanics only (either the base damage output or base damage + healing component); but what subclasses would
NOT have had access to was the stacks that generate and bonus damage / healing scaling; that specifically should have been reserved for non-subclassed DK only. .. this would have allowed someone to subclass the baseline skill and morphs if they wanted to, but it would have kept the real power elevation within the DK class; which was kind of the point.

This seems like a very big oversight. As if nobody got together to discuss how this skill would align in the broader scope of the game? That seems like a pretty 101 question to ask amongst themselves.

Not only did this oversight hand one of DKs most high performing skills to everyone but it actually rewarded subclass builds more because there’s a slew of subclassed skills which provide a guaranteed “off balance” status effect; essentially seeing subclassed builds being able to more readily synergize the bonus conversion of this skill better than a DK can.

It’s seemingly mistakes like this, which are oversights in creative and thought, which have a big in-game impact that hurt combat. Yes, we can also talk about server latency and QoL bugs like crowd control break free bugs, skills that don’t register, and other known technical issues. Those very much play a role in ESO combat. But when the underlying creative or logic is really short sighted or perhaps doesn’t get the priority that it should then combat quality slides down far more than most technical bugs.

Game developers need to have both a “micro” and “macro” perspective. It doesn’t work to develop in a box and then deploy and let your customers, essentially, be your quality control; you have to have some semblance of big picture perspective before deploying updates and content. Further, you can’t just rush content that’s more of a secondary thought or a reskin of previous content and throw it out and expect that it’s going to get well received. (Not saying that’s exactly what’s happening here but it does feel that way).

In my opinion Subclassing created a very clear and defined “line in the sand” for us all when it comes to combat. Most of what we knew as a standard is out the window and when we talk about combat and potential changes to said combat I believe we need to do so with a post-subclassing perspective. Not how ESO used to be 3, 6, or even 8+ years ago.

Taking subclassing into account means that it’s definitely worthwhile to re-work classes and skills but it’s also worthwhile to take a look at gear and weapon sets. Most all of those asset attributes were created before subclassing and a lot require relevancy adjustments. Subclassing gave us more skill & mechanical combinations with which to counter various combat tactics but at the same time many of them contribute toward a lack of any real counter play and that’s also going to erode combat (i.e. now having a lack of critical resistance).

My suggestions for combat:

Think both inside and outside the box. Don’t just put something into the game hastily; think about the total way in which it can be used. Make sure it delivers on the scope. If it’s supposed to enhance a class then make sure it enhances the class and not everyone else.

Acknowledge that the fundamental game environment has limitations and when you’re developing assets, skills, or executables make sure that performance is the priority. There are lots of creative ways to make something look lore-centric but looks only get you so far. Assets should perform with similar reliability. We don’t need skills that have similar tool tips but one performs well and another lags just because we wanted to make it look a certain way.

Think about what you want combat to look like. In the case of PvE most all of the environments do a good job on delivering visuals, scenery and objects that support combat. In the case of PvP that’s not always the case. Cyrodill is fairly good but the IC & BGs tend to see maps that are overly confined and feature excessive dynamic scenery. Is peek-a-boo combat what we’re going for in PvP? It’s one thing to have strategic line of sight breaks it’s another to have combat revolve around them.

Lastly, make QoL a recurring priority. We see complaints regarding some of the more impactful combat bugs still existing some years after they were discovered. Subclassing made a good number of them more exploitable because now anyone could choose to lean on them. Good combat requires mechanics that are reliable, not ones that are reliably exploitable. Bugs should be sporadic occurrences, not a part of a players build strategy.

Is there a way to see how many sets there are in the game and how many are used?

One of the combat mechanics I think the Devs really need to reevaluate is "Evasion", in PvP especially.

PvE is fine but for PvP, Battle Spirit could be modified to adjust the effects of Evasion to more realistic values.

There are far too many players that are employing mindless-spam-style combat philosophies because they're able to do so with no consequence. When players can effectively "dodge" thousands of points worth of incoming damage, with no skill check; it leaves them without a need to consider any sort of combat strategy.

In current PvP (as of today), the number of players in PvP environments that are "dodging" freely due to Evasion is excessive. A better balance of the mechanic could be achieved by the following, while Battle Spirit is active:

1) Set a minimum cooldown for both Major & Minor Evasion, allowing the mechanic to only occur once every 30 seconds for Major & once every 20 seconds for Minor.

2) Make any instance of Evasion (either Major or Minor) procc-able; meaning that Evasion would no longer be granted by slotting or equipping; the player would need to procc the buff in some form or fashion. Given how much mitigation can be awarded from Evasion this would require at least one GCD commitment to activate.

Whether intended or not (I honestly don't know because there's so many threads and posts on this that don't agree), Evasion is giving players a percent chance to avoid ALL incoming direct damage. This can see players completely avoiding incredible amounts of damage with no skill check factor involved. I'm all for having powerful instruments & mechanics in the game but when we get to mechs that deliver at or above a certain level of capability I believe some aspect of skill needs to be involved in their use.

Players could be made to proc Evasion through a cast or a core combat mechanic such as performing one dodge to proc a duration of Evasion or a certain amount of blocking.

And what I'm referring to isn't desync or latency, I'm aware those things exist, but, when those are the issue we see situations where an actual dodge simply doesn't line-up in time with the actual recognition of the action, but the action of a dodge does become evident. No, what I'm speaking to is the Evasion proc that ignores all incoming instances of direct damage with no roll dodge attempt what so ever.

Given that we have subclassing and we know that it's not going anywhere; core combat needs a re-evaluation, just like everything else. Players have access to a lot more mitigation now than they did prior to subclassing and the ability to stack anything can become excessive and this is one mechanic that has and one which has little direct counterplay.

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

Maybe I'm crazy but it sounds like you're talking about the old evasion from years ago? Now It reduces AOE damage taken.. doesn't give a chance to auto-dodge direct attacks anymore. Most of the most powerful attacks in the game are AOE. I'm certainly happy to have evasion to help me survive bombs, ult dumps, DK's, etc.

I don’t think so.

What I’m describing presents very similarly to Maridia’s Blessed, and at first, I thought that’s what I was seeing .. but .. the issue has increased in frequency SIGNIFICANTLY since U50, which is odd, because I don’t remember seeing anything in any notes about the Maridia’s set or Evasion being touched, yet, what I’m seeing in current PvP are roughly 50% to 60% of players, at various points in combat, dodging all incoming damage attacks with no roll dodge what so ever. This occurs even while players are actively carrying out other actions.

I’ve talked to a lot of veteran PvP players and none of us are seeing anything that would indicate that a large number of players suddenly decided to shift over to Maridia’s armor so that left us with an issue/bug/change with Evasion? What else could cause this?

Typically the “go-to” dismissal for this is either desync or it’s the gear set but this is consistent and systemic and typically when anything has this big & broad of an effect it’s traceable (forums, reddit posts, build blogs & video, combat tutorials, etc), but I’m seeing nothing .. but in this case it’s almost like overnight a huge chunk of players are receiving auto-dodge. .. and this includes WW, which, I don’t think Meridia’s is a common or consistent set among WW builds, but, the Evasion mechanic is available to them.

I play (mostly) on XB NA but recently I’ve started playing the game via the XBOX anywhere PC client. So I’m still access the XB NA mega server but via my PC instead of the console. Ever since that client was released I have noticed significant server side issues, including a lot of latency related bugs so I can see latency having some impact here but not all of it. If I were seeing examples of delayed proc / animation with dodge rolls then I could chalk more of this up to that but the observations I’m seeing are clearly that of players not executing a dodge rolls at all but receiving the “dodge” of incoming damage and their health bar subsequently registers no damage so the attacks were, in fact, ignored.

At this point I’m looking at possibly an issue / unintended issue with Evasion but that’s the only other combat mech I can think of that could contribute to something like this?

Thoughts?