@ZOS_Kevin , whether players want this or not, let's say for the sake of discussion that this could be something interesting for the game. Is this something ZOS could actually add to the game, or is it completely out of the question and something ZOS would never consider?

With the surging popularity of Groupfinder, the majority of groups forming for even the oldest content are not optimized enough to skip mechanics.

That said, a huge part of the experience in an RPG is of growing as a character and getting stronger. Bypassing mechanics you once struggled with is part of that fulfillment found in achieving your power fantasy.

Now my question is this, let’s play pretend and imagine that something so unnecessary as DPS caps on our ancient content became a thing, do you propose we strip everyone of their achievements?…

How do you differentiate between someone who took advantage of a patch their build was powercrept and someone who earned it after your proposed changes?

Full burning should be possible but doing so should require mastery of the content and complicated prebuff/predotting. You should never be able to burn through mechanics on accident.

Radiate77 wrote: »

Valkanos wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

"...
Now my question is this, let’s play pretend and imagine that something so unnecessary as DPS caps on our ancient content became a thing, do you propose we strip everyone of their achievements?…
How do you differentiate between someone who took advantage of a patch their build was powercrept and someone who earned it after your proposed changes?

As an example, why do you believe a new player with 180k DPS deserves the same GH title as players who earned it by following all the mechanics when CR was released?
What about vAS? Why do you believe a group today with almost 2K DPS, who can complete the trial in less than 7 minutes by skipping all the mechanics, deserves the same title as the players who earned it by following all the mechanics when vAS was first released?
The same applies to any other achievement. Some older players actually had to learn and follow the mechanics at the time to earn their achievements. Now, all they see from many new players is DPS, because they have no idea how to handle the mechanics.
So why should they deserve the same achievement? It's exactly the same question you're asking, just looked at from the other side.

You’re asking it entirely wrong.

Why would someone tomorrow have to work harder for something that people are capable of achieving today with much greater accessibility.

The genie is out of the bottle, you cannot put it back in without erasing everyone’s achievements who in your mind earned them unfairly.

This is exactly why I argue for a new difficulty level above veteran instead of changing veteran or HM. I’ve been seeing a few people suggest vestige mode dungeons, which I think is a start but it’d also be cool to un-nerf nerfed dungeons (again, in a new difficulty level).

Soarora wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Valkanos wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

"...
Now my question is this, let’s play pretend and imagine that something so unnecessary as DPS caps on our ancient content became a thing, do you propose we strip everyone of their achievements?…
How do you differentiate between someone who took advantage of a patch their build was powercrept and someone who earned it after your proposed changes?

As an example, why do you believe a new player with 180k DPS deserves the same GH title as players who earned it by following all the mechanics when CR was released?
What about vAS? Why do you believe a group today with almost 2K DPS, who can complete the trial in less than 7 minutes by skipping all the mechanics, deserves the same title as the players who earned it by following all the mechanics when vAS was first released?
The same applies to any other achievement. Some older players actually had to learn and follow the mechanics at the time to earn their achievements. Now, all they see from many new players is DPS, because they have no idea how to handle the mechanics.
So why should they deserve the same achievement? It's exactly the same question you're asking, just looked at from the other side.

You’re asking it entirely wrong.

Why would someone tomorrow have to work harder for something that people are capable of achieving today with much greater accessibility.

The genie is out of the bottle, you cannot put it back in without erasing everyone’s achievements who in your mind earned them unfairly.

This is exactly why I argue for a new difficulty level above veteran instead of changing veteran or HM. I’ve been seeing a few people suggest vestige mode dungeons, which I think is a start but it’d also be cool to un-nerf nerfed dungeons (again, in a new difficulty level).

I’d be down, just throw a bunch of Skill Styles in them themed to whatever Dungeon or Trial and ship it.

Radiate77 wrote: »

You’re dodging my questions entirely, and if you can’t provide an answer to how an idea like yours ships without erasing achievements, then the entire premise is flawed and broken.
In your mind achievements have already been stolen, no amount of difficulty change would fix that for you.

Not at all. No one stole anyone's achievements.
In the past, players needed to understand and follow the mechanics if they wanted those achievements. Today, in many cases, players mainly need enough DPS to earn the exact same achievement.
That doesn't mean anyone's achievements were stolen. It means ZOS has allowed power creep to move the game further and further away from what the original encounters were designed around.

Originally, the process was something like:
Form a group -> learn and follow the mechanics -> beat the encounter within the required time -> earn the achievement.

Now, for some older content, it can become:
Form almost any group -> DPS the boss before the mechanics happen -> earn the same achievement.

That's the part I have a problem with. We're skipping a very important step: knowledge of the content and its mechanics.
If an achievement is supposed to show that you completed and mastered an encounter, why should understanding the encounter itself no longer be necessary?

EDIT:
And to be clear, I'm not saying anyone should lose their achievement. Every player who has earned one deserves it in their own way, whether they earned it by following the mechanics with lower DPS years ago, or by using today's high DPS to skip those mechanics. They completed the content, and they deserve the achievement they earned.
What I'm saying is that we should keep the core of the game intact and stop moving further away from it.

If all that matters is DPS, what are we actually playing at that point?

I have suggested this a thousand times and will do so again:

Mimic dungeon+ system to ESO as it is in games like World of warcraft. Maybe add your own flavor to it but the simple idea is that you can increase dungeon level so it gets harder in many ways but also the loot table gets better and there is a live ranking system too for competitive gameplay. It is optional and won't effect on the existing system, there would be something for everyone, older dungeons and dungeons in general become more active, e-sports style might lure in more active players, no need for nerfs and restrictions, lfg tool gets more real use.. I see only win-win-win. And with all the hybridization and subclasses system in place, Eso could become better and more lucrative in this versus for example Wow mythic+ which is highly active.

I really refuse to see any point why not do this and I honestly do not understand why they haven't done this already. Sure, some people will come to argue against this, you can never please everyone, but in this I know to be 100% right and this should be done to ESO.

If they could add a cap, they could also easily make that cap a percentage so it wouldn't matter whether you had a strong group or a weak group, you would all face mechanics, mobs and bosses at a relevant percentage to your combined power.

Power creep never affects a dungeon again, you could be a new group with lower DPS and you also wouldn't have to be super sweaty min-maxxer group that excludes anyone else joining in. Everything then would rely on learning mechanics.

No. It's a consequence of bad game design in the first place IMO. I've said it multiple times here and elsewhere that the game feels largely like a giant DPS race, no matter what "content" you are doing.

It's a problem, but it cannot be solved by pushing a blanket nerf. It would be better solved by changing the game's overall design or offering better mechanics.

I want to vote no, but neither option really fits my reason why.

IMO, we've already crossed the event horizon. The backlash and chaos could very well surpass the dumpster fire response we had to endure with U33. I don't have another one in me to wade through that kind of mess again.

I'm not a fan of skipping mechanics because I enjoy doing them, especially when I run as a tank. But when you have 12 people with their own lives and schedules, if the point of running a trial is to get it done, so be it if it just becomes a DPS burn. The trial has to be designed to force the mechanics. But as power levels and comfort with the trial grow over time, it's inevitable the DPS will take over. That's just the way it goes.

Ok, but how. Like mechanically, how would it work? Are you suggesting that the boss just becomes immune for 0.5s after receiving a certain amount of damage?

Caps on resistances or crit damage make mechanical sense: if(stat > cap) stat = cap
but a cap on damage, which can be from multiple different instances of damage over a period sounds a lot harder to program (and adds way more processing power needed to get it done). You'd essentially have to check a moving average of damage every frame to see if the enemies took too much damage and they need to be made immune for a period. That sounds like a programming nightmare.

I feel like there are lot of people who are convinced that "DPS" is a stat that the game calculates, not a result of having damage from WD/SD, crit chance, crit damage, and then how well you can sustain via max resources, and then buffs from self-sourcing and supports, and a host of other effects.

If someone wanted to put to another cap to rein in damage, the best is to cap an individual player stat, like WD/SD or crit chance. However, that would essentially end up making another U35 scenario where the mid-tier gets completely kneecapped, while the upper-levels just figure out how to build differently around the cap and then continue putting out insane damage, but now you need to be playing a hyperspecific setup to get there. U35, while it had noble goals of reining in power creep, failed miserably at the execution because it pushed out most of the mid-tier community and the damage number of the high end jumped right back up within a single patch, though now needing more technical understanding to get there (and therefore making high-end groups more exclusionary)

There is no problem with older content becoming easier over time. Heck, we took our social guild through a Kyne's trifecta a few weeks ago, which felt amazing to see - granted they had several high-level players essentially carrying - both tanks and about 3 of the DPS - but a lot of that was because damage has gone up over time so higher achievements are more accessible to other players.

Adding artificial caps like critical damage, actual damage for PvE is not a good solution in my opinion. Players should be able to use all of the game systems and increase their power, then feel the true power fantasy when playing against monsters.

However this should also not result in nuking trial bosses. One end of the players can prog Asylum Sanctorium for a month, while other end of players kill the boss in 45 seconds. That is a 90M health boss by the way.

I think at this point we have passed point of no return. Whichever solution they find it will probably upset one end of players.

From my understanding this level of power creep is intentional as ZOS wanted to boost participation and completion rates in end game PvE content. The ability to skip mechanics is part of why more people are able to get more completions. Everything is so easy now.

I’d prefer a new difficulty mode, “‘Master Mode” or something where enemies have health pools in line with current damage and the challenge is brought back. This likely won’t ever happen because ZOS confuses accessible with everything must be easy.

Valkanos wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

You’re dodging my questions entirely, and if you can’t provide an answer to how an idea like yours ships without erasing achievements, then the entire premise is flawed and broken.
In your mind achievements have already been stolen, no amount of difficulty change would fix that for you.

Not at all. No one stole anyone's achievements.
In the past, players needed to understand and follow the mechanics if they wanted those achievements. Today, in many cases, players mainly need enough DPS to earn the exact same achievement.
That doesn't mean anyone's achievements were stolen. It means ZOS has allowed power creep to move the game further and further away from what the original encounters were designed around.

Originally, the process was something like:
Form a group -> learn and follow the mechanics -> beat the encounter within the required time -> earn the achievement.

Now, for some older content, it can become:
Form almost any group -> DPS the boss before the mechanics happen -> earn the same achievement.

That's the part I have a problem with. We're skipping a very important step: knowledge of the content and its mechanics.
If an achievement is supposed to show that you completed and mastered an encounter, why should understanding the encounter itself no longer be necessary?

EDIT:
And to be clear, I'm not saying anyone should lose their achievement. Every player who has earned one deserves it in their own way, whether they earned it by following the mechanics with lower DPS years ago, or by using today's high DPS to skip those mechanics. They completed the content, and they deserve the achievement they earned.
What I'm saying is that we should keep the core of the game intact and stop moving further away from it.

If all that matters is DPS, what are we actually playing at that point?

Doing the mechanics and skipping the mechanics via high dps are not the only two ways to get these achievements and their rewards, so curbing dps won’t accomplish the goal of restricting the achievements to those who can learn and perform the mechanics.

This ship sailed a long time ago, when ZOS explicitly condoned paying for carries for these achievements and other rewards. In doing so, they not only separated those rewards from actually doing the mechanics but even separated them in many cases from doing anything meaningful in terms of negotiating the content at all. When one is allowed to arrange for carries, as is officially permitted in ESO, it’s hard to argue for the preservation of the original sense of the rewards as representative of mastery of mechanics in group content. Curbing dps would make the encounters harder for most players, but it wouldn’t eliminate carries. It would just make them more expensive due to the increased difficulty and the probability that more players would seek them out in response to the feeling that they can no longer work up to the higher bar of mastering the content.

The current path ZOS has taken with powercreep therefore doesn’t open up the rewards to players who couldn’t do the associated content. They already had a path to those rewards in the form of carries. What it does is encourage players to participate more meaningfully instead of resorting to carries. The difference is significant in a video game predicated on power fantasies, as mentioned above.

There was a similar shift in rewards for content mastery when ZOS moved arena weapons to normal difficulty (and refused to provide perfected weapons to those who had the non-perfected versions from vet). This put the most desirable rewards for solo content, where carries are not permitted, within reach for many more players. For all practical purposes it’s impossible to distinguish between a non-perfected weapon earned before that change on vet difficulty or a non-perfected weapon earned after the change on normal difficulty. Here ZOS deliberately lowered the bar for achieving the usable rewards so more players could attain them.

That approach is consistent with their nerfing of mechanics from older content over the years (especially DLC dungeons and trials) to make them more achievable for more people. As with the arena weapons, rewards from doing content as released before the nerfs are indistinguishable from rewards for clearing the same content after said nerfs. When ZOS is not interested in keeping the rewards restricted to the original difficulty of the content over time, and in fact seem interested in deliberately making it easier to attain those rewards through multiple approaches (lowering the difficulty while raising our dps), it would be hard to convince them to reverse course there, especially given the effect it would have in terms of discouraging players from the content.