Gameplay Updates and Q&A with Eric Wrobel

Didgerion · February 2016

Finally the cloak got nerfed.....but why was this awful mechanic chosen?

Why didn't you borrow the old Piercing Mark mechanic over the Mage Light....let Mage Light reveal the player just for the caster.

And why did you screw with Piercing Mark ability?.....it was supposed to reveal the marked target just to the caster.....now if you mark the target he cannot use cloak anymore - was it intended?

ClockworkArc · February 2016

Leon119 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno
Not specifically a combat or gameplay question but i would like to ask, just how you did on your post here, if you would be able to post the reasoning the devs have behind each skill and class change that happens.
I do realise that this can be a major hustle because of the size of the patch notes ww usually have but i believe it would increase the playerbase's clarity quite a bit and make us understand your thought process as well which will lead to better feedback and an overall improvement to the game.

Id rather not mention any other games but nonetheless on League of Legends with over 120 characters to choose to play as every single balance change has a paragraph explaining the change and the thought process behind it taking into account profesionals and casuals alike

I second this 100%. The rage on the forums, while sometimes funny, is fairly off-putting.

League once gave a rationale for nerfing Kayle's base damage BY 3 (which, as you've guessed, is almost nothing) and pretty much nobody complained because they explained why (Kayle was outperforming other jungler's in her initial clear and due to her utility and strength throughout the game they wanted to make sure there was a weakness in her jungle while keeping her viable in other roles, so they nerfed her average initial jungle clear speed by like 10 seconds).

I feel like if in a similar situation say Two-Handed weapons had their base damage nerfed by 3, it would be Armageddon.

zerosingularity · February 2016

My main questions have mostly been asked in the other official threads, but a short breakdown of things I would like answered are as follows:

Can we get some more skills/ultimates use poison/disease or physical damage, to better balance stamina user's identity vs magicka users? Many skills/ultimates benefit stamina users greatly, and would be amazing to use, but because of the CP system, have poor dps compared to the usual alternatives. (Killer's Blade vs Executioner, Power Extraction vs Steel tornado, and poor ult damage scaling.)

Are there any plans to balance the Battle res+Kagrenac's Hope+Templar combo? With the massive decrease in AP costs to get rank 10, this problem is going to be much more rampant. There were many great ideas posted about how to mitigate this problem.

Many more skills need to be looked into and revised than what was mentioned, will these be iterated on next incremental or for dark brotherhood? Additionally, will the item trait revamp and racial passive revamp come with the Dark Brotherhood DLC?

There are other questions and comments in the official threads posted prior, but I will stop here.

Didgerion · February 2016

What is going on with magica and stamina skills numbers?

Looks like the magica players have a bigger variety of skills to choose from on any class (awfully noticeable on Sorcerer class).

There should be as many damaging and self healing stamina skills per class as there are magica based ones.

DuckNoodles · February 2016

@Wrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno
Why do templars, keep getting nerfed?
All other classes get buffed but templars are always on the back burner.....

Templars Dps is terrible, shielding is terrible, mobility is terrible, compared to other classes, and that's fact.

The only thing templars had going for them was healing, now that's been nerfed (no one cares about healing ritual, even with the poor buff it's not going to get used - remove the skill all together and replace it with a new one)

Templars are the weakest class in the game right now and always have been, and will still be weak, when TG rolls in......

Zos needs to seriously start buffing the templar so its in line with all other classes.
Templars skills need to be looked at hard and reworked.

Kind regards

Celas_Dranacea · February 2016

Glad to hear you are toning down magelight. As a stamblade I was trying my best to handle all the changes with grace, but the op-ness of Mage light was really too much for me.

FENGRUSH · February 2016

Well there you have it stam sorcs. We havent been loud enough to get a bullet point in this thread.

Make some noise, make some threads stam sorcs. Make them everywhere.

Ghostbane · February 2016

Will the rule of healing in Cyrodill be updated to ignore % based heals, specifically what is going on with Dragonblood?

Heals you for 33% of missing health, in Cyrodill, this is 16%. Absolutely not worth the space on your bar. The recent additional healing changes to other abilities are flattering, but we would like the option to viably use our class heal in pvp

I have yet to see an official comment on this, anywhere.

Eric, could you take a moment and shed some light on what the situation is and what resolution we can come too?

ZOS_GinaBruno · February 2016

Thanks for your questions so far, everyone. We understand some of you are frustrated over some of the changes, but please do your best to stay constructive. In the end, this will help us better address your concerns on Friday.

Just to clarify one point, we did not make the change to Breath of Life by watching streams - these streams were after the fact as @lordrichter suggested on page 1. The feedback we've seen from livestreams (in addition to some forum posts and other avenues) show that Templars running through the new Trial and testing the ability change with their build are still able to successfully heal and have a positive impact on their group.

AOECAPS · February 2016

@Wrobel @ZOS_GinaBruno
Why is toppling charge still bugging out?
Why did you gift radiant ward the most lackluster "buff" it's easily the worse shield in the game in Cyrodiil my shield is like 2k because it's based on health lmao
Why do Templars have easily the worst passives in the game? balanced warrior and cost reduction are the only ones worth a damn.
How hard is it to balance a class? Did a Templar kill you once while you were on your NB so you decided to nerf them?
There is a reason that stamplars are the lowest played class in game and other than healbots same goes for mag Templars

marvel_bound · February 2016

Can changes please be made to vampires drain ability currently it only heals for 10% of your missing health each second which really isnt worth puuting in my bar i suggest may change it so that it heals you according to max health not missing health. Even if the percentage was reduced from 10% to 5% it would still be more useful and would worth using or even just make its so the damage is increased based on missing health. Can i get some feedback on this
Does anyone else agree

marvel_bound · February 2016

Sorcs overload ultimate is often reflected back at me it almost makes me not want to use it in pvp

marvel_bound · February 2016

Can vampires get better active skills i nean werewolves have many abilities that deal damage but vampires reall ony have ine besides the ultimate which is the drain ability which isnt even effective. Maybe even gives some of the bloodfiends abilties or just make it a vampire lord transfornation like werewolves with a few active skills and passives and the negative that only apply while in vampire form. Currently the negatives of being a vampire outeweigh the benefits

Zheg · February 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Thanks for your questions so far, everyone. We understand some of you are frustrated over some of the changes, but please do your best to stay constructive. In the end, this will help us better address your concerns on Friday.

Just to clarify one point, we did not make the change to Breath of Life by watching streams - these streams were after the fact as @lordrichter suggested on page 1. The feedback we've seen from livestreams (in addition to some forum posts and other avenues) show that Templars running through the new Trial and testing the ability change with their build are still able to successfully heal and have a positive impact on their group.

Yes, but you've yet to see how this impacts pvp eh? But not really a big surprise there, with wheeler and wrobel as the wonder twins, we get a crap pvp meta of aoe FPS like the one you guys just unveiled.

Didgerion · February 2016

Hi Mr. @Wrobel here is a riddle for you:

How can a Stam Sorc win a duel in a weaponless fight?

avelopolcakb14a_ESO · February 2016

In reading through these threads and playing the PTS, it's painfully obvious that ZOS has no real cohesion for what it wants out of this game. You guys some hefty work to do if you want to retain players. I just started playing again and am already dissatisfied with the state of the game after maybe 1 month's play.
I play as a magicka templar and was looking for the heavy-armored cleric or Knight playstyle taughted in all of the advertisements for this game? Where is that vision? Why does everyone run around in 5L/1M/1H. This doesn't seem like a glaring oversight in basic game balance? How about the awful zerging that goes on in PVP? You think AOE caps are helping this situation with how it affectively gives passive dodge to large groups?

Why are you nerfing templar heals and giving them nothing in return. With all the conversation going on about resource management, class balance, and these glaringly borked skills, why do you continue to ignore these complaints? It's appalling that this industry still has no accountability for the products that it makes. You'd never survive financially if you were made to refund all this faulty bullcrap in your game, yet get a free pass because it's intellectual property and not a physical thing I can take back to the store and express my dissatisfaction face to face.

Zavus · February 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*] Siphoning Attacks: We plan on increasing the resources provided by this ability in the next incremental patch.

Honestly I would prefer if this ability would remain the way it is on live atm. Nerfing the ability's chance to proc on each individual tick on a DoT skill completely ruins the ability. Might as well not even slot the skill to begin with if it can't do that.

The chance for it to proc on each tick is an ESSENTIAL part of many stamina/tank nightblade builds. It makes it truly impossible to do vMA without it. If the ability doesn't proc off DoTs, even 2k regen won't be enough to sustain yourself in vMA. Your resources are drained blocking, rolling, healing, and dpsing every second in the arena. You already weave in light attacks in your rotation while dpsing, but that's nowhere near enough to keep you up.

As far as tanking goes, I already found it extremely hard to weave in light attacks without losing half my health. I have to risk losing a chunk of my health by dropping block to light attack and get a very small amount of resources back. Twisting Path and Caltrops were really useful in sustaining my resources during long fights where I had to tank lots of adds.

Are you guys planning on making all tanks DKs? If so I didn't get the memo.. I really hate the dwindling diversity of tanks ever since the stam regen nerf was introduced.

Tanis-Stormbinder · February 2016

Would like to see the Balanced Warrior passive increase spell damage.

hobicabobjob · February 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Templars appear to still be very useful using this ability in conjunction with others. This includes using Focused Healing which now grants you the Major Mending buff, or Healing Ritual which has a decreased cast time.

No players really believe this.

Calandrae · February 2016

I really hope you'd stop and read all the feedback you have been given about Templars. And then reconsider what you are doing with and to the class. I have played a Templar as my main for a long time now, and truly love the class. I have other characters, too, but really wouldn't want to give up on my favourite class and playstyle (healing, and healing also not-so-skillful groups, either pugs or groups with people new to the game). So please start listening to the majority of players.

Is it really enough for us Templars to still be somewhat useful and "have a positive effect on the group"? What about actually being really good at something like other classes are?

marvel_bound · February 2016

Will we ever be able to learn new skills from
In schools of magic........Like idk maybe necromantic type abilities from conjuration

maxjapank · February 2016

Tanis-Stormbinder wrote: »

Would like to see the Balanced Warrior passive increase spell damage.

Yes. This is also an easy fix, and will help Templars.

bowmanz607 · February 2016

If not this update, will we see a change to the damage type that certain skills and ultimates use? For instance, killers blade. Many skills that are stamina based do magic damage.

Ashtaris · February 2016

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Thanks for your questions so far, everyone. We understand some of you are frustrated over some of the changes, but please do your best to stay constructive. In the end, this will help us better address your concerns on Friday.

Just to clarify one point, we did not make the change to Breath of Life by watching streams - these streams were after the fact as @lordrichter suggested on page 1. The feedback we've seen from livestreams (in addition to some forum posts and other avenues) show that Templars running through the new Trial and testing the ability change with their build are still able to successfully heal and have a positive impact on their group.

Oh, you mean those casual groups like Hodor, one of the most hard core PVE guilds in the game, or the group with Alcast? Yep, I'm sure the rest of us appreciate you getting your streaming feedback from those slackers

CP5 · February 2016

Here's a question, are there any plans to change how skills gain bonus power from having more maximum resources. Currently if you don't pool all of your attribute points into stamina or magicka you are generally limiting what your build can do.

Also, are there any plans to make health more valuable of a resource to put points into? Currently with the high damage meta you only need enough health to not die in one shot as heals and damage make having large pools of health beyond that both redundant, and somewhat detrimental as you then do less damage.

As a side note i've been thinking of a few odd ideas. Things like the power of heals, shields, and supportive buffs scaling somehow off of health. Such as more heals being based on a % of the targets health (making low health builds real glass cannons). Just a random perspective I wanted to throw out there.

MaxwellC · February 2016

@Wrobel @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno

Please give me answers for the following.
#1. Will Dragonknights ever receive a stamina version of molten whip or flame lash?
#2. Will Dragonknights ever receive the old Flames of Oblivion (AoE DoT of flaming doom that drained magicka each second)
#3. When will Dragons blood be fixed. 16.5% in PvP is horrible sorry doesn't work also my buffs don't stack or increase the recovery provided by each morph when using potions.
#4. When will DragonKnights receive more stamina class morphs? I'm tired of using Wrecking blow and other weapon skills for my DPS
#5 .When will DragonKnights Ultimate Standard of might (and other morphs) and dragon leap (and other morphs) be fixed? I'm tired of wasting my ultimate because it gets consumed without being used. Need video proof because I'll gladly supply the multitude of videos I have about this issue.
thanks that is all.

Orpheaus · February 2016

tinythinker wrote: »

Hello, any one or two of these questions will do:

- Any further changes planned for Eclipse/Total Dark? Any chance of a penalty for players breaking free from it since they get CC immunity and we can't recast right away? Maybe a burst of significant damage, a stun, or something else to make it risky to pop the bubble? Would also add some challenge to the NPCs who use the ability.

- Any further changes planned for Healing Ritual to make it stand out and to balance the self-snare during the cast? The size of the heal is supposed to be the payoff but many players find it impractical in situations where being able to run/dodge at any given second is a must. Maybe adding something like an Evasion Buff for two seconds and/or gaining Expedition after? Perhaps changing the way it heals or even having it buff the group somehow?

- Any chance to add a stun, disorient, knockdown, or something along those lines to the Sunshield explosion?

- Any chance to adding "enemies whose melee attacks are blocked receive Minor Maim" to the Spear Wall passive? This would help with Templars fighting inside their Rune circle. (And speaking of that Rune circle, could standing in it add a second or two to CC immunity?)

Thank you very much for your time.

I really like the idea of a buff on Healing Ritual to make it worth casting. Even if it were something as small as a 2% stacking dmg buff for your group that had say a 10s duration and every stack increased it to a maximum of 10-12%.

Farorin · February 2016

Not gonna lie. This is pretty terrible news for me seeing as my two Mains are a stamina NB (now essentially going to be useless thanks to the double same of cloak nerfs, and buffs to cloak counters, I would change class if I could seeing as how *** it seems things are going to be when it hits live), and a Stam Templar (which everyone except for ZOS seems to realize is underpowered).

MikeB · February 2016

Am I glad I stopped playing a week before Thieves Guild DLC patch notes. With ZOS' history I just knew this was going to be horrible. ESO is becoming a crappier game every update (imo) and that's a hard feat to accomplish considering how bad it started at.

Celas_Dranacea · February 2016

Eric - how do you feel about the balance between magicka and stamina builds in the thieves guild patch so far? Is there anything further that can be done to improve it?

Gameplay Updates and Q&amp;A with Eric Wrobel

Gameplay Updates and Q&A with Eric Wrobel