Update 26 Combat Preview

Dracane · April 2020

@code65536 From your retelling of history alone, I would almost tend to agree with the developers. But you have not clearly mentioned the fact that Maelstrom weapons already possessed those stats. They used to grant roughly 1.5th of a normal 1 set piece and then they removed this.

Now they add it back in. So our weapons were nerfed and now they bring back what we lost but force us to farm it again. From this point of view, the players are most definately correct and understandably upset.

Unless they add something fancy to justify it, then this method is not good. I am certain all that will be done is giving all those weapons a 1 piece effect back, just like it used to be back then.

code65536 · April 2020

Dracane wrote: »

@code65536 From your retelling of history alone, I would almost tend to agree with the developers. But you have not clearly mentioned the fact that Maelstrom weapons already possessed those stats. They used to grant roughly 1.5th of a normal 1 set piece and then they removed this.

Now they add it back in. So our weapons were nerfed and now they bring back what we lost but force us to farm it again. From this point of view, the players are most definately correct and understandably upset.

Unless they add something fancy to justify it, then this method is not good. I am certain all that will be done is giving all those weapons a 1 piece effect back, just like it used to be back then.

@Dracane That is a line of argument that I do not wish to pursue. The reason is that the static stat bonuses were removed when the weapon effect was changed from an enchantment to a set bonus. I.e., it became possible to run "normal" enchantments on arena weapons. If you think about it how much power is added by a Weapon Damage enchantment versus a static value, the enchantment is stronger (in part because it's numerically stronger and in part because the stat bonus from a Berserker enchant can affect both bars). So, yes, the original stat bonuses were removed, but their removal coincided with a separate buff to the weapons, and the net effect was that the weapons were buffed.

Tanis-Stormbinder · April 2020

code65536 wrote: »

I want to try to cut through the noise a little and look at things from the developers' perspective. Look at where the they are coming from and why they see non-upgrade as the right thing to do. And try to explain why that perspective is so sharply at odds with how players see things.

Floating around various Discords are screenshots of a conversation that @ZOS_RichLambert had with a player who messaged him, in which Rich lays out ZOS's point of view.

How the developers see things...

The developers see Perfected arena weapons as something new. They've changed the sourcing of existing weapons to make them more accessible. And they've added new weapons to the game. And, since these are new things that they're introducing to the game, it makes sense that people have to acquire them from scratch. When a motif is added to a dungeon, you have to re-run that dungeon to get it and aren't retroactively granted copies from previous clears of that dungeon, so why should arena weapons be different?

How the players see things...

Most players don't see the weapons as new. Instead, they see it as a buff to the veteran reward weapons. And that the new thing isn't the Perfected weapon. Instead, the new things are the imperfect weapons that's being added to normal. From the players' perspective, rewards are being added to something that previously had no rewards (normal). It's the normal reward that are new, and existing rewards that are being buffed.

So what exactly is "new" here?

Both perspectives make sense. It all hinges on the question of, What new is being added here? Do we go with the developers' claim that Perfected is new, because Perfected Dragonstar/Maelstrom weapons had never existed before? Or do we go with the players' claim that Perfected is just a buff of existing veteran rewards and that non-Perfected is new, since normal had never granted weapons before?*

If people agree that Perfected weapons are "new", then the developers' perspective makes complete sense. If people agree that Perfected weapons are just a buff of existing weapons and that non-Perfected weapons are the truly "new" thing, then the developers' perspective fall apart.

Historical perspective: Master's weapons in 2016

I think the best analogue would be DSA's Master's weapons. In 2016, the Master's weapons that you'd get from DSA were VR14, back when the max player level was VR16. In the latter half of 2016, they introduced max-level Master's weapons. Everyone's existing VR14 weapons remained unchanged. If you wanted the new max-level Master's weapons, you had to run vDSA all over again and reacquire them all from scratch. And nobody batted an eye at this. Nobody complained about having to reacquire their weapons.

And I imagine the folks at ZOS are thinking right now, "This is no different than adding max-level Master's weapons in 2016, why the hell are players going crazy over this?!"

But there is one very important difference here: The addition of max-level Master's weapons coincided with the rescaling of Dragonstar Arena. DSA was no longer VR14 content, it was now max-level content, with a significant difficulty buff. You could no longer blow through vDSA with no support characters--you had to actually bring a tank and a healer. The incoming damage was increased significantly. The enemy health levels were buffed substantially. Portals granted damage immunity and you could no longer kill enemies before they even appeared out of the portal. The new max-level vDSA was a proper, difficult challenge.

It may have been the same content, but it was a new experience.

And I think the argument here for why the developers missed the mark is that their supposedly "new" arena gear does not require new experiences.

When you get new gear, it's associated with new content. There are, for example, new dungeon sets... that require running a new dungeon. Or, in the example that I just gave above, a new experience could be old content that had gotten a facelift.

Why the players are right

The main problem with the developers' perspective is that the means of acquisition is identical. It's hard to convince a player that something is "new" when the conditions of that reward are identical. Unlike the developers, players don't see this as Perfected vs. Imperfect. They see it as Veteran-difficulty-reward vs. Normal-difficulty-reward. ZOS thinks they are added a new reward. Players think that ZOS is buffing an existing reward, but not buffing it retroactively.

As I've said before, if ZOS changes the means of acquisition--either by buffing vMA or adding additional requirements (e.g., requiring a single-session clear; after all, Perfected Asylum weapons are rewarded not for simple vAS clears, but for vAS +2 clears, though that's looking increasingly like an aberrant outlier)--then what they suggest probably wouldn't have raised players' hackles nearly as much. But not when the requirements for acquisition are identical.

Point of comparison: Gear cap increases

As I had already mentioned with the 2016 Master's weapon buff, the closest analogue to ZOS's line of thinking are gear cap increases. As expected in ESO (and any other MMO), if the gear cap increases, existing gear doesn't get upgraded. You have to reacquire it.

And this fits with what @ZOS_RichLambert had been arguing: When gear cap increases, existing gear doesn't get nerfed. It just doesn't get the extra power that's being added. (Though to argue that existing gear doesn't lose power in absolute terms is a disingenuous argument despite being technically correct, because it's losing power in relative terms, because that's what matters in the long run.)

As I had already argued earlier, the main problem with comparing Perfected weapons to gear cap increases is that gear cap increases are associated with difficulty rescaling. When ESO introduced VR15/16 gear, it required that we defeat VR15/16 enemies that were tougher than older VR14 enemies. When DSA weapons were upgraded from VR14 to CP160, it required beating a DSA that had received a substantial buff to difficulty.

The second problem with comparing Perfected weapons to gear cap increases is that gear cap increases are extremely unpopular. Time and again, when players have discussed the potential of gear cap increases, the response has been overwhelmingly negative. People overwhelmingly don't like the idea of having to arbitrarily re-earn things.

So even if you could compare Perfected weapons to a gear cap increase (despite the lack of any "new experiences"), it's still not a very flattering comparison because gear cap increases are so widely reviled.

Point of comparison: Adding new drops to a dungeon

As I alluded to earlier, if extra rewards get added to a dungeon after its release--e.g., motifs--people don't clamor for making this rewards retroactive for previous clears. So... how's this different?

It's different because in the case of motifs, you go from nothing-is-dropping to something-is-dropping. With arena weapons, you already have a reward dropping in vet. It's not a new reward--it's a different reward. Or, as the players see it, it's the same reward with buffs. If we continue with this comparison, it's actually the normal modes that are seeing something new that hadn't existed before. Which fits in with the general player perspective that the vet rewards are buffed and that the actual new rewards are the normal weapons.

So... what's the point of this post?

I guess my target audience for this post is @ZOS_RichLambert and other devs, and my hope is that I'm able to convey the players' perspective, why it differs from the developers' perspective and why, if you are to pick between the two, the players' perspective makes more sense and the developers' perspective--while understandable--does not pass the muster.

I want this to be about convincing the devs to see things as we see them, without the anger and outrage that we see in 90% of the other posts here.

One last thing: Why this has touched a nerve with players

While this post is mostly to lay out why I think the developer perspective misses the mark, I also want to touch on why there's been so much anger in this thread (though this is irrelevant to the point that I want to make).

The first is the RNG of acquiring weapons. While it's possible to get extremely lucky (one of my alt accounts got an infused Inferno on its first and only run of vMA), there are just as many stories about people who aren't lucky. I know someone who has just two inferno staves, and at least 60 ice staves (they stopped keeping track after 60). I know people who have farmed vMA literally hundreds of times to get their gear. Too many people have been burned by the RNG for there to be anything other than anger at the suggestion that they would have to endure that all over again.

I've run vMA somewhere between 200 and 300 times, and I kinda enjoy it, but I'm able to enjoy it only because I already have my weapons and don't have this question of gear drops hanging over me when I run it. The very idea of having to battle the potentially brutal drop roulette all over again really saps the fun out of it, because the arena should be about battling the enemies in the arena, not the RNG drops, but that RNG is what often dominates the experience.

The second is the extremely strong player perception of disrespect coming from ZOS. Update 25 has been terrible. Performance has never been this bad, trials groups are cancelling runs or rescheduling them for weird hours, and I haven't seen morale this low in years. Yet there's been virtually no communication from ZOS about this important matter. All we have are vague reassurances about ongoing investigations. For many people, this arena weapon issue is yet another sign of disrespect coming from a company that had already expended the last of their goodwill with this Update 25 performance problems.

You need to do the right thing, Rich.

* Nitpicker's corner: Yes, I know that's not quite true, since back when DSA was still VR14 content, normal DSA dropped Master's weapons that were one level below max level.

As always very well articulated. In my opinion the right thing to do here is either have nMA drop a less powerful version of the current VMA weapons or upgrade existing versions of the current weapons. A More difficult solution would be to make the current version upgradeable or just to add a new Area. A more difficult mode of VMA would cheapened all my previous work.

Dracane · April 2020

code65536 wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

@code65536 From your retelling of history alone, I would almost tend to agree with the developers. But you have not clearly mentioned the fact that Maelstrom weapons already possessed those stats. They used to grant roughly 1.5th of a normal 1 set piece and then they removed this.

Now they add it back in. So our weapons were nerfed and now they bring back what we lost but force us to farm it again. From this point of view, the players are most definately correct and understandably upset.

Unless they add something fancy to justify it, then this method is not good. I am certain all that will be done is giving all those weapons a 1 piece effect back, just like it used to be back then.

@Dracane That is a line of argument that I do not wish to pursue. The reason is that the static stat bonuses were removed when the weapon effect was changed from an enchantment to a set bonus. I.e., it became possible to run "normal" enchantments on arena weapons. If you think about it how much power is added by a Weapon Damage enchantment versus a static value, the enchantment is stronger (in part because it's numerically stronger and in part because the stat bonus from a Berserker enchant can affect both bars). So, yes, the original stat bonuses were removed, but their removal coincided with a separate buff to the weapons, and the net effect was that the weapons were buffed.

Yes, I suppose that is true.
Hm from that perspective, I understand the developers then.

It would probably be best to let it go though and just do what the grand majority of people wishes. I don't want everyone to be so annoyed and angry again and again with each update. I wish they would manage to release an update that does not outrage everyone.

Tommy_The_Gun · April 2020

I did not remember that, but apparently, when ZOS changed 2-handed weapons to count as 2 set pieces, they also altered Arena Weapons and were mailing some of them to people as a compensate.
Example - you farmed 1 handed dagger and since dual wield vMA is now a 2 pcs set, you could not use it, unless you had 2nd part of the set - so you would receive an in-game email with missing item, right after update.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqLvjOugjw0&t=6m0s

7:24

So even if, it is some weird item ID coding issue that for example does not allow to change the name of the set (becous I know they can change any set bonus they want) and they can not change name and add "Perfected" prefix, but they want to keep it constant - they can simply mail it to people who have the previous version of the gear. Even if it will come in a random trait - I think people will be happy.

What_In_Tarnation · April 2020

I can imagine some people will farming nDSA & nMA weapons, so they can actually use them in lowbie PvP.

Elsonso · April 2020

code65536 wrote: »

I want to try to cut through the noise a little and look at things from the developers' perspective. Look at where the they are coming from and why they see non-upgrade as the right thing to do. And try to explain why that perspective is so sharply at odds with how players see things.

Nice writeup. One thing we do not know is whether any changes are planned for these arenas. Brian did not mention it, and it would not be his place, or his job, to do that. It would not be a cap increase, but there might be a difficulty delta. For that, we have to see the Patch Notes on Monday.

Honestly, though, my working assumption is that they just did the gear rework and did not touch anything else. I am still under the impression that ZOS has been operating with a skeleton crew for the last 6 years. The game is too large for the development team that they have, and the studio suits probably like it that way.

Anethum · April 2020

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

First, before Murkmire u nerfed weapons from veteran Maelstrom and Dragonstar Arena.
I remember very clear that they had 2 bonuses. Very clear.
Than u made weapons from Blackrose with 2 bonuses for Perfected versions of weapons.
And now u going to leave our weapons non-perfected ones...
it's about Attitude - You humiliate us all with this action.
It's a case.
It's disquisting.

Now, u doing this...
Idk how others (thuth is others hate weapons farm alsmost everyone), but i've spent ridiculous amount of time with hating myself to farm Maelstrom inferno, Daggers (got daggers at last day before Patch when u made them useless for few years, id if they usable now, almost left last 1,5 years) and Bow. It's many many hundrets of hours. And i coudn't predict when i able to get them. Random chance hallo. Sadism.
i take it too serious, because...I remember all feelings i've had there.
I hate maelstrom with all it's desyncs and bugged from time to time mechanics.
All that hits u get before animations done or without any animations or sounds at all. All that poison curses u've got being far from flowers at poison arena, all that dodges, when u get oneshot into face anyway. I remember everything.
I literally hated myself to follow this unfair annoying full of frustration route. Burned out.
I never able to repeat this experience.
It's my lifetime killing. Without any enjoy and stable reward.
Respect this. Not funny. Attitude.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler if u will not make my (farmed in veteran versions of Maelstrom and DSA arenas!) perfected ones automatic, if it's your Policy, if u don't understand that it's humiliation - it's the end. Clear? It's not funny. At all.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno u must automatically upgrade our arena weapons to perfected ones! It's a Case!

ninibini · April 2020

code65536 wrote: »

The second is the extremely strong player perception of disrespect coming from ZOS. Update 25 has been terrible. Performance has never been this bad, trials groups are cancelling runs or rescheduling them for weird hours, and I haven't seen morale this low in years. Yet there's been virtually no communication from ZOS about this important matter. All we have are vague reassurances about ongoing investigations. For many people, this arena weapon issue is yet another sign of disrespect coming from a company that had already expended the last of their goodwill with this Update 25 performance problems.

Well said.

ZOS_FalcoYamaoka · April 2020

Greetings,
We had to remove some posts as it violated our rules around bad language and baiting. Please be sure to keep discussions civil and constructive. If you have any questions about the actions being taken, please take a moment to review our community rules here.

tactx · April 2020

I try to imagine how these meetings go at ZOS where a room full of people somehow agree that it makes sense to not upgrade VMA weps already obtained. I think it's out of laziness to just perform the upgrade and to force those to run VMA again with zero regard for past efforts and frustration.

Then again I've seen what a room full of gaming "leadership" is vs actual business leaders and it all starts to become clear.

Ridiculous.

BennyButton · April 2020

code65536 wrote: »

Historical perspective: Master's weapons in 2016

I think the best analogue would be DSA's Master's weapons. In 2016, the Master's weapons that you'd get from DSA were VR14, back when the max player level was VR16. In the latter half of 2016, they introduced max-level Master's weapons. Everyone's existing VR14 weapons remained unchanged. If you wanted the new max-level Master's weapons, you had to run vDSA all over again and reacquire them all from scratch. And nobody batted an eye at this. Nobody complained about having to reacquire their weapons.

Don't forget about the v3.2.5 Clockwork City update that included changes to the Master weapons where they MAILED out a shield for every one hand weapon people had to complete a set that they ALREADY had (before the update).

yafgiuk · April 2020

To fix netcode or to stick it to veteran players. Hmmm. What a choice!

Gamer1986PAN · April 2020

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

I did not remember that, but apparently, when ZOS changed 2-handed weapons to count as 2 set pieces, they also altered Arena Weapons and were mailing some of them to people as a compensate.
Example - you farmed 1 handed dagger and since dual wield vMA is now a 2 pcs set, you could not use it, unless you had 2nd part of the set - so you would receive an in-game email with missing item, right after update.
youtube-link removed
7:24

So even if, it is some weird item ID coding issue that for example does not allow to change the name of the set (becous I know they can change any set bonus they want) and they can not change name and add "Perfected" prefix, but they want to keep it constant - they can simply mail it to people who have the previous version of the gear. Even if it will come in a random trait - I think people will be happy.

they did change the normal items with enchantment to set items with no enchantment. If they are not able to change all current msa/dsa weapons to perfect versions they should dump their code and make it new. it could be a search and replace hotfix before update 26 is active to change all existing weapons to perfect versions and only add the new less stronger weapons for normal arenas with the current name/set names.

eric_m · April 2020

Alinhbo_Tyaka · April 2020

Elsonso wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

I want to try to cut through the noise a little and look at things from the developers' perspective. Look at where the they are coming from and why they see non-upgrade as the right thing to do. And try to explain why that perspective is so sharply at odds with how players see things.

Nice writeup. One thing we do not know is whether any changes are planned for these arenas. Brian did not mention it, and it would not be his place, or his job, to do that. It would not be a cap increase, but there might be a difficulty delta. For that, we have to see the Patch Notes on Monday.

Honestly, though, my working assumption is that they just did the gear rework and did not touch anything else. I am still under the impression that ZOS has been operating with a skeleton crew for the last 6 years. The game is too large for the development team that they have, and the studio suits probably like it that way.

I disagree. It is well within Brian's area of responsibility to mention that the reason for not allowing an upgrade is tied to other changes being made in the arena's. The various development groups don't work in a vacuum and are all interdependent on each other. It is perfectly acceptable for one group to state their changes are being made due to changes in other areas without divulging confidential information. In fact it is the lack of this type of a comment that makes me believe there are no other changes driving this other than ZOS trying to meet a long time player request for Maelstrom weapons to be made available in normal mode.

bayushi2005 · April 2020

...

tactx wrote: »

I try to imagine how these meetings go at ZOS where a room full of people somehow agree that it makes sense to not upgrade VMA weps already obtained. I think it's out of laziness to just perform the upgrade and to force those to run VMA again with zero regard for past efforts and frustration.

Then again I've seen what a room full of gaming "leadership" is vs actual business leaders and it all starts to become clear.

Ridiculous.

I guess none of them had to run vMA hundreds of times to get their versions of these weapons...

Freeflyer212 · April 2020

Wow, you know what screw this game lol. Spending 30 mins on VMA, just to have a crappy rng system that might or might not give you the weapon you seek, only to add on top of that it might not be the trait you want so you have to grind for crystals. NAH. Vma and it's headache mechanics are not worth it. I'm not running it a thousands times just to get a hopefully perfected version of the weapon I need.

karekiz · April 2020

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

BennyButton wrote: »

Guys enough with the real life examples, there are enough in game examples:

Imagine if Immortal Redeemer was made to work in Normal Asylum Sanctorium and they made a new title for vAS+2, and everyone who got Immortal Redeemer had to re-run vAS+2 for the achievement they already earned.

I mean, if "Flawless Conqueror" and "Stormproof" were being adding to normal Maelstrom that example would make sense...

This is more like adding a deathless or trifecta title to Dragonstar Arena (which has never had one, and should because that would be fun) and everyone outraged that they don't have the new title unlocked retroactively because they met the requirements once 4 years ago.

Shhh your repeated logic posts aren't good for the forums here.

Elsonso · April 2020

bayushi2005 wrote: »

...

tactx wrote: »

I try to imagine how these meetings go at ZOS where a room full of people somehow agree that it makes sense to not upgrade VMA weps already obtained. I think it's out of laziness to just perform the upgrade and to force those to run VMA again with zero regard for past efforts and frustration.

Then again I've seen what a room full of gaming "leadership" is vs actual business leaders and it all starts to become clear.

Ridiculous.

I guess none of them had to run vMA hundreds of times to get their versions of these weapons...

I don't know about "hundreds" but I know they run vMA.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1249845278607360005

TequilaFire · April 2020

We might want to consider that it was not only Brian's decision but his boss's or a team decision.

Shantu · April 2020

Dracane wrote: »

I still believe Brian had no vile intention and thought it was going to be fine with the community. He will likely add to it on monday.

I don't believe any of these devs are particularly vile in their intentions. It's just that time and time again they seem so completely out of touch with what combat players prefer. It's feels continually offensive and results in the attrition of interest and joy. If this goes live, it's definitely time for a break.

FirmamentOfStars · April 2020

I wanted to give my feedback about this in here too. I spent some time thinking all this changes through and here it is:

Werewolf update sounds good. In PvE werewolves were rarely used and if they were, it was some light attack build without casting any skills. So I guess any change there is welcome.

Standardization is not always positive. We have seen, that classes became more and more dull on pretty much same but with different colors. Still I am curious to see changes to monster sets, since there are many of them rarely used and an update there might create more build diversity.

Updates to other sets and proc chances or conditions. I actually am excited to hear more about this. Many old sets are just not good enough anymore and I like to see them used more frequently again. Proc chances can be good or bad, since it means you have to build for a proc to happen often (at least in some cases like skoria proccing from dots, so that you have to play around with several dot sources to proc it often). Another set where proc chance makes it bad is winterborn, since there are just not really a lot of good ice damage sources to make this set useful. On the other hand I like the concept of having fix proc conditions with cooldowns. This makes the proc more or like a controlled burst or utility thingy instead of passively getting the proc randomly over and over again.

Perfect versions of MSA and DSA weapons sounds not bad, since they are from old content and should be brought up to the current other abilty altering weapons. Both of those weapons already had additional 1-piece boni, so it is fair to get them back. I am also curious to see their ability altering effect being changed, so that some of them are maybe useful again and worthy to use. Generally I would be happy about this change, if it would not come together with the introduction of normal versions and the following statement:

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

People spent many hours to get the current arena weapons. At some point the drops were not guaranteed, it was a time sink, since the rng was not always kind to the players, additionally transmutation was no thing back then. People went for many runs to get the desired item and then it dropped in a *** trait. To get the right item with the right trait meant hundreds of runs. Back then one run was hard and long work and people almost lost their sanity in there and got the wrong item in the end. Nowadays we luckily have transmutation, still you first have to get the desired item, which means doing like 1-20 runs based on your luck. Now all this time spent will be devalued by not upgrading the already acquired weapons to perfect ones. People already did the content to earn perfect weapons, but the devs deny that. All this time the people spent is now euqual to doing an easy run on normal, which is possible with low level chars and light attacking the npcs to death. Those many hours are worth nothing to the devs.

Today I did some test run of vMSA, score and time you can see in the link. I would say it was a decent run, still it took me 42 minutes (if I wanted I probably could do it in 40 mins or less). Meaning with porting in and out farming the weapons again would take me like 45 mins per run. Till I get my desired perfect weapon, I probably have to spend 10 hours for something I already earned. And I know the perfect weapons probably will not have huge impact, since it is a backbar weapon and the additional stat is probably worth 0.5% more dps...still people in end content want and need every bit of dps, so most of them will go for those weapons. Also it was said, that also the ability altering effects will see small changes for standardization. In summary, it is just a devaluation of the time we already spent there, since new players get the same stuff we worked hard for in the easy normal mode.

Changes to PvP are always welcome, if done right. The proposed changes of making battlespirit reducing healing by 60% instead of 50% doesnt seem to be though out truly. First off one problem is the healing of allies, where cross healing is too much the bigger the groups, that people overheal and can play carelessly, since the healing per second in zergs or groups is ridiculous. In most cases self healing is fine. So basically small scalers and solo players are punished here, meanwhile larger groups keep overhealing anyway. I agree self healing with cps is kind of strong, but on a reasonable level. On the other hand no cp self healing can not take a nerf. This will punish the classes with lower healing capabilities or without damage reducing or avoiding mechanims more than the classes, where healing actually looks overtuned. Magsorcs (the best magclass for solo or smallscale), stamdens, stamnecros and stamdks will not see much difference in healing thanks to their either high healing abilities, high mitigation or avoidance of damage by shields and mobility. What I think should be looked at instead of healing is the stacking of passive and longlasting mitigation tools. A stamina necromancer can stack major protection from deaden pain (30%) which also grants additional 3% mitigation, minor protection from temporal guards (8%), minor maim from lets say heroic/deep slash (15%), spirit guardian (10%), less dot damage from disdain harm passive (15%), wearing potentates (5%), using the new spectral cloak (mitigation yet unknown) and aoe mitigation from blade cloak (25%). This all without any cps is paired with average or strong healing capabilities. The mechanism of stacking all those different mitigation tools makes characters overly tanky but appear to heal like crazy, because while healing they do not take much damage. Please before adjusting healing through battlespirit, try to reduce cross healing and stacking of mitigation sources.

The changes to impenetrable and granting a base critical resistances sound good to me, as long as impenetrable does not get nerfed tremendiously. The current value should maybe be lowered from 250 per piece to 200 or 175 at most, meanwhile 750 to 1000 base critical resistances sound like a good baseline. Therefore people can get more critical resistances than before, if they want, but also can invest into other traits. Additionally maybe have a look at some traits like invigorating, which are by far not even comparable to the traits like sturdy, divine and impen.

In summary I am excited to see the werewolf changes and updates to sets, also to see perfected arena wepaons coming. I am also curious about the critical resistance changes as long as impenetrable does not get hammered down to being not useful at all. On the other hand I really dislike the healing adjustements in PvP through battlespirit, since self healing is not a problem in PvP and not the root of the current tank meta. Additionally I dislike the idea of not upgrading the already earned MSA and DSA weapons. People already earned them in vMSA and therefore should get perfected ones. Its a discgrace, that their invested time is not valued by you devs and instead hand the same weapons we all have in the easy normal mode to everyone. Upgrading them should not be a real coding problem. If you want to invest a little bit time into that, the negative backlash will be minimal.

Thx for reading

goldenarcher1 · April 2020

Elsonso wrote: »

bayushi2005 wrote: »

...

tactx wrote: »

I try to imagine how these meetings go at ZOS where a room full of people somehow agree that it makes sense to not upgrade VMA weps already obtained. I think it's out of laziness to just perform the upgrade and to force those to run VMA again with zero regard for past efforts and frustration.

Then again I've seen what a room full of gaming "leadership" is vs actual business leaders and it all starts to become clear.

Ridiculous.

I guess none of them had to run vMA hundreds of times to get their versions of these weapons...

I don't know about "hundreds" but I know they run vMA.

https://twitter.com/SlashLurk/status/1249845278607360005

There are plenty of peoples hands shaking in this thread.

Mortiis13 · April 2020

marius_buys wrote: »

BohnT2 wrote: »

Are you aware that healing isn't all that big of an issue but rather the naturally high health pools and the abstinence of being burstable for most of the time, due to casttimes on ults, lack of offensive CCs.
@ZOS_BrianWheeler

I tend to agree, I now regularly see top players 1vXX and take no damage despite simultaneous multiple debuffs and ultimates. If anything you need to look at how much damage LOS and structures absorb with players playing ring-a-rosie around and in structures. It's simply ridiculous and it favors heavy armor to a point of unfairness.

Sry, but if a serious pvp player don't use the terrain to his advantage he can't blame others to do it. And everyone is able to get the same stats(sets) as the top dog, can use the the same skills set and getting better just by paying attention and some work.(besides those with health issues)
But the major of the player base is simply to lazy for that, want everything for free and if someone is simply better at this game and can deal with X lesser skilled players they cry for nerfs (that will nerf em more than the top dog btw)

I can handle 1 vs x against lesser skilled players, but if someone joined with equally skillful play i have big troubles and maybe kill 2,3 people and then die.

I don't think the 10% less healing will change much as same as baseline impen.
If u Realy want to cut this highdmg/heal meta, u simply have to scale dmg only by spell/weapon dmg and healing only by max resource (balancing this out is not my territory).

But maybe I'm totally wrong. 😅

Suddwrath · April 2020

ZOS isn't doing themselves any favors by not responding to this thread. Brian provided a clarification to a question mere minutes after having posting this update, but 26 pages later we've received only crickets from ZOS. There is no way the devs did not anticipate the negative player feedback from this decision, so they had ample time to have a response ready for it. Brian isn't being caught off guard by the community's response. They had to have known it was coming.

So I ask: Why the silence?

ZOS has come under fire countless times in the past for poor communication. Whether it was regarding a game-breaking bug, performance issue, creative decision, balancing decision, etc.. In those situations ZOS was inexplicably silent which only added to the community's frustration. We've received reassurances in the past that this communication would improve, but very little has changed.

Time and time again ZOS has remained virtually silent on significant issues or questions the community has, so again I ask: Why the silence?

It simply doesn't make sense. Especially in this case as an explanation for this decision should have been ready, and forcing the community to wait until Monday to read it in the patch notes (if it's even there) is a poor choice.

Elsonso · April 2020

SaltySudd wrote: »

So I ask: Why the silence?

Weekend. During the week, there will be other reasons, but that is the one for today. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ixtyr · April 2020

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ESO subreddit mods are aggressively deleting all posts related to this. Bunch of shills.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/g3nzj5/any_time_zenimax_makes_a_dumb_change/

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/g3o8c0/perfected_zos_2_items_deals_833_additional_damage/

We remove common threads for any topic so the sub doesn't get absurdly spammy. Has nothing to do with this particular change. There's plenty of dialogue over on the sub discussing this that we've left untouched to let the community have their say. Those threads are also pretty much just low-quality garbage meme posts, so not exactly constructive (and breaks the sub rules).

Woeler · April 2020

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ESO subreddit mods are aggressively deleting all posts related to this. Bunch of shills.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/g3nzj5/any_time_zenimax_makes_a_dumb_change/

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/g3o8c0/perfected_zos_2_items_deals_833_additional_damage/

Yea, because they are low quality garbage memes. Which have been against the subs rules since it was founded. There are plenty non-cringe threads discussing the issue in a normal manner.

And as per my very first comment in this thread, I think these changes are annoying as well. So it's not like we differ in opinion there.

jimmulvaney · April 2020

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

I do not have a dog in this fight as I am still stuck in vet Theater of Pain (and boy is it painful) but I would seriously reconsider this line of logic or at the very least provide a compromise. For example a currency system similar to Tel Var, where you can buy your type of item with a random trait, also similar to what we have with the Undaunted vendors...? If it were up to me there would be a currency system for all trials and arenas, that locks off higher tier items via achievements, which is already done with the achievement furniture vendor. You have all the capability to do all these things (including upgrading the current veteran weapons to perfected) as we have all already seen in the past. This currency system would also make the harder content much more accessible to new players, and more enticing.