Surprise surprise, Blastbones and Animate Blastbones (ulti) are unusable in PvP now.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2

A bug reported early on in the PTS cycle persisted to the live patch, and we still aren't even sure if the dev team is aware of it.

Tested this morning in IC, Blastbones was failing to cast over 50% of the time, and Animate Blastbones simply does nothing - consumes three corpses, but 0 blastbones are spawned. Blastbones would work the first 2 or 3 casts of the fight, then fail for the next two or 3. Rinse and repeat.

If the PTS isn't used to fix bugs like this before live, even when those bugs are reported through official channels early on in the cycle, what exactly is PTS used for? Clearly its not used to ensure a class' core ability functions.

IncultaWolf · June 2

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno

Multiple necromancer abilities are failing to properly function after these changes. It was reported weeks ago on pts, and video evidence has been provided.

Please acknowledge this, it's game breaking and something a lot of players will have to deal with using subclassing. For a paid class, we deserve better.

Durham · June 2

There has been no response on the PTS.

randconfig · June 2

@ZOS_Kevin as I've pointed out many times, and as the post here points out, the changes to corpses makes the Animate Blastbones unusable in PvP. Really disappointed nothing was done to address this, and all Necromancer corpse consuming abilities, including tethers, require more micromanagement and are even less reliable than they were pre-46.

The logic behind these changes, without any adjustments to Necromancer corpse consuming abilities, is clear as mud.

ZOS_GinaBruno · June 2

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

IncultaWolf · June 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

At this point I think Blastbones should just be reworked into being not considered an AI, like what was just done this patch with the summon from Mad Tinkerer. There's just so many bugs associated with it, such as it not counting towards battleground score/medals, cannot proc any sets in the game, and can be negated despite it being a stamina costing ability. Also if Blastbones gets the killing blow in pvp, your name isn't broadcasted in the kill feed.

ZOS_GinaBruno · June 2

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

Nobody said Blastbones being unusable is intended. What's intended is there is a limitation of 5 summons or corpses of summons in PvP areas, but there's a bug where the animation is still playing even if something isn't being spawned. Here's what was outlined in the notes, so nobody has to go digging:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.
While in a PvE zone, the limitation of 10 pets will remain as is.

While in a PvP zone, the limitation will now be 5.

CoolBlast3 · June 2

The point is that this is a ridiculous change. It makes it so you literally cannot use necromancer's main combat ability. The animation not working isn't the real issue, the real issue is that blastbones counts as a pet and so basically breaks the entire class due to this new pet and corpse limit...
The fact it is indeed intentional that blastbones doesn't work half the time now due to this new limit is a slap in the face to mains of this class who have dealt with the class barely working since it came out. GLS still isn't finished meanwhile, and is still underwhelming. So now we have a magicka morph that is useless and no one will ever use, and a stamina morph that isn't castable due to new changes.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

Nobody said Blastbones being unusable is intended. What's intended is there is a limitation of 5 summons or corpses of summons in PvP areas, but there's a bug where the animation is still playing even if something isn't being spawned. Here's what was outlined in the notes, so nobody has to go digging:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.
While in a PvE zone, the limitation of 10 pets will remain as is.

While in a PvP zone, the limitation will now be 5.

tomofhyrule · June 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

Nobody said Blastbones being unusable is intended. What's intended is there is a limitation of 5 summons or corpses of summons in PvP areas, but there's a bug where the animation is still playing even if something isn't being spawned. Here's what was outlined in the notes, so nobody has to go digging:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.
While in a PvE zone, the limitation of 10 pets will remain as is.

While in a PvP zone, the limitation will now be 5.

Sorry, but didn't the patch notes also say that there are rules to summoning and desummoning pets?

When attempting to create a new summon, the oldest summon active will now despawn itself to make room.
The exception to this rule are as follows;
Permanent and Ultimate-sourced summons cannot be replaced by other summons. If you attempt to summon at the cap when only permanent or unique summons are present, the attempted summon will instead fail.

Non-permanent or unique summons, such as the Betty Netch or corpses directly summoned from Necromantic abilities (like Flame Skull or Bone Armor), can be replaced, but will never attempt to replace an active summons such as Skeletal Mage or Summon Shade.

Non-combat pets do not influence the cap.

Companions count towards the limit but cannot be replaced under any circumstance.

If the Blastbones is counted as a "Non-permanent summon," it should replace an existing corpse, right? If it's not being able to summon because existing corpses are considered "permanent," that sounds like a bug.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

Nobody said Blastbones being unusable is intended. What's intended is there is a limitation of 5 summons or corpses of summons in PvP areas, but there's a bug where the animation is still playing even if something isn't being spawned. Here's what was outlined in the notes, so nobody has to go digging:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.
While in a PvE zone, the limitation of 10 pets will remain as is.

While in a PvP zone, the limitation will now be 5.

@ZOS_GinaBruno The notes state that Blastbones should replace a corpse so that it is always summoned though. According to those notes, Blastbones should never fail to cast.

Even if the animation doesn't play, it strikes me as ridiculous that it could be intended that Blastbones doesn't summon or cannot be cast 50% of the time in PvP.

React · June 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

Nobody said Blastbones being unusable is intended. What's intended is there is a limitation of 5 summons or corpses of summons in PvP areas, but there's a bug where the animation is still playing even if something isn't being spawned. Here's what was outlined in the notes, so nobody has to go digging:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.
While in a PvE zone, the limitation of 10 pets will remain as is.

While in a PvP zone, the limitation will now be 5.

This was brought up by players on the PTS weeks ago. There was more than one thread filled with players begging for a developer or CM to acknowledge the issue and let us know it would be addressed before it went live. You're now commenting on it here but failing to address the real concern, which is that the ability is suffering because of this new rule that was implemented. There shouldn't be any situation where you cannot summon a blastbone other than when you already have one active - the skill is meant to be recast as soon as it's short lived 2-5 second life ends.

I really struggle to understand why not a single CM or developer could be bothered to comment on this during the entire PTS cycle. There is no possible way the team wasn't aware of the multiple threads covering this concern.

Joy_Division · June 2

ZOS wrote:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.

Since it's the obvious follow up, I will ask it.

If ZOS is so concerned about highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware, why has nothing been done about this for years and years:

.

Also, waiting an entire update to fix a know bug is just a bad practice.

Alaztor91 · June 2

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Can you clarify how the new rules interact with corpses from slain enemies?(not corpses generated by Necromancer skills)

''Non-permanent or unique summons, such as the Betty Netch or corpses directly summoned from Necromantic abilities (like Flame Skull or Bone Armor), can be replaced, but will never attempt to replace an active summons such as Skeletal Mage or Summon Shade''

This seems to indicate that Blastbones should replace existing corpses ''summoned from Necromantic abilities'', but there is no mention of how this interacts with the corpses generated from enemy kills. I would assume that they would be treated just like the corpses generated from necro skills so that they can be replaced by summons and won't attempt to replace an active summon, but maybe this isn't the case?

Here is a simple scenario: If I'm in the Imperial City and I group and kill 5 trash mobs without using a skill that generates a corpse so that there are 5 corpses present in the ground, will the game allow me to cast Blastbones after?

Credible_Joe · June 2

I can only imagine a breakdown of communication about how the Order of Operations regarding pet priority is going on between us, CM's and devs.

As written, corpses should be the lowest priority globally. Everything else should displace a corpse specifically to prevent failed summons from other skills, including from Daedric Summoning and Animal Companions skill lines.

If Blastbones does in fact intentionally share the same priority bracket with corpses, it was not conveyed properly in notes or any other available information resource.

In fact, the language around what summons can and can't be displaced isn't well defined.

When attempting to create a new summon, the oldest summon active will now despawn itself to make room.
The exception to this rule are as follows;
Permanent and Ultimate-sourced summons cannot be replaced by other summons. If you attempt to summon at the cap when only permanent or unique summons are present, the attempted summon will instead fail.

Non-permanent or unique summons, such as the Betty Netch or corpses directly summoned from Necromantic abilities (like Flame Skull or Bone Armor), can be replaced, but will never attempt to replace an active summons such as Skeletal Mage or Summon Shade.

Non-combat pets do not influence the cap.

Companions count towards the limit but cannot be replaced under any circumstance.

Betty Netch, Skeletal Mage, and Summon Shade are all timed summons that share more commonality than others, such as corpses, blastbones, or daedric pets. Yet the notes imply that a mage would displace a betty, but not vice versa.

Corpses are timed, passive, and targeted by abilities
Blastbones is active, timed, and targets enemies in a single hit, after which their timer immediately resets
Skeletal Mage and Summon Shade are active, timed, and target enemies over their full timer
Betty Netch is active, timed, and targets the caster over its full timer
Daedric pets are persistent, target enemies for as long as they remain in combat, and have secondary active effects castable at-will by the player
Ultimate summons such as the warden bear or storm atronach would be easy to group together-- except animate blastbones is also an ultimate, and blastbones are behaving inconsistently with the new cap
- The notes specify that ultimate summons should under no circumstances ever be displaced. Yet, all three blastbones from the necro ultimate very often fail to summon, both before and after U46.
- There's either an undocumented exception for Blastbones in this case, or they are not functioning as intended per the notes as written

In my opinion, what we need most at this point before considering any solutions or further adjustments, is a clearly defined ranked priority list for every summon presently available. I don't think clear communication in either direction is possible before we have that.

Deimus · June 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

Nobody said Blastbones being unusable is intended. What's intended is there is a limitation of 5 summons or corpses of summons in PvP areas, but there's a bug where the animation is still playing even if something isn't being spawned. Here's what was outlined in the notes, so nobody has to go digging:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.
While in a PvE zone, the limitation of 10 pets will remain as is.

While in a PvP zone, the limitation will now be 5.

This issue was known long before U46 PTS even began so why incorporate a change that would make the bug even more commonplace without fixing it? Why was there no communication the ENTIRE PTS cycle or acknowledgement until after it's too late?

Now you're saying Necromancer players will just have to live with this for 3 months when this change could have waited 3 months until it could be rolled out without issue. That's not okay and this has happened way too many times especially to this class in particular when issues are pointed out but the devs look the other way instead of addressing them until they hit live. Once again....you guys should've spoken up weeks ago. As Joy said extremely bad practice and it seems to be habitual.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2

Deimus wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

Nobody said Blastbones being unusable is intended. What's intended is there is a limitation of 5 summons or corpses of summons in PvP areas, but there's a bug where the animation is still playing even if something isn't being spawned. Here's what was outlined in the notes, so nobody has to go digging:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.
While in a PvE zone, the limitation of 10 pets will remain as is.

While in a PvP zone, the limitation will now be 5.

This issue was known long before U46 PTS even began so why incorporate a change that would make the bug even more commonplace without fixing it? Why was there no communication the ENTIRE PTS cycle or acknowledgement until after it's too late?

Now you're saying Necromancer players will just have to live with this for 3 months when this change could have waited 3 months until it could be rolled out without issue. That's not okay and this has happened way too many times especially to this class in particular when issues are pointed out but the devs look the other way instead of addressing them until they hit live. Once again....you guys should've spoken up weeks ago. As Joy said extremely bad practice and it seems to be habitual.

Worse actually, she said that it was intended that Blastbones is unsummonable half the time in PvP. The fix she cited would merely fix the animation playing - Blastbones in that scenario would just be greyed out half the time in PvP.

tomofhyrule · June 2

Credible_Joe wrote: »

As written, corpses should be the lowest priority globally. Everything else should displace a corpse specifically to prevent failed summons from other skills, including from Daedric Summoning and Animal Companions skill lines.

If Blastbones does in fact intentionally share the same priority bracket with corpses, it was not conveyed properly in notes or any other available information resource.

...

In my opinion, what we need most at this point before considering any solutions or further adjustments, is a clearly defined ranked priority list for every summon presently available. I don't think clear communication in either direction is possible before we have that.

While this would help, I do think that considering corpses as anything other than the lowest priority and should be replaced by any summon is unintended and deserves a look from the team.

Otherwise, the team would officially be saying "yes, it is intended that you should not be able to cast a damaging skill because a mob died in this general vicinity," which is... a choice.

LukosCreyden · June 2

So, necromancer being even more broke and unplayable than usual is fully intended. Wonderful. Why not just delete the whole class at this point? All it has done is disappoint people and cause trouble with subclassing.

ruskiii · June 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

Nobody said Blastbones being unusable is intended. What's intended is there is a limitation of 5 summons or corpses of summons in PvP areas, but there's a bug where the animation is still playing even if something isn't being spawned. Here's what was outlined in the notes, so nobody has to go digging:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.
While in a PvE zone, the limitation of 10 pets will remain as is.

While in a PvP zone, the limitation will now be 5.

Hi @ZOS_GinaBruno , in the patch notes you have linked it confirms that old corpses should be despawning to allow for further casts of blastbones, and now you are saying it is intended for them to be prevented from spawning when you reach the pet limit? Is it possible to get some clarification on whether it's the patch notes or this latest comment that is incorrect?

Most people are assuming that blastbones is a non permanent combat pet, and so casting the skill again should desummon an old corpse as per the patch notes. Maybe this assumption is wrong and blastbones is treated as a different kind of summon?

Some clarification on this would be appreciated.

Twohothardware · June 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

Nobody said Blastbones being unusable is intended. What's intended is there is a limitation of 5 summons or corpses of summons in PvP areas, but there's a bug where the animation is still playing even if something isn't being spawned. Here's what was outlined in the notes, so nobody has to go digging:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.
While in a PvE zone, the limitation of 10 pets will remain as is.

While in a PvP zone, the limitation will now be 5.

There's no scenario where Blastbones should be blocked from being cast due to this new limitation of 5 pets in PvP because it's not a pet or a summon any more than Warden's Deep Fissure skill is. It completely breaks Necromancer if Blastbones works like this in PvP.

colossalvoids · June 2

So we're getting a communication regarding an issue after months of reporting it and it's going to be fixed/looked at... in the next update... What the actual? At some point it's getting too ridiculous even for zeni standards.

sans-culottes · June 2

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

We can confirm that there's currently a bug that allows the animation of Blastbones to play when at the pet cap (detailed in the patch notes), even though the pet will correctly be prevented from spawning. This should be fixed in Update 47.

No offense Gina, but what?

Blastbones is just unusable in PvP now, and that's intended??? That's a joke right?

Nobody said Blastbones being unusable is intended. What's intended is there is a limitation of 5 summons or corpses of summons in PvP areas, but there's a bug where the animation is still playing even if something isn't being spawned. Here's what was outlined in the notes, so nobody has to go digging:

Updated the rules and behaviors for reaching the combat pet limit. Previously, reaching 10 summons or corpses of summons would outright prevent the summoning of further pets, regardless of their source or type. This was most likely experienced in cases on a Necromancer where you had a high amount of corpse generating abilities, such as Banner Bearer, Grave Grasp, and Sacrificial Bones – where once you had enough summons and corpses active, your abilities would simply stop functioning (we saw this arise in reports mostly where Blighted Blastbones would fail to activate). With subclassing in mind, we’ve had to go back to this experience and flesh it out, since it is far more likely to reach that cap – as well as introduce a new hard cap in PvP environments, where these experiences could create highly problematic gameplay experiences on lower spec hardware.
While in a PvE zone, the limitation of 10 pets will remain as is.

While in a PvP zone, the limitation will now be 5.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno

So to clarify:
• Blastbones is unusable in PvP because of a cap on summons and corpses.
• This cap is intended.
• The failure to cast is also, then, an intended outcome of that cap.
• But we’re told Blastbones being unusable is not intended?

This is like saying a door is meant to be locked, the key is meant not to work, but no one intended for people to be stuck outside.

The notes say Blastbones should replace existing corpses. If it isn’t doing that, then is that a bug? If it’s not a bug, then Blastbones being grayed out is working as designed. In either case, it’s functionally broken. For a paid class. On live.

PTS players flagged this weeks ago. There were multiple threads with evidence, testing, and requests for clarification. No response. Now it’s launched with the issue intact, and we’re told to wait until Update 47. That’s not a communication lapse. That’s a design and process failure.

At bare minimum, players deserve a transparent explanation of corpse and summon priority rules—and whether Blastbones is being treated inconsistently. Because the current system breaks the class in PvP and contradicts its own documentation.

Sluggy · June 2

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

...
If the PTS isn't used to fix bugs like this before live, even when those bugs are reported through official channels early on in the cycle, what exactly is PTS used for? Clearly its not used to ensure a class' core ability functions.

The PTS is purely a promotional tool used to get free advertising from content creators.

It's my personal belief that they likely have everything lined up before the PTS ever releases and switch between some pre-configured options based on feedback and how it aligns with those options. Hence the reason you might get some things immediately changed and other things completely ignored.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_stileanima @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

To reiterate, Blastbones isn't casting ~50% of the time in open world PvP zones, using only 2 pets (Ghost and Blastbones). The Pet+Corpse cap is 5, and according to the notes, Pets should always take priority over corpses - in other words, according to the notes there should never be a scenario where Blastbones fails to cast.

And yet, Gina stated that Blastbones being unusable (i.e. greyed out) is intended behavior, and that the "bug" is that the animation is playing, not that Blastbones is unsummonable.

That would indicate that Blastbones not being summonable around 50% of the time in PvP environments is intended. Is the dev team actually okay with Necromancers not being able to use their bread and butter ability 50% of the time in PvP? Why? How is that conducive to "Play how you want"? Why would a class' bread and butter ability, under any circumstances, be unusable? If Blastbones is intentionally unusable with 3 corpses on the ground, why is it counted as a pet in the first place? That would be like Wardens not being able to use Shalks once a few enemies in the area have died.

Renato90085 · June 2

so,this bug first happen from U44(banner+class set) I think 7 month ago…
and we have many feedback from game /bug or pts
and we still need wait 3month (fast) or don’t know when
A total of 10 month(U47) or 1 year (U48)fix a skill should can work

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2

Renato90085 wrote: »

so,this bug first happen from U44(banner+class set) I think 7 month ago…
and we have many feedback from game /bug or pts
and we still need wait 3month (fast) or don’t know when
A total of 10 month(U47) or 1 year (U48)fix a skill should can work

Honestly its even worse.

In trying to fix the bug, they slashed the pet cap, making the bug far worse in PvP. Now you literally cannot use Blastbones with any modicum of reliability in PvP.

xylena_lazarow · June 2

Can Blastbones just be normal? Please? It could instead be a simple functional projectile that looks like a skeleton and gets the job done. There's no need for it to be a mob with its own random AI, especially not in PvP.

ZOS_Kevin · June 2

Hey All, Just wanted to follow up before the day is done. We are exploring options around this issue and will have additional follow up tomorrow.

Alaztor91 · June 2

I tested a bit in IC Sewers and Skeletal Arcanist and Spirit Guardian would also fail to cast. I wasn't using any permanent or ultimate pets so according to the patch notes rules they shouldn't fail to cast under any circumstances in this specific scenario.

The ''animation'' would play but the pet wouldn't be summoned, you can see in the screenshot that the in-game timer for buffs would still display for Spirit Guardian, even though it wasn't actually casted.

The ''failed to summon combat pet'' message would also show sometimes when the corpse proc from Ricochet Skull would activate, it also wouldn't show up for ''failed'' BB casts, even though the skill itself wouldn't summon the pet. Pet/Corpse related skills that I was using were Blighted Blastbones, Skeletal Arcanist, Ricochet Skull, Spirit Guardian and Summoner's Armor.

There is something seriously wrong with the new pet rules or their interaction with Necromancer pets and it's not just exclusive to Blastbones. I don't know if it is exclusive to IC, or maybe you don't get to see it in PvE due to the limit being 10 instead of 5.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hey All, Just wanted to follow up before the day is done. We are exploring options around this issue and will have additional follow up tomorrow.

Thanks for the additional follow-up @ZOS_Kevin

I understand the dev team has a lot to sift through, but I think all of us would appreciate some sort of acknowledgement or comment on how things like this make it through weeks of reports on the PTS without being addressed.

Players reported issues with the new corpse system as far back as April, but nothing was done to change the system before live, and now an entire skill line is more or less unusable for the foreseeable future in PvP.

How does that disconnect happen? Where should we be reporting these issues if reporting them in game on the PTS and reporting them here on the forums didn't do anything to get it fixed before live?