The Elder Scrolls Online Outlines More Hybridized, Streamlined Combat Changes Beginning in Update 33

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The Elder Scrolls Online Outlines More Hybridized, Streamlined Combat Changes Beginning in Update 33 | MMORPG.com

The Elder Scrolls Online will get some combat changes beginning in update 33. Expect some more hybridization, flexibility in build choice, and eventually, some streamlined options.

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Viper482

Whatever it does you can bet your left arm that the PvP "elite" will find a way to exploit the changes by noon that day.

Talemire

So magicka-based melee specs are finally a thing now?

KnightFalz

Talemire said:

So magicka-based melee specs are finally a thing now?

Seems so. I wonder if it will open up Stamina vampires and Magicka werewolves.

Iselin

Talemire said:

So magicka-based melee specs are finally a thing now?

They've actually been heading in that direction for a while. For the past couple of years a lot of the set gear hasn't followed the old, strict, magicka/stamina division and scale instead off whichever your highest happens to be.

Doing the same to skills could be a great thing opening up more interesting skill morph choices since most of those morphs are still stuck in the old Magicka OR Stamina system. It'll be nice to make decisions on which way to morph based on other factors instead of being locked in to just one of them.

Akulas

Doesn't matter what class you are unless you want anything from the 3 skill lines the class provides it's pretty much like playing the same character. That's how I remember it anyways. 4 characters with 50%-70%ish completion which would be 1000+ hours atleast. Might get the whatever latest thing their crapping on about and see if it's any good.

titanofdoom

I wish I could become inebriated and enamored with this game...perhaps it's the quest structure or combat that deters my addiction...can't pinpoint what disgruntles me...

Rungar

Not a bad idea for class skills. Maybe there's some hope for them yet. ...naaa

Scot

I see ESO never used the word 'Streamlined', but that's what this sounds like and simpler is not better just because it is simpler.

JudgeUK

Will it ever see the day of keyboard & mouse movement 'standard mmo' type control?
Not saying that it should lose the current method, just add in the option that's all.

Baitness

Saw that ESO was finally making combat changes, got hopeful.

Read the devblog, was massively disappointed.

This is a good change, but just a minor one. The core combat is still going to feel floaty, unresponsive, and spammy because of the animation cancelling and constant reapplications of buffs/dots. The entire system needs a rework from the ground up, but the next best thing would be new classes/weapons that cannot animation cancel and do not follow the current core design.

ashiru_1978

After 1000+ wasted hours in ESO, I have seen enough of the game and its systems that I know this change doesn't really change anything, just some minuscule tweaks for the sake of writing a paragraph in the patch notes that translates to "Look, we did something, now shut up and buy more Crowns".

This game is doomed to exist and revel in mediocrity as it furthers devolves into "How much more can we dumb the game down, guys?"

YashaX

Zenislav said:

Iselin said:

Talemire said:

So magicka-based melee specs are finally a thing now?

They've actually been heading in that direction for a while. For the past couple of years a lot of the set gear hasn't followed the old, strict, magicka/stamina division and scale instead off whichever your highest happens to be.

Doing the same to skills could be a great thing opening up more interesting skill morph choices since most of those morphs are still stuck in the old Magicka OR Stamina system. It'll be nice to make decisions on which way to morph based on other factors instead of being locked in to just one of them.

This will be huge change for game. I remember playing Nightblade stamina and needing to pick Veiled Strikes stamina morph rather than other one that increased stealth and invisibility movement speed simply because it scaled from magicka. Now how viable it will be we will see as it seems ability cost will remain either stam or magicka.

I hope I am wrong and that ability resource will change as well. Lets say if ability costed magicka to use but you are stam player it will convert to stam resource.

I am not as excited about this change as some. They recently changed the DK's whip ability to scale off your highest offensive stats, but it still requires magicka to cast so it's pretty hard to work into a stam build - I would have just prefered a stam whip.

Kratier

ashiru_1978 said:

After 1000+ wasted hours in ESO, I have seen enough of the game and its systems that I know this change doesn't really change anything, just some minuscule tweaks for the sake of writing a paragraph in the patch notes that translates to "Look, we did something, now shut up and buy more Crowns".



This game is doomed to exist and revel in mediocrity as it furthers devolves into "How much more can we dumb the game down, guys?"

werent you just whining in the other post about how you havent played the game in 5 years, and youre here again whining

ashiru_1978

Kratier said:

ashiru_1978 said:

After 1000+ wasted hours in ESO, I have seen enough of the game and its systems that I know this change doesn't really change anything, just some minuscule tweaks for the sake of writing a paragraph in the patch notes that translates to "Look, we did something, now shut up and buy more Crowns".





This game is doomed to exist and revel in mediocrity as it furthers devolves into "How much more can we dumb the game down, guys?"

werent you just whining in the other post about how you havent played the game in 5 years, and youre here again whining

Does this makes you mad? Good. xD

Rungar

Baitness said:

Saw that ESO was finally making combat changes, got hopeful.

Read the devblog, was massively disappointed.

This is a good change, but just a minor one. The core combat is still going to feel floaty, unresponsive, and spammy because of the animation cancelling and constant reapplications of buffs/dots. The entire system needs a rework from the ground up, but the next best thing would be new classes/weapons that cannot animation cancel and do not follow the current core design.

I totally agree. Eso is a great game and has alot of good systems but the combat system messes it all up. Their generic, constantly degrading, chapter system also does not inspire at all either.

i considered that game done a few years ago. They are not going to turn anything around. Too bad. Had such great potential after One Tamriel.  

Hariken

This will make the game stand out from other mmo's. For a less hardcore community and gamers looking for an mmo that they can login and casually play. They are not going to focus on that hardcore mmo community. This combat update is really a game changer. The options for builds will be huge. Also this will make it easier to add new weapon and skill lines down the road.

olepi

My biggest gripe is still that you are limited to 5 skills at a time. Imagine knowing 10 magic spells, but you can only use 5. Unless you change out the weapon in your hand that has nothing to do with magic at all. Then you can access the other 5. Totally immersion breaking to me.

But this is a step in the right direction. We've been asking for it the whole time.

Iselin

olepi said:

My biggest gripe is still that you are limited to 5 skills at a time. Imagine knowing 10 magic spells, but you can only use 5. Unless you change out the weapon in your hand that has nothing to do with magic at all. Then you can access the other 5. Totally immersion breaking to me.

But this is a step in the right direction. We've been asking for it the whole time.

Wait... you can handle multiple stacked skill bars at the bottom of the screen and some on the right that require CTRL or SHIFT or ALT + a key from 1 to = (or mouse clicks for clickers) to fire off a skill but it's the weapon swap system in ESO that breaks your immersion?

YashaX said:

I am not as excited about this change as some. They recently changed the DK's whip ability to scale off your highest offensive stats, but it still requires magicka to cast so it's pretty hard to work into a stam build - I would have just prefered a stam whip.

I've been promoting the idea of having stamina used for just sprints, sneaks, blocks, dodges and bashes and rename Magicka to "Power" and use that as the resource for all skills since 2014 but sadly no one listens to me

KnightFalz

Zenislav said:

KnightFalz said:

Talemire said:

So magicka-based melee specs are finally a thing now?

Seems so. I wonder if it will open up Stamina vampires and Magicka werewolves.

Wait I had impression it was just for class abilities and not others. If all abilities will scale this will be interesting.

I believe it goes beyond just class abilities, but they may be inclined to keep vampires and werewolves as they are due to their specific and differing nature and mutual exclusivity. I don't recall them being mentioned but didn't see the entire preview, hence my wondering.

KnightFalz

Zenislav said:

Iselin said:

Talemire said:

So magicka-based melee specs are finally a thing now?

They've actually been heading in that direction for a while. For the past couple of years a lot of the set gear hasn't followed the old, strict, magicka/stamina division and scale instead off whichever your highest happens to be.

Doing the same to skills could be a great thing opening up more interesting skill morph choices since most of those morphs are still stuck in the old Magicka OR Stamina system. It'll be nice to make decisions on which way to morph based on other factors instead of being locked in to just one of them.

This will be huge change for game. I remember playing Nightblade stamina and needing to pick Veiled Strikes stamina morph rather than other one that increased stealth and invisibility movement speed simply because it scaled from magicka. Now how viable it will be we will see as it seems ability cost will remain either stam or magicka.



I hope I am wrong and that ability resource will change as well. Lets say if ability costed magicka to use but you are stam player it will convert to stam resource.

It will have limited viability. For example, for an attack power your damage is based on the higher of your stamina or magicka but the cost depends on the ability itself.

Stamina based characters will still get the most out of stamina abilities due to having more resources and recovery for such, but can pepper in some magicka ones much more effectively than before. Magicka based characters will be able to do the opposite.

It allows for some greater customization than previously, but doesn't reach the point where one can use stamina and magicka abilities equally well on a character fully focused on only one of those two stats.

KnightFalz

Scot said:

I see ESO never used the word 'Streamlined', but that's what this sounds like and simpler is not better just because it is simpler.

Actually, characters can now be more complex. Currently off-stat abilities are primarily selected for utility purposes as the attacks would cause little damage for their resource cost.

After the update, characters will also be able to make a much wider use of off-stat abilities as their effect will based on the characters main stat while maintaining an off-stat cost.

This will increase build diversity, and possibly make resource management more challenging depending on how many off-stat abilities are worked into a build.

KnightFalz

olepi said:

My biggest gripe is still that you are limited to 5 skills at a time. Imagine knowing 10 magic spells, but you can only use 5. Unless you change out the weapon in your hand that has nothing to do with magic at all. Then you can access the other 5. Totally immersion breaking to me.



But this is a step in the right direction. We've been asking for it the whole time.

It's not unusual for fantasy characters to switch weapons to suit the needs of the moment, especially weapon users from melee to ranged. On my casters I generally put identical looking staves on both bars and the change is barely noticeable in the heat of combat.

Ten abilities and two ultimates (some of which recharge fast enough they may as well be abilities) is quite adequate along with on demand main attacks of varying strength, blocking, interrupts, and periodic dodging.

YashaX

KnightFalz said:

Scot said:

I see ESO never used the word 'Streamlined', but that's what this sounds like and simpler is not better just because it is simpler.

Actually, characters can now be more complex. Currently off-stat abilities are primarily selected for utility purposes as the attacks would cause little damage for their resource cost.

After the update, characters will also be able to make a much wider use of off-stat abilities as their effect will based on the characters main stat while maintaining an off-stat cost.

This will increase build diversity, and possibly make resource management more challenging depending on how many off-stat abilities are worked into a build.

I think the change is going to cause massive balance problems, or at least exacerbate the current balance problems with the game.

One of the main issues that has plagued ESO right from the start is that it is possible to make builds that do high damage while at the same time being tanky and have strong healing. This is largely because healing scales of the same stats as damage, and excluding pure tank builds, you can build into survivability with little downside, or for some classes (like magsorc) surviabilty can actually increase if you stack magicka (which also increases damage and healing).

The change will give characters access to very powerful healing and damage abilities that had up till now been unviable because they scaled off the wrong resource, thus making the existing balance issues even worse.

Rungar

seems like a good change. Wouldnt surprise me if most healing was changed to stack off of health or limited by health.