The Elder Scrolls Online

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Xerge

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edit: whoops I guess you play this game so you didn't need an explanation on how it works. Bar swapping is fine in most MMOs, but this is weapon swapping with its animations and associated delays between ability uses.

If you are talking about hotbar swapping then you are not alone, I always hotbar swap instead of taking up half my screen in hotbars.

but in ESO you weapon swap between weapon 1 and weapon 2 which requires an animation to sheath and unsheath your weapon, just to get to your backbar which are mostly just short duration buffs or attacks that grant buffs, between 12-40 seconds.

That top bar isn't a hotbar, it's my active buffs, they are all permanent, no duration ticking down and no constantly having to swap weapons to refresh a buff.
Yea I have played this game to the point where I can read your DPS parse log and tell how well you're doing. Nothing worse than reading logs after a raid only to find out one of the healers doesn't like barswapping because they made a '1 bar special build', yeah and they want to do hard modes.
 

Daidraco

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Yea I have played this game to the point where I can read your DPS parse log and tell how well you're doing. Nothing worse than reading logs after a raid only to find out one of the healers doesn't like barswapping because they made a '1 bar special build', yeah and they want to do hard modes.
Ya.. but that elitism is whats keeping that bullshit combat around. Sort of like how grandpa that played Ultima Online religiously thought New World was perfect at release. I find it insane that upper management of ESO refuses to acknowledge most "past" players complaints about the combat.
 

Sylas

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Combat enjoyment for me has increased atleast 3 fold now that I can 1 bar. I'm just tinkering with my optimal loadout now for my 5 active abilities, and sub things out based on scenario.

If it were more like new world or gw2 where you swap weapons for different scenarios or access to different types of attacks then it would be one thing but the way his game has evolved its literally just for buffs. Nearly every dps build is a bow on back bar for a single aoe volley/rain of arrows plus a bunch of buffs. All with different up times so you are constantly switching to refresh them. Plus your main bar uses a dead slot like magelight or expert hunter just for a buff, so you really only have 4 skills plus buffs.

I prefer more actiony style games with a small amount of slottable attacks, like neverwinter or new world, instead of 30+ actions on multiple hot bars.
 

Xerge

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likely too difficult to touch eso's combat imo and the most they'll ever do is raise the base level DPS of everyone which makes the game appear easier. Mythic items are also their mechanic for giving players access to niche gameplay. ESO holds a lot of elitism in it's combat because if your raid team comes up with a new build/strat that is able to push you on the leaderboards, well, im sure you can imagine what that means. If FF14 had publicly visible leaderboards for it's raids I would think end game would be even more toxic behind the scenes. Combat or not, ESO has it's own reasons for the elitism. the environment attracts it

edit: I do dislike the builds that just have you flip flopping to apply buffs; eso's combat can be a big fucking chore and im guilty of making a 1 bar solo build on my main warden.

edit2:
Sort of like how grandpa that played Ultima Online religiously thought New World was perfect at release.
Funny you say this, my step dad who's completed cadwell's gold in eso (all faction stories), greatly prefers New World's combat :trump:
 
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Daidraco

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likely too difficult to touch eso's combat imo and the most they'll ever do is raise the base level DPS of everyone which makes the game appear easier. Mythic items are also their mechanic for giving players access to niche gameplay. ESO holds a lot of elitism in it's combat because if your raid team comes up with a new build/strat that is able to push you on the leaderboards, well, im sure you can imagine what that means. If FF14 had publicly visible leaderboards for it's raids I would think end game would be even more toxic behind the scenes. Combat or not, ESO has it's own reasons for the elitism. the environment attracts it

edit: I do dislike the builds that just have you flip flopping to apply buffs; eso's combat can be a big fucking chore and im guilty of making a 1 bar solo build on my main warden.

edit2:

Funny you say this, my step dad who's completed cadwell's gold in eso (all faction stories), greatly prefers New World's combat :trump:
The fact that FFXIV actively fights against mods and doesnt support the elitism scene like WoW does with Raider.io is what sets that game up so high. If ESO has similar shit to WoW, I wouldnt know. I just never pushed that far in the game. If a player is with their friends, Mythic + dungeons are fun but as soon as you're pugging, its a GD nightmare from finding/making a group, all the way to the end of the Gotta go Fast dungeon.

..and ya, ESO is probably too dated to do any major combat overhaul. The abysmal launch of the game made people leave, then if they came back and quit again because the combat is still spastic - then theyre likely not going to give the game another shot.
 
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Xerge

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yeah any raid with veteran mode turned on has a timer attached to it and your group is scored at the end - so less individual score like raider.io, but still overall scored&ranked as a group in-game. ESO reminds me of that workplace which operates on tough love, you deal with the BS because it pays the bills. Well despite ESO's janky combat it does offer a complete MMO experience and people love it anyway
 
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Sylas

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I don't really get the "elitism" aspect of these games I just play casually, but the player bases for all these games are pretty much the same, maybe more weeaboo shit in FF14 and more crafter focused in ESO but they're still mostly (like 80%) just casual players enjoying the story or crafting shit or just being part of a community, and the other 20% are try hards at whatever that game's version of challenge is.

There's like 4 remaining MMOs with actual player bases, FF14, ESO, SWTOR, and WOW (plus I guess WoW Classic). And in any of them people who mention anything elitist are immediately met with "go back to WoW". In WoW classic I guess it's the reverse, anyone who complains about shit is met with "go back to retail"

as far as combat goes it's hard to really gauge. SWTOR is traditional WoW with tab target hotbar combat, so if you prefer that style of play then it's great, but its engine is ancient and you can see the cracks in its foundation. FF14 has the worst combat mechanics yet the best boss fights of any of them so it's also a mixed bag. If you prefer action ESO is both the best and worst, due to buff bar toggling. I'm just happy they came out with a way that eliminates it.
 

Xerge

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I don't really get the "elitism" aspect of these games I just play casually,
You answered yourself pretty much. This is because ESO's hardmodes are somewhat challenging; I took a raid team in because they were getting bored with the week-to-week raid grind, they thought they were ready for hardmodes. Let me tell ya something for free, we couldn't get passed the first hardmode phase because nobody's positioning would be perfect, which would lead to a unrecoverable moment, as there's no recovering in hardmodes most of the time. When a notification pops up saying your friend got a raid clear with a single digit score number, you damn well know it took fucking hours of progress because the score number ticked down so fucking low. Both hilarious and a good feeling moment.

I've seen entire raid groups fall apart because they can't muscle through hardmode content yet can farm regular veteran raids every night.

The game's content has a skill gap. yeah I get it, no child left behind, everyone's a winner, I know. Fuck it tho
 

Chersk

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Well this is good news. Hopefully the combat doesn't feel like you're just constantly reapplying buffs anymore.
 
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Sylas

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to the second part, hell yeah that sounds like a great change.

for weaving, dont really care either way, if you aren't focused on constantly refreshing buffs then you should have enough time to weave properly so seems like an unneeded change once they fix the 2nd thing.

now all this game needs to do is create a damn centralized auction house. Of all the shit to do just to make your game unique the guild trader thing is like the dumbest hill to die on.
 
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Chersk

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Yeah I can agree with that. I've definitely found some deals going around to different traders but god damn does it get tiring after awhile.
 

Sylas

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uhhh....thanks for pointing out the shitty player work around that simultaneously negates the entire purpose of having separate traders instead of a centralized one, and proves they need to just implement a regular auction house in game?
 
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Chersk

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Yeah that site is definitely a work around. Many times you’ll take the time to goto a trader and the item you’re looking for is gone already.
 

Xerge

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They are reducing light/heavy attacks to a flat rate, effectively removing any skill needed to be successful at ESO's combat, just mash your buttons. Weaving showed mechanical finesse, high DPS shows you understood weaving and your rotation, a successful raid clear proves you can do all of the above while focusing on the content. The game will be a joke to play after this
 

Tide27

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Ive played this on and off since launch.

After the One Tamriel patch where all content was leveled to your player level, I can not think of any real challenge this game had outside a few Vet Arenas and trials.

95% of the game is an online skyrim with chat.

While I see the changes having a sweeping change on the very high end, I see this being a net benefit to a majority of players.

In combat,.unless you are facing a boss...you never need a 2nd bar or need to weave at all.

The weaving and.constant bar swapping to maintain 8 second or so buffs sucked.

Out of everyone I know that has played the game, the biggest drawback or constant criticism has always seemed to revolve around combat.

Any change to make it less tedious could be seen as a net positive.

We shall see soon enough.
 

Xerge

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The change is a net positive for the majority who don't touch end game but sounds like you're some sick fuck who enjoys tanking VAS+2 for 40 minutes and never actually killing the boss because your group's DPS is so fucking low.

But we'll see what the PTS parses are saying this week, maybe i'm bitching for nothing and there will still be a way for end game players to challenge them selves.
 

Daidraco

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They are reducing light/heavy attacks to a flat rate, effectively removing any skill needed to be successful at ESO's combat, just mash your buttons. Weaving showed mechanical finesse, high DPS shows you understood weaving and your rotation, a successful raid clear proves you can do all of the above while focusing on the content. The game will be a joke to play after this
Ive seen the rotation for Templar being performed by someone in a youtube video with his mouse and key strokes displayed so I know people do it - but I recently stumbled upon a pixel reader combat routine bot for ESO that makes me curious how many people are/have been using that. I personally think weaving and animation cancelling makes your character look like its having some kind of graphical artifacting. So not only does it feel terrible, but it looks terrible too.

Point being, if people have found a way to cheat the combat routine without it interacting with the game directly - what is the point of keeping the combat in some god awful state just for the top percent of people. Ive hated the combat in the game since we all did the early access beta or w/e and half the forum quit before even making it out of that mini dungeon or w/e the newbie experience used to be. If they tore it down and did some mix of New World and tab targeting system - I think the game would be a lot better off.