I spent a couple hours writing this entire thing, computer restarted for an update and now have to write it again.
I have played ESO since Beta, as a hobbiest game developer and an experience competitive gamer I believe you will appreciate these suggestions.
After reading through everyone's comments, it's pretty obvious that this is an amazing update! Lets take this game, to the next level! Remember Everquest, how it inspired imagination. Fighting, with fear of defeat, lost XP and then travelling armorless searching for your body. People didn't worry about Max Level, because of the enjoyment of using other players skills, to travel, resurrect, enchant, and assist. Until the easyness of WoW arrived, creating the endless grind to Max Level, ignoring quest dialogue, scenery, rushing, until you maxed out.
Elder Scrolls Single Player to this MMO, has a stronger foundation and direction than any other MMO, I have played. Which is Why I am taking the time to write all of this. So...
Housing | Crafting | Quality of Life | Guild Store Suggestions:
Ability for guilds to host events, at their houses, kinda like they do when bidding for a guild store, that people could queue for.
Purpose: to motivate players to meet other players, creating more of a community experience. What they can do at the event is up to you.
Battlegrounds Suggestions:
1) Allow players to rank the game modes they enjoy playing (this also will allow you to pull stats on which modes need improvement)
2) Or Change the ratio that deathmatch is selected. Similar to Halo, consider combining Domination and CTF into OBJECTIVE then queue Objectives & Deathmatch equally.
Purpose: This new game mode sounds amazing, but after you add it, you will get a number of people quiting, because they never queue for Deathmatch, I love Objective, but a number of players including streamers like Krotha, hate, absolutely hate objective and may not even go for the objective when playing.
Gameplay Suggestion 1, "Keep the Newcomers & Vets Entertained and Engaged"
Getting to Level 50 or cp160 as a easy, time-consuming grind, gathering obsolete items. Eventhough, the boss mechanics are fun and the options to level are endless, I find myself ignoring the amazing visuals & lore this game has to offer. Instead I travel to the Akir Desert to just left click my way through the Anchored Dolmens, to hopefully reach level 50 as soon as possible.
Suggestions:
-- For levels 1-50, increase the drop rate of training trait to drop 1/3 to 1/2 of all mobs.
-- I would lower the training percentage a bit, but change it to included experience from all types, not just kills, but skills, quests, etc.
-- For all levels, increase the enemy mob difficulty by a lot and the experience gained slightly . (this would not be changed for dungeons or world bosses, only for world enemy NPC's)
-- Restructure the dolmens, to increase in difficulty and experience to scale for each player there. (currently there is no challenge)
-- The difficulty of World Bosses is great, but increase the experience gained from them.
-- The mobs and enemies should chase the player a lot further. (remember in Everquest, where trains of mobs would be so frightening, you would have to run to guards just to stay alive).
-- Increase the damage to items and the repair cost for dying everywhere, except dungeons.
-- After level 50, Even out the drop rate of all traits, including nirnhoned,
-- Increase the dungeon drop rate for Jewelry, since it can't be crafted (which I like), but running the same dungeon over and over, is not what this game is about.
-- Part 1 of Dungeons should take as much time as Part 2 of Dungeons. Part 1 dungeons should have way tougher enemies to compensate for them being smaller.
-- (The time it takes to complete City of Ash I vs the time to complete City of Ash 2, is insane. If the item sets are balanced, then the time to grind it should be balanced as well.)
Overall:
This should create more enjoyment for players leveling and require more skill to level, but leveling will grant a lot more exp from training gear. By the time they are 50 or CP160, they may have cleared 4 zones and the main quest. But this gives them more reason to explore more and actually enjoy creating new characters.
The players should enjoy and all of the things you guys spent the time making, remembering mobs that were tough, and using skill to succeed.
Gameplay Suggestion 2, "The Endless Zerg Battle Fix":
In PVP the current Meta, heavily favors Tank Builds. Some combinations are unkillable, Blood Spawn, Eyes of Mara, & Akavir Dragonguard, allowing the continuous cast of Resto ultimate, one after the other. Various combinations with Troll King, can make a DK or a Stam Sorc immortal. After leveling to cp160, Players shouldn't have to pick an ability or a Set to feel Viable. If every single STAM build grabs Vigor and Every MAG build grabs Resto Ult, it's an issue. Now after these proc sets and sharpened nerfs(which I agree with), you just made the tank builds a whole lot stronger. People don't ever put attributes in max health, because they can just full heal instantly and focus on resistance instead.
Decrease peoples overall ability to self-heal, while adding some extra health, and this will create better, more fulfilling battles.
Suggestions:
-- Add 80 health gained per level, at a total of 4000 health, when they reach 50.
-- Remove Vigors ability to heal allies -> Vigor should be a Self Heal and Self Defensive Buff and morphs that change the playstyle of buffs.
-- (Unlike Healing Ward, When casting Vigor, especially with Troll King it buffs everyone around you, making the power of the zerg in cyrodil insane. Vigor has created a Zerg syndrome that is so
-- Increase Resto Staff Ultimate cost by double (100 to 200 Ultimate), but increase the time from 5 seconds to 6 seconds.
Purpose:
With many ways to protect yourself, there is no need for everyone to be a healer. This will make TEMPLAR'S and WARDENS much more vital in the game.
In the end, the issue in PVP is that people are not walking around injured or spread out like you would be in real battle. Why be scared of an AOE or a Proc Set, when you can just stand in a zerg of people who all have the ability to heal everyone. So you are either full health, or dead. Not every character should be both healers and DPS, having the distinction between healers, tanks, support, and DPS, is what makes PVP fun. Overwatch for example, would be boring if every character could heal everyone. Diversity is what's fun. Thanks for the Mundus Stone buff, another step in the right direction. Please test this out, increase health and nerf the ability to self-heal & heal nearby allies, it will make for the most epic battles!
Gameplay Suggestion 3, "Balance the Ultimate's Once and For All"
The most balanced way to do this is to go through every ability and every set and make Subtle changes on the PTS, until it feels right, but that takes a while.
So first thing to balance should be the ultimate's, until all the ultimates and morphs are being used and feel right.
Ultimate's should have higher and similar costs, to prevent spamming of ultimates, maybe around 175-250 ultimate and be reworked to be worth that.
Increase the costs |Nerf | or Rework Mechanic of:
|| Resto Ult || Destro Ult || Dragon Leap - >Take Flight || Death Stroke || Soul Assault ||
Reduce the costs | Buff | or Rework Mechanic of:
|| Dark Magic - Negate Magic || Shadow Skills - Consuming Darkness || Duel Wield - Lascrate || Berseker Strike || Vampire - Bat Swarm || Werewolf Ult || Dragonknight Standard ||
**Due to the lack of Wardens and Templars in PVP, and since I don't feel they are to overpowered in PVE, I won't comment on their ultimate's.
Last Gameplay Suggestion, "Overall Tweaks, Changes and Buffs"
Traits:
It seems through PTR testing, Sharpened seems at a really good place right now. It still tends to be the most damage output for PVP against full impen.
For PvE Percise seems to be the best trait for DPS.
There are a lot better options for the back bar now, with these changes.
Nirnhorned: Should Drop Equally, maybe it should be buffed again to 16%, to be the better option for Stam classes.
Powered: Should change to increase spell damage overall instead of bonus to healing (Add the tool-tip that spell damage affects healing).
*Then you have one for each Spell Damage and Weapon Damage.
Sharpened: Shouldn't be buffed anymore, from wear it is at, as it currently does the most damage, in most case scenarios, unless Nirnhoned or something else is buffed.
Mundus:
I personally believe that all the Mundus's could go up even higher to promote diversity.
Lover: This is the only Mundus, I am afraid of, I think it is currently to powerful for PVP.
Lady: Increase to 3300 Resistance
Lord: Increase to 3000 Health.
Crit:
Possibly redoing the crit system. In dungeons and dragons. A crit is 5% with 2x base damage before modifier. In eso, you have 50% chance at a 1.5x damage including modifier.
-Increase Crit Damage, but Lower Crit Chance
Werewolf: Needs a rework, not going to even begin to suggest.
Cold Damage: Add more cold damage, to make it more viable especially after the nerf. Cold staves have always been the least wanted, but it should be equal.
Sets to Nerf:
Sheer Venom: It's Overpowered, because of poison injection 1) change it to a debuff, activates when enemy is lower than 25% health. 2) Or raise the cooldown to 10 seconds instead of 6.
Selene: Reduce the damage it causes
Troll King: Reduce the Health Recovery to 1300 for 8 seconds and the activate to below 40%
Valkyn Skoria: Reduce the damage it causes
Necropotence: Reduce it from 4000 to 3600 Max Magicka
Sets to Buff: Buffing is better than Nerfing. Run statistics on which sets are never used & buff those.
Spell Power Cure: Increase Weapon and Spell Damage by 350 for 9 Seconds.
Curse Eater: Reduces Duration of Negative Effects by 35%
Light of Cyrodil: Add Max Health Trait
Shadow Dancer's Rainment: Add Increases Sneak Speed by 10%
Syrabane's Grip: Add when you block any type of damage.
Vampire Lord: Reduces the cost of your Vampire Abilities by 15%
Ysgramor's Birthright: Increases Cold Spell Damage by 450. (since there are less sets and abilities that do cold damage compared).
Crusader: Increases from 0.03 to 0.04 Seconds.
Ward of Cyrodiil: Increases damage you block by 10%
Footman's Fortune: Increases damage you block by 10% (set similar to above, may want to change)
Wilderqueen's Arch: Reduces Movement Speed by 50%, but has a 6 second cooldown.
Bastion of the Heartland: Increase from 20% to 30%
NightSilence: Add 200 Weapon Critical.
Assassains Guile: Increases by 7 seconds.
Berserking Warrior: Increase critical by 450 up to 5 times for 6 seconds.
Thews of the Harbringer: Change the third stat from spell damage to max health.
Thunderbug's Carapace: Increase radius to 7 meters.
Footman's Fortune: Increase to 10%
Sorry I wrote so much. I spent hours writing this. Had so much fun doing it though. Hopefully someone over there reads this and comments, would really make my day.
@ZOS_AntonioP @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GaryA @ZOS_TristanK
