Mass Outrage on ESO Forums after Lost Depths Patch Notes Reveal

It seems that many Elder Scrolls Online players are very unhappy about the proposed changes to the game.

By Andrew   •  Published 2 years ago

The PTS Patch Notes for the upcoming Lost Depths DLC and Update were revealed yesterday, and players in the Elder Scrolls Online community have been reacting to the changes, and posting their thoughts on the Official ESO Forums, as well as on other platforms like Reddit and Twitter. 

Reaction to the Update 35 Combat Preview had already been very divided, with more casual players mostly supporting the proposed vision, and many of the endgame players saying they were a bad idea. 

However that was nothing compared to the storm of criticism that has emerged following the Patch Notes. 

Why are ESO Players Unhappy about the Lost Depths PTS?

So far, the reaction to the developers' plans for the Lost Depths update has come in three main waves.
 
The first wave came in the wake of Gilliam's Combat Preview last week, which announced the intention to heavily nerf light and heavy attacks to a flat value, and to nerf the damage of Damage over Time effects while also increasing their duration. The idea of these changes was to make the game easier for more casual players, with the hope of increasing the number of players able to participate in higher level content and reducing the performance gap between less experienced players and more experienced players. This initial announcement had a mixed response, with some players liking it and others disliking it. 

The second wave came after the PTS Patch notes were revealed, and players started reading about very widespread nerfs to Damage Over Time skills, affecting pretty much every class and threatening to make their builds (that they just remade after High Isle) obsolete. 

Burning Embers Damage over Time skill in ESOBurning Embers Damage over Time skill in ESOAnd the third wave followed shortly after this, as players started installing the PTS, running tests and finding that they had lost between 20 and 30% of their DPS. At this point, the response stopped being divided and became almost universally negative. More experienced players are reporting that they're unhappy because their groups may now struggle to complete content that they were previously able to do (the DPS check in Xalvakka Hardmode is perhaps the most extreme example of this). Less experienced players were also unhappy, as they found that the patch that was supposed to help them to catch up with high APM players had actually nerfed their DPS by a substantial margin too.

And then just to add a little bit more fuel to the fire, the Oakensoul Ring, much loved by casual players and only just added to the game in High Isle was also nerfed.

How are Players Reacting to the Changes?

On the Official ESO Forums, it's actually quite hard to find players who agree with the changes. 

As requested by Zenimax, players went on the PTS and started testing. Players who were parsing quickly started reporting that they had lost up to 30% of their damage, and this applies to both casual and experienced players. 

Quite a lot of players on the forums have been saying that the patch makes it look as though the developers of ESO are out of touch with the players of their own game, in particular due to the apparent failure to fulfil the goal of raising the floor for casual players while somewhat lowering the ceiling for experienced players. Instead, the floor and the ceiling have both been lowered, which leaves a lot of people disappointed - noone likes getting nerfed, and pretty much everyone is getting nerfed at the same time here. 

On Reddit, the point was also raised that nerfing damage so substantially just after releasing two trials that are designed around the current damage levels, without also making any change to those trials does not make much sense. The trials in question are Dreadsail Reef and Rockgrove.

One other concern is that endgame players will be so disillusioned by the changes that many will simply quit the game. This is especially concerning for people who lead raid groups and guilds, some of whom reported in the midst of the outcry that they are already finding it difficult to find players to join their teams. This happened once before, when players were disillusioned with massive sustain nerfs after the Morrowind expansion, and it took a while for the PvE community to recover. Players with a personal investment in the raiding scene obviously don't want that to happen again.

Dreadsail Reef trial in ESODreadsail Reef trial in ESOIt remains to be seen how Zenimax will respond to the overwhelmingly negative feedback, but it certainly wouldn't be surprising if some of the changes are reverted or tweaked.

We hope you enjoyed this article about the Lost Depths PTS in ESO. The Elder Scrolls Online is a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) developed by Zenimax Online Studios.
Andrew

Andrew

Published 2 years ago

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